New Books

Working at the Christian bookstore is paying off already. I have a love of reading. Most of what I like to read unfortunately, are things strictly non-christian in nature. I love books of fantasy, sci-fi, thrillers, and to some degree horror. One of my frustrations as an avid reader and christian has been trying to find the books I like in a christian bookstore. Most of the fiction section seems to be covered in romance, finding love, living on a homestead kind of story. Don't get me wrong, those definately have their place and I know a lot of people (especially ladies) who love those types of books but they aren't my cup of tea. If they do have anyone in the store that runs into speculative fiction it is usually authors that have already proven themselves like Tolkien, CS Lewis, and Peretti. They are great authors but I've already read them all. I would like something new. So of course, I read the secular books that aren't necessarily good for me or God-fearing.

Well, last night I ran into a guy who told me he was an author. His first book will be published in April 2010 and he gave me his card. We started chatting a little bit and he told me he likes those kinds of books too. He also had the same frustrations I did about the lack of speculative fiction in christian bookstores. What I found out though is there are many authors out there who have written christian speculative fiction but most bookstores don't carry them because they haven't been proven big sellers. Thanks to a couple of series (Left Behind for one) and a couple of new authors (Ted Dekker) this thankfully is changing. But for our tastes to be more represented we have to demand and buy the types of books we are looking for. That still leaves the question of who these authors are and the titles of the books so we can look for and buy them. He had a friend who developed a website that lists all the christian speculative fiction writers along with their type. I checked it out this morning and it is very exciting. I plan on looking for these books right away and start reading. The website is http://wherethemapends.com/Booklist/booklist_intro.htm . While browsing the website I found out one of the authors is also developing a christian MMOPG. This is so exciting for me as I am a huge online game player. It isn't ready yet but you can see what has been developed so far and the progress of the game at http://www.foundationsofhope.com/foh_online.php .

The author who was so nice and gave me the information is named James L Rubart and his book Rooms will be released in April 2010. You can preorder it now on Amazon. He was very nice and so helpful so check him out if you get a chance. I am not getting any kind of compensation for this endorsement but just wanted to give him a shout-out for helping me out.