I'm Lost.

I can hardly believe I made it through the entire second series of Lost without mentioning it here. What with all the miraculous healings, that 'Man of science, man of faith' malarky, and all the rest of the philosophical musings that could have ensued, it could have kept me going for a while. But I'm sure I blinked during one episode and probably missed something vital and would have ended up looking a muppet anyway.

Still, now we know, they're not in purgatory, or in fact dead at all. Probably.

I should make a note to mention Lost a bit more when season three arrives.

Until then, I shall remain slightly confused by the whole business. Which is, of course, the whole point.

Doctor Who and the Spin-off invasion

First there was a K-9 spin-off - in about 1981, originally - but the latest K-9 Adventures seem to have gone very quiet just lately. (Probably because no-one recognised the tin dog.)

Then there was Billie Piper: Earth Defence, which died a death when Billie didn't want to do it. Duh!

Now, Sarah Jane Smith (who was also in the original K-9 spin-off, of course) is going to battle evil with a 13-year-old neighbour for CBBC.

But most importantly, coming very soon (to me, at least :p ) is Torchwood, a proper grown-up spin-off, which sounds a bit like the X-Files filmed in Wales.

And in other news, Buffy Season 8 is set to arrive in March. Hooray! Er, but only in comic book form. Hooray, sort of.

Until then, it's endless Doctor Who reruns and Angel on DVD for me...

Two sides to every story

OK, so, I've been rummaging through Edenstar's virtual box of books, and - hooray! - found that Christian SF is not quite the non-entity it sometimes seems (as Stuart so rightly pointed out yesterday).

In the space of a few minutes I have found time travel, alternate history, space travel, a cyber-thriller-type-thing and what almost looks like a space opera... who'da thunk it? At that was just a scratch of the surface, a few random picks I may not otherwise have come across. There is also plenty more that I have heard of, but have yet to read; and a wider selection of stuff by some authors I am aware of - I really must check out Bill Myers, for instance.

So, you may well ask, where is the downside to all this fabulous Christian sf?

I would have thought that was obvious. Turns out all my most original ideas have already been done!

Continue your tour here:
Jim Black Jackie Castle Valerie Comer Bryan Davis Beth Goddard Leathel Grody Karen Hancock Elliot Hanowski Katie Hart Sherrie Hibbs Sharon Hinck Joleen Howell Jason Joyner Tina Kulesa Kevin Lucia Rachel Marks Shannon McNear Rebecca LuElla Miller Cheryl Russel Mirtika Schultz Stuart Stockton Speculative Faith

I'm not bitter. No, I'm really not. Honest.

But I do think I have a valid point.

And my point is this: Edenstar books say they have discontinued their own shop in order to concentrate on their database, so that they can "expand the list to include out-of-print and hard-to-find titles". Provided, apparently, that they are listed on amazon.com.

Which is fine as far as it goes, and at risk of getting booted off the tour (erk!), my gripe is not with Edenstar as much as with amazon, who don't make it easy (or cheap) for an impoverished UK self-pubber like, well, for instance, this nice chap, to get their hard-to-find title listed.

I managed to get a listing on amazon.co.uk - admittedly the cover disappeared a while ago - but they picked it up just for having an ISBN... which, apparently, isn't as international as the 'I' might suggest.

Anyway, before I get any more sidetracked onto the woes of self-publishing, my point is this: as good as the database is on Edenstar, it is restricted to publications available on amazon in the US. If the owners are happy with that, fair enough, it's their website after all. But if they want to try and develop a comprehensive and definitive list of Christian spec-fic, they are welcome to drop me a line ;)

In the meantime, for all that's happening on the UK CSFF scene*, one stop is all you'll need... for everything else, there's Edenstar.

And if there's anyone in the US with an amazon marketplace account that wants to be my agent, let me know...


*that hasn't been picked up my amazon.com, Edenstar, or a CBA publisher. Or someone else.

Is it that time again already?

Yep, it's the Christian SFF blog tour again... and this month we'll be visiting Edenstar Books, a reference site for Christian themed science fiction, fantasy and games.

I've had a bit of a browse through the books section (in anticipation of finishing the five novels currently awaiting my attention) and, although the site doesn't offer any disctinction between science fction and fantasy, managed to find a few intriguing sf novels from the titles and the first couple of lines of blurb, which is all you can see on the browse pages. Some books have full reviews by Edenstar, but this seems to be a fairly small percentage of the 600+ items listed on the site (and who's got time to read that many books?).

There does seem to be a good mix of new and old; well-known titles and obscure self-published ones; and includes some titles published for the mainstream but with serious Christian themes.

Plenty to explore, then; I'll try to pluck one or two interesting gems from their pages tomoorow.

Until then, other bloggers sampling the delights of Edenstar this week include:
Jim Black Jackie Castle Valerie Comer Bryan Davis Beth Goddard Leathel Grody Karen Hancock Elliot Hanowski Katie Hart Sherrie Hibbs Sharon Hinck Jason Joyner Tina Kulesa Kevin Lucia Rachel Marks Shannon McNear Rebecca LuElla Miller Cheryl Russel Mirtika Schultz Stuart Stockton Speculative Faith

A slight return

Well, it seems the world can never have too many blogs, so I have returned to the blogosphere. I suppose a British eye on Christian spec-fic is still a pretty unusual thing, so I still have a point. Hurrah!

Anyway, what's been going on since I last stopped by here...

Well, if you're a regular here you will no doubt already have been to where the map ends. It's booklist should keep me in reading material for a while (once I get most of them shipped across the Atlantic), but there are some notable exceptions. ;)

It's appearance led to some interesting thoughts from Elliot on Christian evangelical fiction. If he's right, maybe I have been too influenced by this ''conservative evangelical American Christian" ideal for UK publishers? It's not a thought I relish, but I was writing for the CBA audience. Which, of course, doesn't exist anywhere except the US.

On the subject of CBA publishers, Allen of Entropy Gate fame has a few choice words to say about violence in Christian fiction.

And elsewhere in sf news, it seems the Trek people haven't learnt anything from Lucas' folly...

Is anyone missing me?

Only, my pooter's been on the blink lately, so I haven't been able to post anything half decent. Or indeed at all until now.

But with Christian spec-fic blogs and websites springing up left right and centre, it seems like you can all carry on without me ok. Maybe my work here is done?