On the Seventh Day of Christmas....

Cynthia MacKinnon of Writers Cafe Press is going to tell us all about Light at the Edge of Darkness. If there are any Speculative Fiction fans out there here is your chance to get a great book. If you would like to enter just leave a comment or send a note to ladystorm282001@yahoo.com.

Book Trailer

Light at the Edge of Darkness: An Anthology of Biblical Speculative Fiction

Light at the Edge of Darkness is a volume of 3 novelettes and 24 short stories that cover the SF spectrum from horror and spiritual thriller to sci-fi and cyberpunk to fantasy. Headlining the book is “Undeniable,” a riveting,
chilling tale from Canadian horror writer, A.P. Fuchs.

“When forced to the edge of darkness, there’s only one way back: embrace the Light. Light at the Edge of Darkness tells stories written from a Christian world view intended to inspire and entertain readers. You will read the serious, the light, the parody, and
the heart-stopping.”

Light at the Edge of Darkness has an interesting genesis. Daniel I Weaver formed a critique group for writers of Biblical speculative fiction from a larger writers’ group and was impressed by the caliber of writing he was seeing. He suggested that a short story project would be fun for the members. Although I wasn't part of Daniel's group, I did catch wind of the project, discussed some possibilities with he and Frank Creed about publication and then upped the ante a bit — Daniel thought it constructive to tackle this project as good experience in submitting stories for publication. So, this group of writers sharpened their pencils and set to work writing short stories.

Once the anthology project was announced, all members of the critique group were enthusiastic about participating. Then, members were encouraged to invite other writers with whose work they were familiar and the numbers swelled as people were invited from other Christian groups as well as "The Herscher Projects" which is a private group of speculative fiction authors and “Elfwood,” the world's largest on-line sci-fi - fantasy community.

Because this was a critique group, as soon as stories were completed, the group turned their focus to critiquing. The result was some excellent examples of Biblical speculative fiction (sci-fi, fantasy, horror, cyberpunk, supernatural, dystopia, etc.). I still refer to the anthology as "Daniel's Project."

Once the stories were honed, they were submitted to me and using criterion-referenced evaluation, I chose the resulting selections. We had considered a "democratic" selection involving all the authors, and although we did this for fun, I made an executive decision — there were too many variables to consider the democratic approach viable. As the publisher’s representative I had the responsibility of ensuring that the quality of contributions met TWCP’s standards. Also, with the assistance of a Biblical scholar, I had to ensure that each story (whether overt or subtle in its message) was firmly grounded in scripture.

(There was one exception to the above process as I wanted a headliner for the anthology. "Undeniable" a novella by Canadian horror writer A.P. Fuchs, was a commissioned work.)

I really enjoyed working with this group of writers, but I have to confess, prior to reading the submissions, I was not a fan of speculative fiction — and certainly not horror. However, when I found myself immediately caught up in each of the selected submissions, I knew I had found treasure! I never dreamed I'd be captivated by Biblical speculative fiction!

With my allegiance to The Writers’ Café Press, I had to ascertain that this anthology would indeed have an audience. The Christian community is, unfortunately, suspicious of this genre (as a matter of fact, much in the same way as alternative Christian music was viewed 15 years ago). The big Christian publishing houses are reluctant, to put it mildly, to take a chance on spec-fic, because they don't see a huge market for it. However, there is this large untapped group of speculative fiction fans who think they are limited to reading secular works, many of which are anti-Christian by nature. What if they realized that literature existed that reflected their traditional values and was respectful of their Christian worldview?

In my research I heard the same thing over and over: I'd snap up a volume (or novel) of Biblical speculative fiction (stories) in a moment! but I can't find any. Yes, I realize that there is some excellent work out there that fits this criteria, but one wouldn't know it by searching in a Christian book store!

This, of course, presented a new problem: to make the availability of this genre known to the market. Frank Creed, one of the TWCP authors, had formed an online community of novelists: The Lost Genre Guild. The whole raison d'etre of the guild is to band artists together with the goal of promoting speculative fiction, making the market aware that the genre is available.

Through the Lost Genre Guild I was introduced to many established spec-fic authors, as well as, publishers of e-zines devoted to the genre. TWCP set up a website for the LGG as well as a blog and mentoring group and the anthology and the genre has received a lot of good press from these web presences. Book signings in secular bookstores as well as virtual book tours also increased the awareness of potential fans. Daniel Weaver put together a great book trailer of which S.L. Newman of Associated Content refers to in his article “The Best Book Trailers on YouTube” The Light at the Edge of Darkness book trailer has what may well be the catchiest catch phrase of the millennium; it fits the feel of the genres it represents perfectly. And, our promotion efforts are on-going.

There are lots of great reviews to be found at amazon and at www.lostgenreguild.com/index.html. It is a book that has something for everyone!

Here are a list of websites:
www.lostgenreguild.com/mediaroom.html
blog.lostgenreguild.com
mentors.lostgenreguild.com
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/1934284009
www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product?item_no=84008