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"A Better Country": The Worlds of Religious Fantasy and Science Fiction
Author: Martha C. Sammons
Genre: Nonfiction
Pages: 151
Final Thoughts: Not what I expected, but not without worth.
My required critical theory text for this term. I chose it because I'm going to be writing a paper in the fall about where my thesis fits into the stream of literature, past and present, and so it seemed reasonable to look more closely at religious fantasy and its history, since one of the central struggles in my novel is that of whether to believe in God's existence or rely on one's own resources. In the end, I have mixed feelings about it. Here's the Amazon description:
This book is a study of religious science fiction and fantasy in the tradition of Lewis and Tolkien. Sammons explores why writers use fantasy to convey theology. In addition, the book provides a theoretical understanding of fantasy as a form of literature by examining the techniques of current writers in light of the goals and theories of the "founders" of the genre. Sammons discusses techniques such as supposition, transposition, imagery, and reader participation, along with the themes and ideas they convey. The author traces the chronological development of the genre and the characteristics and effects of religious fantasy with a wealth of examples.
In retrospect, this is an accurate description, but I had expected more discussion and defense of original material and less flat-out summarization of various books. There is extensive discussion of all the various theories and techniques in light of ideas from Lewis, Tolkien, and Chesterton, along with other various somewhat lesser-known luminaries of early religious fantasy. While the initial section of each topic drew various ideas together into discussion with each other, the latter segments of every chapter degenerated into litanies of plot synopses from various works, but no attempt was ever made to connect events in the summarized books to ideas discussed just a page before, and I found that incredibly frustrating.
The overall feeling, for me, was that either each chapter should have been treated in much more depth - perhaps even a book for each of the six chapters - or that the entire exercise should have been condensed into a quarter of the page count. Also, I already covered many of the ideas put forth here in my reading of From Homer to Harry Potter, so I'm sure that also affected my approach to this book.
On the other hand, one might make the argument that I knew going in that this text was 20 years old. It was very interesting to see books that I think of as rather old-school tauted as the cutting edge in religious fiction, and to read this analysis of the purposes and techniques of religious fantasy in light of the intervening 20 years' worth of publishing. It's also very good to know a bit more about how thinking on the subject has progressed.
I'm not sure I would want my work to be labelled as 'religious fantasy'. I think that's forcing the point, and it's unnecessary. I'm glad to find that most of the texts examined in the text, though acknowledged as valuable in the Christian community, are most often shelved along with the rest of the speculative fiction in bookstores and libraries. I think that generating a separation between fantasy written by Christians and that written by non-Christians is nonsensical.
Also, the more I become familiar with C. S. Lewis's and J. R. R. Tolkien's writings, which are still on my To Read list in their original forms, the more I find myself identifying with Tolkien's approach to fantasy and fairy stories. Lewis was a formidable theologian, but I identify much more closely with Tolkien's approach storytelling.
So that's that - it was perhaps less than I expected, but not without value. I do have to say that I much prefer reading the stories themselves than books about them. And that's why I doubt I'll ever be a True Academic.
Book #66
Author: Martha C. Sammons
Genre: Nonfiction
Pages: 151
Final Thoughts: Not what I expected, but not without worth.
My required critical theory text for this term. I chose it because I'm going to be writing a paper in the fall about where my thesis fits into the stream of literature, past and present, and so it seemed reasonable to look more closely at religious fantasy and its history, since one of the central struggles in my novel is that of whether to believe in God's existence or rely on one's own resources. In the end, I have mixed feelings about it. Here's the Amazon description:
This book is a study of religious science fiction and fantasy in the tradition of Lewis and Tolkien. Sammons explores why writers use fantasy to convey theology. In addition, the book provides a theoretical understanding of fantasy as a form of literature by examining the techniques of current writers in light of the goals and theories of the "founders" of the genre. Sammons discusses techniques such as supposition, transposition, imagery, and reader participation, along with the themes and ideas they convey. The author traces the chronological development of the genre and the characteristics and effects of religious fantasy with a wealth of examples.
In retrospect, this is an accurate description, but I had expected more discussion and defense of original material and less flat-out summarization of various books. There is extensive discussion of all the various theories and techniques in light of ideas from Lewis, Tolkien, and Chesterton, along with other various somewhat lesser-known luminaries of early religious fantasy. While the initial section of each topic drew various ideas together into discussion with each other, the latter segments of every chapter degenerated into litanies of plot synopses from various works, but no attempt was ever made to connect events in the summarized books to ideas discussed just a page before, and I found that incredibly frustrating.
The overall feeling, for me, was that either each chapter should have been treated in much more depth - perhaps even a book for each of the six chapters - or that the entire exercise should have been condensed into a quarter of the page count. Also, I already covered many of the ideas put forth here in my reading of From Homer to Harry Potter, so I'm sure that also affected my approach to this book.
On the other hand, one might make the argument that I knew going in that this text was 20 years old. It was very interesting to see books that I think of as rather old-school tauted as the cutting edge in religious fiction, and to read this analysis of the purposes and techniques of religious fantasy in light of the intervening 20 years' worth of publishing. It's also very good to know a bit more about how thinking on the subject has progressed.
I'm not sure I would want my work to be labelled as 'religious fantasy'. I think that's forcing the point, and it's unnecessary. I'm glad to find that most of the texts examined in the text, though acknowledged as valuable in the Christian community, are most often shelved along with the rest of the speculative fiction in bookstores and libraries. I think that generating a separation between fantasy written by Christians and that written by non-Christians is nonsensical.
Also, the more I become familiar with C. S. Lewis's and J. R. R. Tolkien's writings, which are still on my To Read list in their original forms, the more I find myself identifying with Tolkien's approach to fantasy and fairy stories. Lewis was a formidable theologian, but I identify much more closely with Tolkien's approach storytelling.
So that's that - it was perhaps less than I expected, but not without value. I do have to say that I much prefer reading the stories themselves than books about them. And that's why I doubt I'll ever be a True Academic.
Book #66