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A few years ago I read some pretty terrible christian fantasy books. They were riddled with cliches, one dimensional characters, unoriginal storylines, bland settings, and predictable endings. Basically what the author had done was take the Bible, the greatest story ever told, and reason that the best way to write a fantasy was to change the setting, character names, and just basically rewrite the Bible with a few minor changes that did nothing to disguise what they were doing. I understand that they were trying to write an allegory, but it really did not work. Needless to say I did not get through the entire series, two books was enough for me. Because of this I am afraid that I lost faith in all christian fantasy authors for a while.
This went on for a while, with me believing that the only good christian fantasy authors were like C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien, dead. I wanted nothing to do with such an unoriginal genre. I'm not sure why I picked up "The Bark of the Bog Owl" by Jonathan Rogers, I knew that he was a christian fantasy author, and I suppose that I might have been giving the genre one last chance to redeem itself. Whatever the reason I started reading the book I am very glad I did. What I discovered in this unusual fantasy retelling of the life of King David was fresh, different, and unpredictable. I realized that not all christian fantasy was full of cliches, and that there were still many original stories out there, just waiting to be discovered.
Jonathan Rogers restored my faith in christian fantasy, and allegories. Making me not ashamed to call myself a christian fantasy writer, and be apart of such an interesting and varied genre.
I have to say I felt the same for a while. Now and then I'll stumble across really good ones. I'll have to check this series out. :) btw, awarded you over at me blog http://willafivecents.blogspot.com/2014/07/monday-musings-izma-and-hunger-games.html
ReplyDeleteI'd love to hear if you have any recommendations, and thanks for the nomination! :)
DeleteChristian fantasy can seem depressing sometimes. Any sort of Christian fiction written in modern times seems bland compared to many other modern books. That's part of the reason why we need to write so much. There's no reason for publishing bad fiction unless there isn't any good fiction to be published.
ReplyDeleteI like your perspective, Kathryn. If there is no good fiction out there, then we've just got to write it ourselves. :)
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