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52. Do Christians Really Need Science Fiction? | Fiction’s Chief End, part 3
Podcast | Lorehaven on Feb 23, 2021

Join Our March 11 Livestream Exploring Christian Reactions to Fandom Cancel Culture
News | Lorehaven on Feb 22, 2021

The Hourglass and the Darkness
Reviews | Lorehaven Review Team on Feb 19, 2021

Venus is More Than Just a Love Goddess
Articles | Shannon Stewart on Feb 18, 2021

Introducing Fantasy Enthusiast and New Lorehaven Writer Shannon Stewart
News | Lorehaven on Feb 17, 2021

Stories with Bad Ideas Can Still Help Us Grow
Articles | L.G. McCary on Feb 15, 2021

Gretchen and the Bear
Reviews | Lorehaven Review Team on Feb 12, 2021

The Mandalorian is a Religious Fundamentalist, and Here’s Why That’s Awesome
Articles | Josiah DeGraaf on Feb 11, 2021

Introducing Fantasy Creator and New Lorehaven Writer Josiah DeGraaf
News | Lorehaven on Feb 10, 2021

51. Do Christians Really Need Fantasy? | Fiction’s Chief End, part 2
Podcast | Fantastical Truth on Feb 9, 2021

The Death and Rebirth of Magic in Children’s Fantasy
Articles | R. J. Anderson on Feb 8, 2021

Torch
Reviews | Lorehaven Review Team on Feb 5, 2021

Fictional Magic Systems Can Go Beyond Rules and Reveal Deeper Characters
Articles | Elijah David on Feb 4, 2021

How God Uses Story Villains for Our Good
Articles | Zackary Russell on Feb 3, 2021

Introducing Sci-Fi Creator and New Lorehaven Writer Zackary Russell
News | Lorehaven on Feb 2, 2021

50. Do Christians Really Need Fiction? | Fiction’s Chief End, part 1
Podcast | Fantastical Truth on Feb 2, 2021

Frank E. Peretti to Give Keynote Address at Realm Makers Writers Conference This July
News | E. Stephen Burnett on Feb 1, 2021

Fugue for the Sacred Songbook: In Eb Minor
Reviews | Lorehaven Review Team on Jan 29, 2021

How A Year Without Superhero Films Rebooted Our Universe
Articles | Jason Joyner on Jan 28, 2021

New Book ‘Reading Evangelicals’ Will Focus on Famous Christian Fiction
News | E. Stephen Burnett on Jan 27, 2021

Introducing Superhero Novelist and New Lorehaven Writer Jason C. Joyner
News | Lorehaven on Jan 27, 2021

49. How Can We ‘Terraform’ the Church to Enjoy Fantastic Fiction?
Podcast | Fantastical Truth on Jan 26, 2021

Militant Secularism Could Force Christians to Create New Subcultures
Articles | Mike Duran on Jan 25, 2021

Flight of the Raven
Reviews | Lorehaven Review Team on Jan 22, 2021

‘One Piece’ Manga Reaches Chapter 1000: How Did This Pirate Become King?
Articles | L. Jagi Lamplighter on Jan 20, 2021

48. What Were the Top Seven Issues for Lorehaven Readers in 2020?
Podcast | Fantastical Truth on Jan 19, 2021

To Shape a Story is to Shape a Soul
Articles | L.G. McCary on Jan 18, 2021

Author Ted Turnau Finds The Hidden Grace of Pixar’s ‘Soul’
News | E. Stephen Burnett on Jan 15, 2021

Introducing Thriller Novelist and New Lorehaven Writer L. G. McCary
News | Lorehaven on Jan 15, 2021

The Eternal Struggle
Reviews | Lorehaven Review Team on Jan 15, 2021

Library

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Etania's Worth, M. H. Elrich
Cinderella Spell, Laurie Lee
When Desperate Measures Are All You Have Left, J. C. Morrows
Fractures, James C. Joyner
Torch, R. J. Anderson
The Terran Summit, Anna Zogg
The Xerxes Factor, Anna Zogg
The Paradise Protocol, Anna Zogg
The Awakened, Richard Spillman
The Ascension, Richard Spillman
Love's Sacrifice, Kelsey Norman
Unbroken Spirit, Kelsey Norman
Seed: Judgment, Joshua David
The Rooster and the Raven King, John Paul Tucker
Reviews

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The Hourglass and the Darkness
“Kyle L. Elliott’s novel The Hourglass and the Darkness posits a world before the great Flood, starting a promising series.”
—Lorehaven on Feb 19, 2021

Gretchen and the Bear
“Carrie Anne Noble’s delightful fantasy/sci-fi mashup Gretchen and the Bear defies every expectation.”
—Lorehaven on Feb 12, 2021

Torch
“Torch blazes a solid conclusion to the series’ themes of just leadership and racial reconciliation among fairy folk.”
—Lorehaven on Feb 5, 2021

Fugue for the Sacred Songbook: In Eb Minor
“Fugue for the Sacred Songbook plays a lyrical read, though without much subtlety regarding the author’s ideas.”
—Lorehaven on Jan 29, 2021

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52. Do Christians Really Need Science Fiction? | Fiction’s Chief End, part 3
Fantastical Truth, Feb 23, 2021

51. Do Christians Really Need Fantasy? | Fiction’s Chief End, part 2
Fantastical Truth, Feb 9, 2021

50. Do Christians Really Need Fiction? | Fiction’s Chief End, part 1
Fantastical Truth, Feb 2, 2021

49. How Can We ‘Terraform’ the Church to Enjoy Fantastic Fiction?
Fantastical Truth, Jan 26, 2021

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Settling the Solar System in Science Fiction, part 3: the Moon
Travis Perry, Feb 24

The Fantastical Elements of Romantic Fiction, part 1
Parker J. Cole, Feb 17

Settling the Solar System in Science Fiction, part 2: Venus
Travis Perry, Feb 11

Settling the Solar System in Science Fiction, part 1: Mercury
Travis Perry, Feb 4

Beyond

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Does ‘Engaging Popular Culture’ Include Right-Wing Talk Radio?
E. Stephen Burnett, Oct 9

Join My Livestream This Thursday: Seven Ways to Find Truth in Fantastic Stories
E. Stephen Burnett, Oct 6

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“Magic-edged memory meets the reality of death and family trauma.”
—Lorehaven review, summer 2019
Author:
Shawn Smucker
Ages:
adult
Genres:
supernatural, paranormal, and beyond
BookTags:
churches coming of age contemporary magic realism memories rural
Publisher:
Revell

Light from Distant Stars

Cohen Marah steps over his father’s body, and then steps into a labyrinth of memory. Did he kill his father?
Shawn Smucker | Revell, July 2019

When Cohen Marah steps over his father’s body in the basement embalming room of the family’s funeral home, he has no idea that he is stepping into a labyrinth of memory. As the last one to see his father, Cohen is the primary suspect.

Over the next week, Cohen’s childhood memories come back in living color. The dramatic events that led to his father being asked to leave his pastoral position. The game of baseball that somehow kept them together. And the two children in the forest who became his friends–and enlisted him in a dark and dangerous undertaking. As the lines blur between what was real and what was imaginary, Cohen is faced with the question he’s been avoiding: Did he kill his father?

In Light from Distant Stars, master story weaver Shawn Smucker relays a tale both eerie and enchanting, one that will have you questioning reality and reaching out for what is true, good, and genuine.

Review of Featured Review: Light from Distant Stars

Magic-edged memory meets the reality of death and family trauma.
Lorehaven Review Team, summer 2019

Fathers and sons. Fathers and sons. They’re everywhere.

Entire Bible chapters regale readers with lists of fathers, who beget fathers, who beget even more fathers. Apostles encourage fathers in passages like Colossians 3 and Ephesians 6. And, of course, Jesus himself identifies as a Son to God the Father.

On the manmade front, many movie and TV screenwriting bibles may list “just add father issues” atop their twelve-step recipes for assembling a fantasy or emotional drama. And among Christians, some leaders focus exclusively on father issues, with a few even speaking as though all men have a “father wound” that must be healed.

Thanks in part to societal family breakdown, many people do have such wounds. Which is just the theme of Shawn Smucker’s latest novel, Light from Distant Stars.

Like the titular light itself, this story travels fast, but takes its time before reaching its final destination. We open with Cohen Marah in the basement of his father’s funeral home. On the floor lies his father. Dead? Or nearly dead? Either way, why?

From here, however, the story with present-day scenes and flashbacks reveals less interest in the technical, murder-mystery details. Instead this investigation focuses on the slow and tragic death of Cohen’s relationship with his father. In particular, Cohen’s childhood of sticky summers, dull sermons, and baseball practice becomes dimmed by his confused feelings about a certain Sunday school teacher. Then his world is darkened by his father’s adult-level sin, which ruins his family and the local church.

Smucker portrays these events with delicacy yet brutal honesty. People have issues. Churches have even more so. But lest we fall into yet another “Southern Gothic” trap of literary darkness, where good men can’t be found and every church closet holds skeletons, Distant Stars shines its light. Angry mothers can still cling to faith. And even adulterous fathers might still know to give good gifts to their children.

The Father who set this light in motion won’t let it be eclipsed unless he wills it so.

Still, this isn’t a simple or obviously God-directed journey. Nor does the trip stay confined to “safe” places like rural small towns. Because even as Cohen recalls his family’s breakup, he also draws on childhood memories of an escaped arsonist. Next comes a creeping, supernatural slime-creature. Finally, Cohen is joined by two other children—real? symbolic? imaginary?—who help pursue this beastly foe.

Shawn Smucker is the author of the young adult novels The Day the Angels Fell and The Edge of Over There as well as the memoir Once, We Were Strangers. He lives with his wife and six children in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

ShawnSmucker.com
@ShawnSmucker

Explore this novel at lorehaven.com/library/light-from-distant-stars.

All the way, Smucker helps us believe these unearthly things with devoted, literary attention to earthly things. Like a child’s waking discovery of complex relationships. Or the adult monotony of waiting on medical staff. Or the faraway reassurance of whatever light enters this world. It shines through smaller things, like life-and-death contemplations that break through our distractions, or greater things, like the calm aid of an Episcopal priest who accepts Cohen’s confessions and points him to Jesus.

By this story’s end, Smucker lets just enough light fall to show a possible way out. No, the supernatural-like memories don’t always get explained. Nor do the human abuses and manipulations that can wound the hearts of marriages or children.

But for readers who must continue imagining their way through such trauma, or need to accompany loved ones who do, Light from Distant Stars is a Godsend. In the real world, we need more than platitudes or devotionals to help us heal. Instead, to start imagining our way through any family trauma, in the light of our Father and his truly good gifts, we need more fierce and compassionate stories like this one.

Best for: Older teen and adult readers, who are prepared to grapple with intense social drama that overlaps into literary, magical realism–like fantasy.

Discern: Young boy experiences early sexual attraction, described in emotional and not prurient terms; child witnesses act of adultery, only outlined at a distance; and in-depth exploration of abandonment, some emotional abuse, and estrangement.

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Lorehaven magazine, winter 2020

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