Is There A Market For Christian Space Opera Novels?

Well, there a trailer for Jews in Space at the end of Mel Brooks' History of the World Part I.

That's as close as I can think of.

--Ted

 

Dayton,

I strongly suggest you try reading Stephen Lawhead's Empyrion and Dream Thief.

He is a very good Christian author who these days does historical fiction/fantasy almost exclusively. But in his early days he dabbled with a couple sci fi books and they are quite good.

I think they'd be right up your alley.

 

Yes there is. Christianity is all about submission to the will of God and Christ and ascending to the spiritual. Rock'n'roll is all about rebellion from all forms of authority and indulging in the temporal. Christianity is about piety; rock is about sin in its own words.

 

Rock is a sound it has no meaning. Anything more than that is from your close mindedness.

 

My music appreciation teacher explained that "rock 'n' roll" came from a Bessie Smith song, implicitly describing muscular movements made during sexual intercourse. Draw your own conclusions. And he played it for us. He didn't sound crazy to me.

The citations of regular SF novels with religious themes influenced by Christianity are correct. But when people talk about Christian this or that, they mean the kinds of things that are sold as Christian. Thomas Dekker is a Christian horror novelist but Stephen King isn't.

C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy is not very operatic, not very spacey and is even more criticized by Christians for heterodoxy than the Narnia books.

 

Come to think of it, I think Brooks at one time actually considered MAKING that into a full-length movie, but then went with Spaceballs instead.

--Ted

 

Guess what? It turns out there is at least one Christian space opera series out there: "The Lamb Among the Stars" series by Chris Walley. The latest book, which I spotted in the "Religious Fiction" section of my local B&N, sounds like exactly what Dayton is looking for! It's titled THE INFINITE DAY and is clearly packaged as sf . . . .

Granted, that was only sf novel I found in that section . . . . .

 

^ Psst. That was the book mentioned by the OP as the only instance (to his knowledge) of what he was looking for.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

Oops!

I guess it really is the only exemplar out there!

 

And I do not remember if I mentioned it here or in the identical wordforge thread but "Lamb Among the Stars" reads more like "Amish Among the Stars".

 

That doesn't surprise me. Based on my own spot inspection, about half of the books in that section seemed to be sentimental Amish romance novels.

Then again, this was near Lancaster County . . .

 

As long as they are firing phasers for Christ I'm in!






Captain Brother Father Dan: "Fire phasers, for Christ!"

Gotta love it.

 

I think the problem with the idea has been hit on a few times in this thread. While some Christian may not be "resurrection" Christians, a great number are. So the niche for a far future set space opera would be very, very small. And I think it would be difficult to come up with a way to do a near future set space opera.

While it would be a valid argument to say that the resurrection may not happen for 1000's of years or more (if you believe that sort of thing), most Christians I know here in the heart land have this ingrained idea that it will happen very soon, as it seems most other generations have also believed.

I have to say though, I am interested in the concept as I had never really thought of the possibility of this genre before. If you find anything else other than the book already mentioned, I may check it out.

 

You might check out Kansas when Dino Elefante was the lead vocalist; there was a definite leaning toward Christian themes; this is when Kerry Livgren left the group and recorded a few solo albums that were also somewhat Christian-oriented. Good music, in both cases; Kansas has a long history of music with a spiritual base, although it tended to be more of a Native American nature in their early - and most successful - years.

 

Has anyone considered "High Crusade" by Poul Anderson? Heck of a fun read, and it *definitely* combines Christianity and SF...


Tony

 

In The High Crusade, an alien spacecraft lands in medieval England. A group of three Catholic knights sieze the spacecraft and

Spoiler

take Catholicism out into the wider universe.

The final reveal in the book is

Spoiler

that when humanity reaches the stars, the entire universe is Catholic in its belief thanks to the three knights.

It's a fun book. Highly recommended.

 

Oh yeah, THE HIGH CRUSADE is a great book. Like most of Anderson's books.