Great Science-Fiction & Fantasy Works

science-fiction & fantasy literature:
a critical list with discussions

Religion in Science-Fiction & Fantasy Books

"Wait a second." Mojo couldn't let this pass. "If this thing is a saint's heart, why would it help people like Juanita and me? I mean, we weren't exactly on a mission from God when those guys in the Suburban were chasing us. Why would it help us?"

"It helped you because you were thwarting the will of Satan. "That's obvious," Grandmother told him.

"It is?"

--Mojo and the Pickle Jar,
Douglas Bell

Religion in Science Fiction and Fantasy

There is a belief held widely by those unacquainted with science fiction and fantasy, and even a few without that excuse, that the fields are either thoroughly secular or oriented toward bizarre heresies (read: "not the things I hear in the house of worship i attend weekly"). That is, I suppose, neither the most nor the least silly misperception of our fields in the larger world.

Science fiction and fantasy is, like all literature, about us, here, now. Authors--at least the better of them, those we are dealing with on this site--who have elected to till these fields have done so because, among other reasons, they offer special opportunities to deal with large ideas in unconventional ways, ways whose unconventionality may enable the author to better say and the reader to better hear (stretching metaphor a bit) those ideas away from the noisy arenas in which they normally appear. It is thus not at all surprising that many fine science-fiction and fantasy books have a a theological theme or orientation, and listing some of those books is what this page is for.

Selection of titles for this list was by no means a clear-cut process, for a number of reasons. Many science-fiction and fantasy tales deal with what we may call metaphysical questions. In some instances--say, Chesterton, or Charles Williams--the matter at issue is overt enough theology that there is no difficulty. On the other hand, while the oeuvre of James Branch Cabell deals very largely with how mankind may best deal with mortality, I ultimately excluded it because Cabell was, on the face of it anyway, an atheist.

Another consideration was that the religious or theological element or elements needed to be "genuine": that is, not some "religion," however important in the tale, that the author invented only to further a tale not itself primarily addressing theological issues (though invented religions are not a bar as such if they are intended to say or illustrate something meaningful about genuine religion). I thus include not only the works of authors from well-recognized creeds, but those of such as Eric Eddison, whose beliefs--as expressed in the tales--are unique but clearly religious.

Yet another problem area was the several authors, some prolific, in whose work the author's strongly held religious beliefs manifest in the structure of the tale, but not overtly--J. R. R. Tolkien, Cordwainer Smith, Gene Wolfe, and a few others of that sort; I ended up including them, on the simple ground that it is hard to have a meaningful discussion of religion in speculative fiction without their names arising.

In general, I have, as usual in these specialty lists, tried to be inclusive rather than exclusive. Does Roberta MacAvoy's "Damiano" trilogy really belong? Better to leave that to you, I think, than to omit it. One other thing: I have stuck here to novels--no collections of short stories (excepting George MacDonald's collected "fairy tales").

The Religion-Oriented Works

You loaded this page on Thursday, 10 June 2004, at 20:30 EDT.;
it was last modified on Thursday, 10 June 2004, at 05:31 EDT.


--=={end page per se}==--

Site Mechanics:

To search this site: enter your search terms below, then click the <Find> button.

To search for exact phrases, place them in "double quotation marks".

Search will only find pages containing all words or phrases entered above.


Search by Google
(A more precise search--with several qualifying parameters available--also using Google, is available.)
Get a nifty


and/or

most credit cards accepted
(To whom? Why?)

Site Directory:

 the site's Front Page



(essential one-time reading)
(typically gotten to by author) 		Introductory Material:
  Introductory Material: Welcome:
 a quick site overview and some mechanical details
    Apologia: [in two parts, for shorter downloads]
 the criteria used to make these lists
   · Apologia: Part 1
   · Apologia: Part 2
    Site Organization:
 what's where, and why
 


(the heart of the site) 		The Authors:
    Author List
 (just a lightly annotated list of the authors here--not the best place to start)
    Master Authors/Books List
 (the centrum of this site, but a big page--there are alpha subpages available)
   A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z
    Specialty Lists:
 several author "sub-lists" (such as the 5-star greats)
    Author Links:
links to a useful external page or site for each listed author
 


(typically gotten to by author) 		The Books:
    All Listed Books
 (a long file to download)
    Preferred Editions:
 for those books having such (a work in progress)
    The Other Books:
 all cited books not in the master fiction list, collected in one place
    Overlooked Gems:
 wonderful works sadly under-known
    Light-Hearted Science-Fiction & Fantasy:
 there's more than you might think
    Religiously Themed Science Fiction & Fantasy:
 something the field handles wonderful well
    For Younger Readers:
 a selection from these lists of appropriate works
 


(worth sorting through) 		General Material:
    About Buying Books From Here:
   I put a lot of effort into keeping
 all book data updated daily. 		About Buying Books From Buying Books New:
 · about buying books from Amazon:
     · Amazon U.S.A.
     · Amazon U.K.
     · Amazon Canada
     · Amazon Germany
     · Amazon France
     · Amazon Japan
 · international book-buying considerations
      Buying Books Used:
 · about the Advanced Book Exchange
 · two used-book meta-search engines
      About the Science-Fiction Book Club
 (info & online signup)

   
Miscellaneous Topics & Info:
   Please don't overlook this material
 just because it's "miscellaneous". 		  obiter dicta:
 collected miscellaneous
      "That Other Genre":
 crime/mystery fiction
      Science-Fiction & Fantasy Art and Illustration:
 online galleries of diverse works
      Other Sites:
 sites that have noticed this one
      The English Language:
 a few thoughts on its modern rape
      Scumware!
 read this if nothing else whatever
      Change Log
 what was done when
      Buying Things Other Than Books:
 buy anything available from any Amazon:
   · Amazon U.S.A.
   · Amazon U.K.
   · Amazon Canada
   · Amazon Germany
   · Amazon France
   · Amazon Japan
      Your Host:
 a comically little about me
      Comments:
 some things said about this site
 
       
Site Info:

Comments? Criticisms? Questions?

Please, e-mail us by clicking here.
(Or, if you cannot email from your browser, send mail to webmaster@greatsfandf.com)

All content copyright 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 Owlcroft House



This web page is strictly compliant with the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium)
Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML) Protocol v1.0 (Transitional).
Click on the logo below to test us!

So if your browser experiences any difficulties with this page
(for instance, if it shows horizontal lines in the color-block site directory just above)
--or, really, even if it doesn't--
Get Firefox
(It's free!)


---=== end of page ===---