New!
articles • book quests • news • library
reviews • podcast • gifts • archives
Crew manifest Faith statement FAQs
All author resources Lorehaven Guild Subscribe for free

A Crown of Chains
Reviews, Jan 27, 2023

The Magician’s Nephew Taught Me Christ’s Compassion in the Midst of Grief
Elijah David in Articles, Jan 26, 2023

Rose Petals and Snowflakes
Book Quests, Jan 25, 2023

Library

Find fantastical Christian novels

fantasy · sci-fi · and beyond
middle grade · young adult · grown-ups
All novels Search Add a novel
Silver Bounty, Victoria McCombs
A Sword for the Immerland King, F. W. Faller
Calor, J. J. Fisher
Once Upon A Ren Faire, A. C. Castillo
Exile, Loren G. Warnemuende
Aberration, Cathy McCrumb
The Truth Beyond the Lies, Kathleen Bird
Frost, Winter's Lonely Guardian, E. E. Rawls
Dream of Kings, Sharon Hinck
The Change, Bradley Caffee
Quest of Fire: Desperation, Brett Armstrong
Wishtress, Nadine Brandes
Flight, Kristen Young
The Deliverer, Jason William Karpf
Podcast

Get the Fantastical Truth podcast

Podcast sponsors | Subscribe links
Archives Feedback

146. How Did Animators Adapt The Wingfeather Saga For Streaming TV? | with Keith Lango
Fantastical Truth, Jan 24, 2023

145. How Did Edmund Spenser’s ‘The Faerie Queene’ Shape Christian Fantasy? | with Rebecca K. Reynolds
Fantastical Truth, Jan 17, 2023

144. Which Top Six Fantasy Franchises Gave Fans Grief in 2022?
Fantastical Truth, Jan 10, 2023

143. Which Top Ten Lorehaven Stories Proved Most Popular in 2022?
Fantastical Truth, Jan 6, 2023

142. What Christmas Gift ‘Tools, Not Toys’ Helped You Grow As a Person?
Fantastical Truth, Dec 20, 2022

141. Ten Years After ‘An Unexpected Journey,’ Must We Really Hate The Hobbit Films? | with Rilian of NarniaWeb
Fantastical Truth, Dec 13, 2022

Quests

Join our monthly digital book quests.

Lorehaven Guild Faith statement FAQs

Rose Petals and Snowflakes
Book Quests, January 2023

Prince Caspian
Book Quests, January 2023

Dream of Kings
Book Quests, December 2022

On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness
Book Quests, November 2022

Reviews

Find fantastical Christian reviews

All reviews Request review

A Crown of Chains
“A Crown of Chains creatively retells a biblical tale to explore themes of providence, racism, faith, and fidelity.”
—Lorehaven on Jan 27, 2023

Lander’s Legacy
“Lander’s Legacy stacks modern thrills and complex characters on a foundation of biblical what-ifs.”
—Lorehaven on Jan 20, 2023

Prince Caspian
“Pacing starts slow but creature lore grows in C. S. Lewis’s sequel, introducing practical tyrants and talking-beast politics into a Narnian resistance.”
—Lorehaven on Jan 13, 2023

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
“New and returning readers of all ages would do well to seek deeper magic within C. S. Lewis’s faithful classic.”
—Lorehaven on Jan 13, 2023

Gifts

Find new gifts for Christian fans

Archives

The original SpecFaith: est. 2006

Speculative Faith | archives

Lorehaven issues (2018–2020)

Order back issues online!
About
Library
Reviews
Podcast
Gifts
Guild
Archives
SpecFaith
Lorehaven helps Christian fans explore fantastical stories for Christ’s glory: fantasy, science fiction, and beyond. Articles, the library, reviews, podcasts, gifts, and the Lorehaven Guild community help fans discern and enjoy the best Christian-made fantastical stories, applying their meanings to the real world Jesus Christ calls us to serve. Subscribe free to get any updates you choose and to access the Lorehaven Guild.
Subscribe free to Lorehaven
/ News

Introducing Fantasy Enthusiast and New Lorehaven Writer Shannon Stewart

Shannon Stewart is a homeschooling mom of three and high school English teacher with an MA in English literature.
Lorehaven on Feb 17, 2021 · 2 comments

Tomorrow, new Lorehaven writer Shannon Stewart explores how people often reduce Venus to a symbol of love and romance, when in fact that planet’s influence grows far deeper.

Shannon Stewart is a homeschooling mom of three and high school English teacher with an MA in English literature. She reads widely and voraciously, but her favorites are still books by and about C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. Her other interests include video games, Anglo-Saxons, and all forms of cheese. She blogs at The Word-Hoard, and all her (hitherto unpublished) fiction somehow ends up with the central theme of memory.

1. How did you first discover biblical faith and fantastic stories?

I grew up in a Christian home but struggled with major doubts about Scripture’s truth in college. My doubts got to the point where I wasn’t sure I believed God existed at all, and if He did exist, I didn’t like him. I would literally sit on my dorm room bed and glare at my Bible in hatred. By God’s grace, my brother dragged me to the church where I still attend today—though at first I stayed only because I knew I was angry and cynical, and I saw the people at the church had joy that I lacked. Gradually, God led me to realize that if the Bible was true, then I was in serious trouble for my ugly hatred toward God. But if Scripture was true, God had also graciously provided a way for me to be saved! All the doubts I’d nursed for years felt feeble in comparison to the glorious truth that I now lived.

My love for fantastic stories began much earlier, and it began with video games. In elementary school I found Sonic the Hedgehog and, later, The Legend of Zelda. These video game narratives allowed ample room for my active imagination to create new stories within the framework of the worlds they presented.

I discovered Tolkien in high school and Lewis in college, and have found in them firm friends whose fictions point me toward true purpose, toward the fact that reality is more than material, and toward God who satisfies all the deep desires that fiction awakens in me.

2. What stories are you enjoying presently, non-fiction and fiction?

I just finished William Makepeace Thackeray’s absolutely delightful Vanity Fair and I am this close to being done with George Mueller’s unabridged autobiography (I’m not allowed to play Fire Emblem: Three Houses again until that’s done). I’m also in the midst of a bunch of books on polar exploration: White Darkness by David Grann, Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez, and soon The Arctic Fury by Greer Macallister. I figured they were seasonal.

As a family, we just finished our first full run of Avatar: The Last Airbender with the girls. Family reading night is for Peter Brown’s The Wild Robot, and we will always be in the midst of one or another of Focus on the Family’s The Chronicles of Narnia audio dramas.

3. What are your fantastic goals for the future?

In all my fiction writing, teaching, and blogging, perhaps my biggest soapbox is that much of our modern dissatisfaction and angst is coming from our chronological snobbery: the delusion that we as a society are marching forward, with the ability to mold reality to fit our desires. With this blind faith in progress, we dismiss the vast sweep of humanity that has come before, thinking they have nothing to teach us. Humans of the past did get a lot wrong—just as we one day will be revealed to have gotten a lot wrong. And one of the things we’ve gotten wrong (which our ancestors understood) is that reality is objective, and that there is a spiritual dimension to it which we ignore at our own peril.

Jesus is the answer to all the spiritual needs we try, in our barren, hopeless way, to ignore.

God willing, one day I will write fiction that points to this theme, but until then, I will champion it wherever I find it and teach it passionately to my children and students.

All stories, one way or another, point toward our deep need for the Gospel story. And the Gospel story is not only better than we ever could have dreamed—it’s true.

Look for Shannon Stewart’s first article, “Venus is More Than Just a Love Goddess,” tomorrow (Thursday, Feb. 18) at Lorehaven.com.

Lorehaven
Lorehaven helps Christian fans explore fantastical stories for Christ’s glory: fantasy, science fiction, and beyond. Articles, the library, reviews, podcasts, gifts, and the Lorehaven Guild community help fans discern and enjoy the best Christian-made fantastical stories, applying their meanings to the real world Jesus Christ calls us to serve. Subscribe free to get any updates you choose and to access the Lorehaven Guild.
Website · Facebook · Instagram · Twitter
  1. Marian Jacobs says:
    February 17, 2021 at 10:07 am

    So glad you’re writing for Lorehaven now, Shannon!

    I love the focus on chronological snobbery! I also call the overcorrection of this problem “reverse chronological snobbery.” I know a number of people who idolize the past to the extent that anything new is of lesser value by default. I think it’s so important to strive for the golden mean here.

    Reply
    • Shannon Stewart says:
      February 17, 2021 at 2:28 pm

      Thanks, Marian! I’m glad to be here! I definitely agree about reverse chronological snobbery; I’ve written about how conservative circles tend to lionize the 1950s, specifically. As a literature teacher, though, I definitely have more opportunity to talk about chronological snobbery in its “pure form!”

      Reply

Share your fantastical feedback. Cancel reply

Lorehaven magazine, spring 2020

Wear the wonder:
Get exclusive shirts and beyond

Listen to Lorehaven’s podcast

Authors and publishers:
Reach new fans with Lorehaven

Lorehaven helps Christian fans explore fantastical stories for Christ’s glory: fantasy, science fiction, and beyond. Articles, the library, reviews, podcasts, gifts, and the Lorehaven Guild community help fans discern and enjoy the best Christian-made fantastical stories, applying their meanings to the real world Jesus Christ calls us to serve. Subscribe free to get any updates you choose and to access the Lorehaven Guild.
Website · Facebook · Instagram · Twitter