Mythic Orbits

This is a guest post, posted as part of the Mythic Orbits blog tour. Kristin and I are both in Volume 2 of Mythic Orbits.

About Mythic Orbits

You might be wondering what in the world “Mythic Orbits ” refers to. I’m not sure if it will help reassure you to tell you the name Mythic Orbits was simply intended to suggest both science fiction and fantasy and to identify these books in a distinctive way, along with any that follow after in the series.

Just as these anthologies represent a wide variety of genres, there is no common theme to these tales, though the subject of empathy or lack thereof does come up in them repeatedly. This is most definitely not an anthology about orbits which are somehow mystical.

These anthologies are a showcase for the best stories submitted in the general field of speculative fiction by Christian authors. They represent a wide variety of genres, including science fiction, fantasy, horror, and paranormal.

The main goal of these anthologies was to demonstrate that Christian authors can write speculative fiction well. Stories with a wide range of appeal are included here, mostly serious, some with humor, some with “happy endings” and others clearly not so happy. All of them worth reading.

Some of these stories feature Christian characters in speculative fiction worlds, some make use of Christian themes either subtly or overtly, while some have no discernible connection to Christianity at all. Christian authors are featured in this collection rather than specifically Christian-themed stories.

So, is it widely-known all over the world that Christians write speculative fiction?

Well, clearly Christians who themselves are speculative fiction writers know what they write. But does everybody else?

Especially when we're talking about theologically conservative Christians, Evangelicals of some sort, professed Bible-believing Christians, do people know about their works? Is it legitimate for people to wonder if writers with personal convictions along these lines produce speculative fiction, that is, science fiction and fantasy and related genres like LitRPG, paranormal, and horror?

These books provide an answer: Not only do Christian writers produce speculative fiction stories, they write some great ones.

Enjoy these examples!

Travis Perry (Editor and Publisher)

Mythic Orbits 2016

Fourteen of the best speculative fiction stories by Christian authors, spinning science fiction, fantasy, horror, and paranormal genres into worlds of intrigue and delight.

Featuring Graxin by Kerry Nietz, author of Amish Vampires in Space and A Star Curiously Singing, Mythic Orbits 2016 has something for every speculative fiction fan.

Mythic Orbits Vol. 2

In a series praised by both Tosca Lee, Kathy Tyers, and Kerry Nietz, this anthology of eleven speculative fiction stories by Christian authors shines in science fiction, fantasy, horror, and LitRPG genres. Featuring Kat Heckenbach’s “Mark the Days,” this collection has something for every speculative fiction fan.

Featured Authors:

• Mark Venturini (Mythic Orbits 2016)
• Jill Domschot (Mythic Orbits 2016)
• Richard New ( Mythic Orbits 2016)
• Kirk Outerbridge (Mythic Orbits 2016)
• Cindy Emmet Smith (Mythic Orbits 2016)
• Lisa Gefrides (Mythic Orbits 2016)
• L. Jagi Lamplighter Wright (Mythic Orbits 2016)
• Joshua M. Young (Mythic Orbits 2016)
• Matthew Sketchley (Mythic Orbits 2016)
• R. V. Saunders ( Mythic Orbits 2016)
• Sherry Rossman (Mythic Orbits 2016)
• Kerry Nietz (Mythic Orbits 2016)
• Linda Burklin (Mythic Orbits 2016 & Vol. 2)
• Kat Heckenbach (Mythic Orbits 2016 &Vol. 2)
• Steve Rzasa (Mythic Orbits 2)
• Donald Crankshaw (Mythic Orbits 2)
• CW Briar (Mythic Orbits 2)
• Cindy Koepp (Mythic Orbits 2)
• C. O. Bonham (Mythic Orbits 2)
• Kristin Janz (Mythic Orbits 2)
• William Bontrager (Mythic Orbits 2)
• A. K. Meek (Mythic Orbits 2)
• Keturah Lamb (Mythic Orbits 2)

Mysterion is here

Mysterion: Rediscovering the Mysteries of the Christian Faith was released yesterday, August 31st, and you can now buy the anthology as an ebook and paperback at Amazon, and as an ebook at iTunes, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo. The paperback is $16.99, the ebook $9.99.

We hope you enjoy it as much as we did. And once you read it, consider writing a review.

Here's how we describe our anthology:

The Christian faith is filled with mystery, from the Trinity and the Incarnation to the smaller mysteries found in some of the strange and unexplained passages of the Bible: Behemoth and Leviathan, nephilim and seraphim, heroes and giants and more. There is no reason for fiction engaging with Christianity to be more tidy and theologically precise than the faith itself.

Here you will find challenging fantasy, science fiction, and horror stories that wrestle with tough questions and refuse to provide easy answers or censored depictions of a broken world, characters whose deeds are as obscene as their words and people who meet bad ends—sometimes deserved and sometimes not. But there are also hope, grace, and redemption, though even they can burn like fire.

Join us as we rediscover the mysteries of the Christian faith.

"A fascinating look at Christianity through the prism of speculative fiction."

—Nebula Award-winning author Eric James Stone

"The stories in Mysterion ranged from the dusty preachings of a devout Roomba to a meditation on empty houses in heaven. I thoroughly enjoyed them all. General readers will appreciate the anthology for its diverse, entertaining tales, while those who enjoy provocative questions of faith and morality will find the collection especially rewarding."

—Livia Blackburne, New York Times Bestselling Author of Midnight Thief

Mysterion is now open for submissions.

The title gets at the most important point: Mysterion is open for submissions, from now until December 25th.

There's more, though. Mysterion also has cover art (shown above), and will be fundraising via Patreon.  Have a look at the website for more.

Enigmatic Mirror Press

This post is a slightly-modified version of a post originally appearing on the Mysterion website.

The small independent press producing the Mysterion anthology--basically Kristin and Donald and whomever they can subcontract work to--now has a name. We're calling ourselves Enigmatic Mirror Press.

This is a reference to 1 Corinthians 13:12, which says, "For now we see through a mirror in darkness, but then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." In Greek, the part that says "through a mirror in darkness" reads:

δι’ ἐσόπτρου ἐν αἰνίγματι

ἐσόπτρου transliterates to esoptrou, and means mirror, while αἰνίγματι transliterates to ainigmati, which means obscurity or darkness; ainigmati is the origin for the English word enigmatic. The verse itself is about the difference between our limited, mortal understanding here in this life, and the truer, fuller understanding that we will have later. In the ancient world, all mirrors obscured, since they relied on polished metal rather than the metal-backed glass of modern mirrors. The difference between the distorted reflection in one of those mirrors and seeing someone face-to-face would have been obvious to the ancient reader. And the imagery reminds us that the understanding we lack is not only of concepts, but also of God, and that we do not yet know him as he fully knows us.

Our anthology's name speaks to the mysterious in the Christian faith; our press's name reminds us of the limits of our understanding--at least for now.

Mysterion

So I promised an announcement in my last post.  Here it is.  My wife and I have decided that we have too much free time, so we're starting a speculative fiction anthology.  We're calling it Mysterion: Rediscovering the Mysteries of the Christian Faith.  We are paying professional rates (6 cents a word) for stories that meaningfully engage with Christianity, meaning that they contain Christian characters, themes, or cosmology.

We’re not necessarily looking for unambiguously pro-Christian stories: we want to be challenged as much as encouraged. Thematically, we're looking more for Flannery O'Connor than C.S. Lewis. You can read more about it at www.mysterionanthology.com, especially in our Submission Guidelines and Theme Guidelines.

We open for submissions on October 15th.

The Alien

C. R. Wiley has an interesting post up concerning the different views of the alien as expressed by C.S. Lewis and H.P. Lovecraft.  It's a really long article, and I encourage you to read the whole thing.

But to give you a taste of how Wiley interprets Lovecraft's view:

Lovecraft believed he possessed greater insight into the nature of things than better-adjusted, healthier people. He took dark comfort in breaking the news to the rest of us that we are all as strange and out of place as he felt he was. He wanted to take his readers Outside, or, perhaps better, to bring the Outside inside. Here’s Lovecraft from yet another letter:

To achieve the essence of real externality, whether of time or space or dimension, one must forget that such things as organic life, good and evil, love and hate, and all such local attributes of a negligible and temporary race called mankind, have any existence at all. Only the human characters must have human qualities . . . but when we cross the line to the boundless and hideous unknown—the shadow-haunted Outside—we must remember to leave our humanity and terrestrialism at the threshold.

Meanwhile, Lewis sees things quite differently:

Because there is a “Wood Between the Worlds” for Lewis, creatures can be said to be beautifully fitted for their respective realms. Beauty does not merely reside in the eye of the beholder (although it certainly should reside there); it is recast. When prejudice and pride are cast away, the lines of alien beauty can come to the surface. Because the Wood Between the Worlds is common to all worlds, inhabitants from each world have the power to recognize the beauty resident in another world. This is not a species of relativism—it is classical Realism in a coat of many colors.

To a theist, all things are the product of God's divine purpose and grace.  They may be fallen and corrupted, but they must contain a spark of the divine, which gives beauty to even the most mundane or alien.

More on Christian Horror

I've already touched on this subject, here and here. But Mike Duran, who's a Christian horror writer whose first book is coming out soon, has more on the subject:

Likewise, the “dread” invoked by the Christian writer is dissimilar to that of the atheist. Scripture warns, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:31). This “fear” is pivotal to “Christian horror.” Whereas the atheist author invokes the fear of the absence of God, the Christian invokes the fear of the presence of God. The “horror” is in His existence, not His non-existence. Of course, this “horror” is for those who deny Him, ignore His warnings, and refuse His mercy. Sadly, terror awaits those on the “wrong side” of the Universe.
...
Perhaps there is no greater horror than that of an atheistic worldview. Forget blood, gore, and ghoulies. A world without meaning and purpose is the ultimate horror. A universe that arose by chance, exists without meaning, where lives plummet toward annihilation is the worst kind of horror. The child huddled in bed, fixated upon the dark closet, becomes the adult gaping into the void of what, he believes, is a godless universe. And unlike the Christian novelist, the atheist author has nothing but more “dark closets” to offer their readers.

It's an interesting post, but there are some things I'd quibble with. For example, the argument that only those who "deny Him, ignore His warnings, and refuse His mercy" have any reason to fear God. The Bible's account makes it clear that anyone who meets God feels dread. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." (Proverbs 1:7) We tend to whitewash this, to say what the Bible really means is respect. The word, though, also means terror. And terror is probably a better description of what people feel when they meet God, or even an angel, than respect, in the Biblical accounts.

Why is that? What is scary about God? It's not that he is capricious or abusive. It's that he's unfathomable. Completely beyond our ken, and because we don't understand him, yet are completely under his power, we fear him. What's more, we realize that we are unworthy of him. We are fallen and sinful creatures, who by all rights should be the subject of his wrath. Thus fear is the natural and right response--it simply acknowledges the truth about who he is and who we are. That is why fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Now if I only knew how to capture this in a story...

What is Christian horror?

Old Post: My earlier post addressed the question of "What is horror?"

Since I've already addressed the question of what is horror, the next question is "What is Christian horror?" To answer that, I first have to answer the question, "What is Christian fiction?" This is a topic I've addressed before, but I'll do so again here. There are several possible answers:

1. It's written by a Christian.
2. It's written for a Christian audience.
3. It incorporates a Christian worldview.

Now, I left out some variants, such as "presenting the gospel message," but while that would definitely make something Christian, I don't believe that it's a necessary condition. And what I'm looking for is what is necessary for something to be considered a Christian work of fiction. Often what we mean by Christian fiction is something that incorporates all three: it's written by Christians, for Christians, about Christian things. Can horror do that? Well horror can definitely be written by Christians, and there are Christians that read horror, so I suppose 1 and 2 are possible. Is three? Notice that I said that it incorporates a Christian worldview--not that it advocates it. It needs to acknowledge and address the Christian worldview, not necessarily preach it.

And herein, I believe, lies the essence of Christian horror. It lies in challenging the Christian worldview. Or more specifically, in challenging the safe, conventional beliefs of the Christian worldview which very often have weak theological foundations. It means asking the hard questions and rejecting the easy answers. You see, Christians believe all sorts of scary things. We believe in demons--dark supernatural powers who wish us harm. We believe in the possibility of eternal damnation. We believe in a God who does not shy away from judgment. And we tell ourselves that we are safe from these things. God loves us and saves us and protects us. And yet... why are we so certain? Anyone who's read the Bible knows that for every passage that offers reassurance, there's another that challenges and condemns us. Writing Christian horror is not Biblical exegesis. It is not the writer's job to explain why the world is not safe, why Christians still suffer and die, why not everyone is saved. It is his job to show that these things are so.

For the Christian, the universe is not meaningless. There is a God, and he has a purpose. But that purpose is unfathomable to us--too deep for us to fully understand in this lifetime (and there aren't any promises for the next). It is bigger than us, vast and unmeasurable, but it is aware of us. We are caught up in it whether we want to be or not.

This is rich material for the writer to mine, and the inability to write horror when you have this to work with is more a failure of imagination than anything else.

New Post: More on the subject here.