INTRO & THE MASTERS
Those of us who love Christian speculative fiction
are sometimes frustrated because we think nothing is being or has been
published in the genres we like. A trip to our local Christian bookstore
does not usually disabuse us of this notion.
But the truth is there are hundreds of Christian
novels in the genres we love. The current version of this list has over
400 titles. Some are old, some are new, and some are yet to be published.
Many you will have heard of. Some may be new to you.
One way to tell Christian publishers that we want
more of this kind of fiction is to buy the Christian speculative novels
they do publish. These genres are a risk to them, you see. They are way
outside the box and, frankly, many speculative novels that have been
published have not sold well at all. This tells publishers not to publish
more in those genres. By purchasing what they do publish, we tell them
there is a market out there for Christian speculative fiction. Let's send
that message loud and clear.
I have the pleasure of knowing many of these authors.
Some of these novels I have had the great honor of editing. And some I even acquired, effectively "discovering"
some fantastic new voices in the Christian speculative fiction
community.
This list begins with important figures in the modern
era of Christian speculative fiction. Then it moves on to what you'll find
in each of the major genres of Christian speculative fiction. It concludes
with a sampling of classics in the genre and, finally, links to sites of
our brothers and sisters exploring Christian speculative media in exciting
new directions.
I have made every effort to be accurate in this list
but no doubt I have made mistakes or left off authors or novels that
should be here. It is my desire to make this the finest list of its kind
on the Web, so please don't hesitate to contact me with corrections
and suggestions.
Read on and enjoy.
Frank Peretti
Let's start with the man whose fiction gave birth to
Christian fiction in the modern age, Frank Peretti. Before him, the
shelves didn't have much more than Janette Oke, Catherine Marshall, and
C.S. Lewis. Fine fiction, for sure, but not entirely
broad.
It is worth noting that the novel that ushered in the
modern era of Christian fiction was clearly Christian speculative fiction.
Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins
Another watershed event both for
Christian fiction and for Christian speculative fiction was the release
and subsequent popularity of the Left Behind
novels.
Christian novelists owe much to LaHaye and Jenkins
(the latter especially, since he did most of the writing). As with
Peretti, with the success of these books came a new openness from
Christian publishers and, more importantly, Christian bookstores to
Christian fiction.
It's worth noting that once again the thing that
advanced Christian fiction was a speculative tale. More than any other
type of fiction, speculative fiction best belongs to Christian writers and
readers. It's our native language.
Ted Dekker
The new kid on the block, relatively
speaking, is Ted Dekker. Ted's creative speculative ideas, rock star
persona, and aggressive marketing efforts have broadened the popularity of
Christian speculative fiction even further.
