Speculative Faith was the volunteer-led website that preceded Lorehaven. From 2006 to 2021, hundreds of Christian fantastical writers added their voices to this team blog. Many of those creatives now continue this work at Lorehaven. This archive preserves all the original SpecFaith articles and reviews. You may find, however, some outdated bios and missing images as well as occasional formatting glitches! Please note that some reviews have been updated and republished to Lorehaven.

Scary Title Alert: The Discipline Of Reading Fiction

Readers get inoculated by “fun” fiction, and no longer approach stories as vehicles of ideas, shown not told. When we as Christians do look for meaning, we are primarily looking for a Christ figure and a picture of redemption. We rarely dig deeper.
— Rebecca LuElla Miller in February 2013 —

Teaching Story Transitions 5: Middle-Grade Exploration

As parents transition children from the early tools of discernment, they may challenge middle-grade children to discern more on their own.
— Jared Moore in February 2013 —

When Science Fiction Meets Fairy Tale

At first glance, science fiction and fairy tales appear to have little in common. They’re like water and oil. What could tales about nasty step-mothers and magic share with stories of high-tech gadgets and trips to other worlds? For starters, both address themes of human experience through the fantastic, and both bear the imprint of the culture of their time.
— Jeff Chapman in February 2013 —

Fiction Christians From Another Planet! V: Pagan Straw Men

Lame theology may lead to alien non-Christian characters. They’re made of straw that’s been cut from official-ministry “manuals” about how pagans think and built on un-Biblical foundations of “ministry platforms.”
— E. Stephen Burnett in February 2013 —

More About Characters

The subject of characters in Christian fiction has been coming up on this blog a lot recently. I’ve appreciated E. Stephen Burnett’s excellent series “Fiction Christians From Another Planet” — Patrick Carr’s guest post about writers using real people as […]
— Yvonne Anderson in February 2013 —

Books To Love

I recently talked with a friend about a book I was reading and enjoying. The question came up: why was I enjoying it? What was it about this book that made it a satisfying reading experience?
— Rebecca LuElla Miller in February 2013 —

Stealing Faces

I firmly believe that the human desire to create, the creative drive of the novelist, musician, craftsman, etc. is evidence of the existence of God.
— Patrick W. Carr in February 2013 —

Fiction Christians From Another Planet! IV: Terror Of The Megachurchians

If we only ever meet in Christian novels pagan characters overcome by platitudes like “Really? There’s a God who loves — me?”, the author has gone beyond corny. Worse, our Hero and the Gospel look ridiculous.
— E. Stephen Burnett in January 2013 —

Offended

One day, while I was still attending Seminary, one of my professors came in and admitted to doing something heretical. I remember it well, even fifteen years later.
— John Otte in January 2013 —

The Mystery Of Love and Writing

Writing a book, like finding love, is a sacred pursuit. No one can tell you how to do it any more than they can tell you how to fall in love. It just doesn’t work that way. It’s not a […]
— Christopher Miller in January 2013 —

Realism And Twenty-first Century Stories

If all characters are victims of disaster, I suggest readers or viewers stop caring and start looking for the “out.” Will the character die and come back? Have a narrow escape? Have a death that only looks like death? In truth, all the arguing and betrayal and refusal becomes–predictable and boring and unrealistic. Soon the characters seem more like caricatures because none acts with nobility or courage or hope. All display their flawed selves with so little inner struggle. And this, we’ve come to believe, is realistic.
— Rebecca LuElla Miller in January 2013 —

The Christian Writer and Fiction

Fiction is not very good fiction, if fiction at all, without ‘flawed characters and narrative.’ As such, the gospel-story (narrative) is the story of sinful men and women (flawed characters) coming to repentance and faith in Christ, the Redeemer, whose sacrifice atones for their sins. The narrative does not stop at the point of conversion but continues with how such persons struggle with the remaining sin within them (flawed characters, again) and the sin in the world around them.
— Thomas Clayton Booher in January 2013 —

Fiction Christians From Another Planet! III: Voices From Beyond

You want a Christian-fiction notion that makes pagan readers cackle and other Christians cringe? Then exalt voices-from-beyond as the only way God daily guides His people.
— E. Stephen Burnett in January 2013 —

The Sincerest Form Of Flattery

When we strum chords to accompany the song in our hearts, or sand a tabletop to release the wood’s beauty, or write a story that echoes God’s, I expect He’d call that the sincerest form of flattery.
— Yvonne Anderson in January 2013 —

Screwtape on Redefining ‘Realism’

“Your patient, properly handled, will have no difficulty in regarding his emotion at the sight of human entrails as a revelation of Reality and his emotion at the sight of happy children or fair weather as mere sentiment.”
— E. Stephen Burnett in January 2013 —

The Christian And Stories

Should we seek to win the hard drinking and hard swearing jock by writing stories filled with drinking and swearing? Since real people do drink and swear and assault people and have affairs, since real people are prostitutes or frauds or terrorists, shouldn’t our stories show them in all their ugliness and need?
— Rebecca LuElla Miller in January 2013 —

Winter Writing Challenge Winner

We have a winner in the 2013 Spec Faith Winter Writing Challenge–Austin Gunderson
— Rebecca LuElla Miller in January 2013 —

On The ‘Throne Of Bones’: A Q and A With Vox Day

“A Throne of Bones” epic-fantasy author Vox Day discusses how he’s moved from columns to fiction, controversial novel content, and his criticism (not imitation) of “A Game of Thrones.”
— Vox Day in January 2013 —

Write In Pursuit Of Something. (A Blog Post and Pseudo Film Review Of Zero Dark Thirty)

I’m writing this post after having just returned from the theater for a late night showing of Zero Dark Thirty. It’s a film that has attracted a lot of attention for its portrayal of the events surrounding what is arguably […]
— Christopher Miller in January 2013 —

Spec Faith Winter Writing Challenge Finals

I’ve reposted their entries below, followed by the official poll to determine the 2013 winner. You will be able to vote only once for only one entry to determine who will receive the $25 gift card to either Amazon or Barnes and Noble. The poll closes at midnight (Pacific time), Sunday, January 20.
— Rebecca LuElla Miller in January 2013 —

Marcher Lord Press And The Hinterlands Imprint

Could I publish a book with vulgarity, nudity, and sex? That was the real question. What would my mom think, you know? What would all the awesome homeschooling moms who love MLP think? What would my other authors think?
— Jeff Gerke in January 2013 —

Fiction Christians From Another Planet! I: Invasion Of The Child-People

Why do some Christian novels keep presenting only equivalents of kid-Anakin or Wesley Crusher, instead of Han Solo or Captain Picard, and expect readers to like them?
— E. Stephen Burnett in January 2013 —

May I Have A Word?

It’s easy to use the word word, but hard to define it with words. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? A sound with meaning? Not really.
— Yvonne Anderson in January 2013 —

Are You Sitting Down For This? (Why I’m Taking A Stand For Writers Everywhere)

Chances are if you are reading this post, you are sitting down. And if you are like most Americans (we writers are some of the worst) you’ll probably spend at least 12 hours of your waking day sitting on your […]
— Christopher Miller in January 2013 —

Winter Writing Challenge – Phase 2

In this phase two, visitors here at Spec Faith have one more week to read the one-hundred-to-two-hundred-word entries and give a thumbs up and/or comment to as many as they like.
— Rebecca LuElla Miller in January 2013 —

Every Bit Of My Heart

I no longer knew how to love God with the creative side of me. Life had changed. I was different, but part of my heart was dedicated to an old dream, a child’s dream. And I didn’t love it for God’s sake.
— Shannon Dittemore in January 2013 —

Less Screaming, More Swashbuckling

Christian ministries and parents: let’s have less “they’re coming after our children!” screaming and more faith-based Godly swashbuckling.
— E. Stephen Burnett in January 2013 —
  1. Pages:
  3. 1
  4. ...
  5. 55
  6. 56
  7. 57
  8. 58
  9. 59
  10. 60
  11. 61
  12. ...
  13. 85

Lorehaven epilogue sponsors