Last week’s column (my first in a long time on Speculative Faith) focused on not-so-hidden intellectual invasions inherent in Doctor Who, courtesy of the British sci-fi programme’s head writer/producer, Russell T. Davies.

His goals were made more explicit in a British newspaper’s article early last month, as the series’ fourth season was underway: Davies gushes, for example, over a guest appearance by angry Atheist Richard Dawkins in a forthcoming episode, and claims directly that he hopes young boys will imitate one series character’s example and declare their own homosexuality.

However, I’m actually not going to undertake another one of those anti-culture Christian rants, like the kind you read about in email forwards. To be sure, Christendom often needs those sorts of rants (even in email forwards), to oppose truly harmful movies, television programs or other art forms, politicians, organizations or whatever. This column, continued from last week, just isn’t going to be one of them.

Instead, the Doctor practices such heroism and wages true battle against evil influences, resembling Christ like other famous fictitious Christlike-figures, that it’s well worth seeing.

This meat may have indeed been sacrificed to idols by its makers (a la 1 Corinthians 10: 23-33), in the hope of furthering anti-Christian agendas. But Biblical truths are there in these epic stories anyway — like the time-traveling TARDIS ship itself, surrounded by a perception filter, it seems the writers may just not be able to see such “spiritually discerned” elements.

Christian speculative fiction is catching on, and as it does, it seems more and more people are adding their voices to the promotion/marketing/instruction mix. Good! There's lots to talk about, lots to learn. But it seems to me it would be helpful to catalogue all these sites.

Jeff Gerke, publisher of Marcher Lord Press, heads up WhereTheMapEnds, a site touting itself as the home of Christian Speculative Fiction. One of the Writer's Tools on the site is a listing of books available. In addition, he has a list of "Fantastic Visions," speculative artists, followed by a list of online magazines, manga, gaming sites. It's a good stab at the catalogue I mentioned.

Problem is, it needs to be updated.

So I'm thinking, why not a supplemental list? ... Why not a CONTEST? We could have a Commenters' Choice—best Christian Speculative Fiction site online. What do you think? From the nominations, we could create the catalogue—most loved sites, or something.

We won't start the contest just yet. I need to get your input though, on how to work this.

Here are my thoughts. Just like the Clive Staples Award, we take nominations from ... you.

Then we set a vote day, which we publish well in advance, giving those interested in participating a chance to visit the sites that are nominated. Then on vote day, a person leaves a comment here at Spec Faith, with the name of the site they're voting ...

More hideously scary monsters are coming to the new season 4 of the smashing British sci-fi series Doctor Who. Like the Cybermen, a race of metallic soulless humanoids who want to “upgrade” all humans to be like them, this threat arises from a surprising source and threatens the existence of planet Earth, by compelling people to be subject to certain extraterrestrial modes of thought.

And it’s courtesy of none other than Doctor Who’s very executive producer and head writer, Russell T. Davies.

“Wait wait wait wait!”

While I say that, please imagine me holding up my hands in a faux-panicked manner, reminiscent of the Tenth Doctor, right before I whip out a clever solution to avoid being killed. This is because, unlike some Christian writers and culture pundits, I seem to find myself unafraid of Davies’ own ideological invasions.

Disregard Da Vinci Code comparisons and think Lord of the Rings, but without Hobbits and the allegorical trappings.

I find myself in what might be the making of a fairly significant rant. The topic is Christian fantasy and science fiction, and the complainers.



At Double-Edged Publishing where I volunteer as President and Director, we have been working out the details to become a book publisher. After all, for over a year, I’ve been hearing writers complain that there aren’t enough companies willing to look at works that are both speculative and from a Christian world view. Starting last November, we began to roll out our first speculative book titles to follow our two earlier anthology releases.



The reaction to our efforts—admittedly under promoted—has been underwhelming.



My imagination, as I was poised to sign off on the projects, was that the many Christians who ...

Archetypes: Who needs em? You do ...


Fantastical Fore-parents: Why does everyone like these writers so much anyway? [Wouldn't I love to here an editor discuss that point!]


Contemporary Influencers: You may not love it all, but be knowledgeable about it.


Good Groundbreaking versus Bad: Friends don't let Friends write Insane Fantasy Fiction


Highly Successful Habits of Humble, Hungry Hobbits: Making a character stick with your readers [another topic I would LOVE to hear discussed by an editor]


Christian and Hopeful get to the Celestial City: Using allegory in your storytelling\