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This month, the Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy Blog Tour’s book selection backed out, so instead we’re sharing our favorite Science Fiction and Fantasy Titles. Mine, in particular order, are:

By Darkness Hid (Blood of Kings, book 1) by Jill Williamson

This is her title up for the Clive Staples Award and has already won a much deserved Christy Award. Way to go, Jill!

Legendary Space Pilgrims by Grace Bridges

Her new release from Splashdown Books. I’ve only read it as I critqued/edited it in it’s rougher form, but this is hands down my favorite Bridges title. The mindwipes are scary, how they’re overcome by the Voice’s words is awesome cool, and I appreciate the emotions she enthused into the book. Oh, the mindwipes steal the memories of the slaves of the ever-cloudy planet Monday whenever they succumb to their human emotions that might get in the way of profit/production and inspire them to seek freedom from those who control every aspect of their lives, even forcing women sent to “repro” into free prostitution until they conceive and taking the children away from the mothers at very young ages.

One of these days, I need to get a hold of a print copy and read the final product. Lol.

Caprice Hockstad’s re-release,The Duke’s Handmaid, is another favorite, and I’m glad Splashdown picked her up, because she deserves the wider audience. This one also deals with social justice, ironically a fairly positive portrayal of slavery, as a thought provoking, semi-allegorical reflection on Christian service and humility.

Lastly, Jill’s latest release, To Darkness Fled (Blood of Kings, book 2). I devoured this 500 page tomb in a single weekend. Jill, finish writing book three already so I can talk my husband into buying it! LOL. One of these days, I’m sure CSFF will tour this one. I’ll re-read and review it then.

Grace, Caprice, not bad to be sandwiched between a Christie winner, eh?

You know, I noticed all four deal with issues of social justice/slavery in some regards, and it occurs to me a theme I love to read about is one I also like to write, too. Shocker.

Other stops on the tour:

Brandon Barr
Thomas Clayton Booher
Keanan Brand
Grace Bridges
Beckie Burnham
Morgan L. Busse
Jeff Chapman
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
Jeff Draper
George Duncan
April Erwin
Andrea Graham
Tori Greene
Ryan Heart
Timothy Hicks
Becky Jesse
Jason Joyner
Julie
Carol Keen
Krystine Kercher
Mike Lynch
Rebecca LuElla Miller
New Authors Fellowship
John W. Otte
Donita K. Paul
Chawna Schroeder
James Somers
Speculative Faith
Rachel Starr Thomson
Steve Trower
Jason Waguespac
Fred Warren
Dona Watson
Phyllis Wheeler
KM Wilsher

Popularity: 1%

This week, the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance is introducing Heartless from Bethany House (July 1, 2010) by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Anne Elisabeth Stengl makes her home in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she is as an art teacher, giving private lessons from her personal studio, and teaching group classes at the Apex Learning Center. She studied illustration at Grace College and English literature at Campbell University. Heartless is her debut novel.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Princess Una of Parumvir has come of age and will soon be married. She dreams of a handsome and charming prince, but when the first suitor arrives, she finds him stodgy and boring. Prince Aethelbald from the mysterious land of Farthestshore has traveled far to prove his love–and also to bring hushed warnings of danger. A dragon is rumored to be approaching Parumvir.

Una, smitten instead with a more dashing prince, refuses Aethelbald’s offer–and ignores his warnings. Soon the Dragon King himself is in Parumvir, and Una, in giving her heart away unwisely, finds herself in grave danger. When Una makes the wrong choice, catastrophe ensues for the princess and her family, and love, courage, and trust are needed when darkness engulfs the kingdom.

Only those courageous enough to risk everything have a hope of fighting off this advancing evil.

If you would like to read the first chapter of Heartless, go HERE.

ANDREA’S COMMENTS:  I truthfully only posted this one to fulfill my obligations to the book tour. The storyline itself is lovely and magical, but I feel I am not the right person to review the book as I absolutely hate the storytelling methods employed, which are antiquated and certainly not timeless (albeit the plot is inspired by the symbolic version of the greatest story ever told and itself merits that descriptor.) I personally found this aspect a publishing travesty that risks discouraging young writers from bothering to learn their craft–why do the hard work to learn modern techniques like staying in Point of View and show, don’t tell when Bethany house’s editors decided to not do their jobs and allow one author to do it the old fashioned way? And a new one at that. She hasn’t earned the right to write however she pleases yet, and, for her sake I hope this mistake on her publisher’s part doesn’t hurt her. The book only proved the reasons for the rules–the old techniques are very self conscious, constantly drawing readers’ attention to the fact we are reading and jarring us out of the story. The author is wonderful at characterization and her skill there compensates for the following problem some, but such head hopping is very distancing. This book is good–but with proper editing,  it could have been great.

Popularity: 2%

This month, the Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy blog tour is featuring Starlighter, the first novel in the Dragons of Starlight series by Bryan Davis.

Starlighter has a dual plot line—the heroine is Koren, an orphaned slave on a world where dragons rule and humans are treated like cattle, forced to dig holes to release ignitable gas into the atmosphere that the dragons need to survive, and fear their masters eat them when they’re “Promoted,” which supposedly involved being sent to cooler northern climes. The other plot line involves Jason, a teen boy who takes over his brother’s job guarding the despotic governor and palace intrigues soon launch him on a quest to find the Lost Ones taken to the dragon world a century ago. Those who believe in the Dragon world and the Lost Ones are persecuted.

Perhaps because it is YA, starting out, it was cumbered down by a bit much telling, mostly relationships, a bit of thought tagging, and such. It was probably thought younger readers might not get it by being shown these things like you would with adults. Personally, I think we don’t give teens enough credit. Once we got past that, however, the book settled into the breakneck pacing and engaging story weaving from the previous title we, er, I reviewed from this author.

Aspects that made me go ew:

• Severed, glowing fingers cut out of despot’s chests and burned into the hero’s chest. Can I say again, ew?

Aspects that intrigued me:

• The conflicting origins stories told to the citizens of Starlight/Dracon. The alleged myths say they came from Jason’s world—stolen for no good reason according to the humans and to save a handful of survivors from man-eating bears (that can talk.) But others present supposedly ironclad evidence that humans have always been on Starlight. It’ll be interesting to see how this unresolved conflict plays out in future installments.

• The prince in the black egg—his nature is kept, probably deliberately, mysterious for most of the book—a prophecy hints at a sinister intent towards humans early on, but he plays nice guy, (the egg can talk, too) trying to sound like Jesus, but actually reversing the Lord’s teachings subtly. In the end, the author highlights this without being preachy. It does occur to me, were teens as stupid as all the telling early on would suggest, they might miss this subtly and think he’s the wise counselor he wants others to believe he is. I think not, though.

• Arxad the Dragon Priest, his clear sympathies towards humans, but ardent and honest loyalty to the dragon regime that oppresses them.

If you love classic fantasy adventures with good old fashioned fire-breathers, and don’t mind magic tokens in the form of severed body parts, this would be a good one to preview before deciding whether it’s appropriate for your teen. (Note: I always advocate screening your child’s reading materials. Besides, it’s an excuse to read it yourself.)

Other Stops on the Tour:
Brandon Barr
Beckie Burnham
Jeff Chapman
R. L. Copple
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Andrea Graham
Tori Greene
Nikole Hahn
Ryan Heart
Becky Jesse
Cris Jesse
Jason Joyner
Julie
Carol Keen
Krystine Kercher
Dawn King
Leighton
Jane Maritz
Rebecca LuElla Miller
John W. Otte
Donita K. Paul
Crista Richey
SarahFlan
Chawna Schroeder
Rachel Starr Thomson
Steve Trower
Fred Warren
Dona Watson
Phyllis Wheeler
Jill Williamson
KM Wilsher

Popularity: 2%