Michael Findley Interview, LLC

So, this is the book cover now. When I first
got my mitts on a copy, it featured the same
girl but a DIFFERENT guy! Pretty fishy if you
ask me. Do you think the guy is the Doctor?

I read Nehemiah, LLC based on a recommendation from author Mary C. Findley. She happens to be married to the author, Michael Findley. This is actually the second interview I’ve conducted with someone close to Mary, as Sophronia Belle Lyon, the author of the very enjoyable steampunk literary tribute A Dodge, A Twist and a Tobacconist, whom I once traveled years into the past to interview, is Mary’s grandmother. What I’m trying to say is that there is some serious nepotism at play here, and we should all be very suspicious. At the end of the day, I didn’t pick a Michael Findley novel because he’s the author of books such as Empire Saga, Sojourner or Antidisestablishmentarianism: Disestablishing America’s Established Religion (a title I need to send off to my old theatre professor so he can use it as a tongue twister with his students). I didn’t pick it up because I enjoy the Elk Jerky for the Soul blog, which he runs with his honey bear. These would have been perfectly legitimate reasons, but, no, I read Nehemiah, LLC because Michael’s beaming bride suggested it to me. It’s like I said. It’s suspicious.

So I started reading this book and, let me tell you the truth, at first I wondered if I had made a mistake. The foreword scared me, as the author explained that this was the third book in a series of six (currently), and that “there is no attempt to explain things in Nehemiah, LLC which are explained in detail in other works.” It works even better if you imagine it in a grumpy voice and follow it up with, “And get off my lawn!” So I was nervous. I retorted that I was recommended this book by your wife, Michael Findley, and she knew I hadn’t read the first two! Don’t yell at me!

This was the author's reaction when I offered to interview him.
Or maybe this was the time I bumped into Clint Eastwood and told him
I didn't care for Million Dollar Baby.

So I was pleasantly surprised when the only disorientation I felt was the normal amount for entering into a new world, especially in a science fiction book. Sure I didn’t understand everything right away, but that’s okay; I knew enough to get by and I learned as I read. That’s pretty normal. But I wanted to preface this interview by saying this because I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if the opening note scared other readers away when glimpsed in an Amazon sample, for instance. You don’t need to be scared. We can get through this. Together. And we can ask the author any questions we have when we interview him on our blog!

In this scene that has nothing to do with Nehemiah, LLC,
Troi uses her special powers to sense that Data is angry.

As I mentioned, Nehemiah, LCC is sci-fi. It’s talky Star Trek: The Next Generation sci-fi more than action-packed space cowboy Firefly sci-fi (or Star Trek reboot sci-fi...or, y’know, Star Wars sci-fi). I don’t know about you, but I’ve got no problem with that. We’re thrown into a world that’s both reminiscent of but also beyond our own, and it was very clear that the author put a lot of thought into the world, the technology and the characters. It’s very easy to get the sense that we are seeing just a slice of daily life for these characters, that the world continues and their lives continue even when they’re not on the page. The environment lives and breathes and that’s great for immersion.

But daily life isn’t always terribly exciting. The main plot—the Life Support Division of Nehemiah, LLC needs to prepare balloon ships for a mission to collect gas from the moon Titan—felt anticlimactic and less engaging than I would have liked. Sometimes there would be the hint of something else—for example, whether or not there was a saboteur—and I would think, Okay! That’s going to be the main plot thread for the book, but then it would be easily dealt with and I finally realized that, no, this is the book: the team troubleshooting a dozen little problems and preparing for the launch. At first, I thought a blossoming romance might provide more  of a hook, but it didn’t get enough attention to be a strong focus.

So I just want to make this point so that you can judge whether this is a book for you. It’s very well written and I enjoyed my time spent in that world. If you’re on the fence, we can spend some time with the author, Michael Findley himself, and that should really make you want to read it!       

Brad: Thanks for swinging by, Michael. I read you and your wife’s blog from time to time, so it’s only appropriate that you visit over here, I think. Now, I realize that this may go against your personal philosophy, but Nehemiah, LLC puts us in the middle of a world that you’ve already been building for a couple books. If this is the book that your wife recommends we read, what should we know going in to it?

To summarize, Nehemiah is to this series
what Revenge of the Sith is to Star Wars.

Michael: This is the last of the first three books. City on a Hill sets up the reason why the people are in space. Next comes Sojourner, a short story of less than 50 pages, deals with events that come immediately before Nehemiah, LLC begins. It establishes most of the technology. Nehemiah, LLC was designed to make people want to read the other books. Therefore I assume people would not know about the other books, so the technology is, hopefully, still understandable to those who have not read the other books. The Space Empire Trilogy follows Nehemiah, LLC and that time frame is decades, maybe centuries, after Nehemiah, LLC, since the balloon ships were new "back then", and in the Empire trilogy they are very common.

Brad: Thanks for clearing that up! If you want to want to read the other books, tap into Nehemiah and prepare to want! Even having read the book, I’m not sure about this. If you had to choose a central protagonist, who would it be? Or is this truly an ensemble?

Michael: Joan is really the protagonist. Things are almost entirely from her point of view, or omniscient, and Tony remains somewhat of a mystery until very near as the end, whereas there are few surprises about Joan that aren't cleared up pretty quickly.

Cher, incidentally, is never referenced
with her last name.

Brad: Okay, well, sure yeah, now that you’ve gone and said it’s Joan, that makes sense. It just seemed to me that Joab or Zacharias might get almost as much attention, sometimes. Okay, so this next question is oddly specific. There was some dialogue at one point in the book about surnames. It seems like there are a number of characters who are very frequently referred to by both their first and last names. For example, looking at the first hundred mentions of Anthony in the book (thanks,  Kindle PC app!), he is called Anthony Lewis by characters and the narrator about 70% of the time (instead of simply Anthony). I wasn’t quite clear on the rationale for that, and one of the benefits of chatting with the author is the ability to ask about things I don’t understand. Can you explain it to me?

Michael: The issue with surnames is an attempt to show cultural differences, but ones that don't really matter in a "right and wrong" sense. Joan's people don't use surnames but many others in the story do, and it's a preference, not a hard and fast dogma of Joan's culture. 

Brad: If it takes longer to ask a question than to answer it, does that make me a bad interviewer? Don’t answer that. It’s my blog. I always like to ask about love in books that aren’t flat-out romance. From the first time a certain two characters meet, it seems like you’re going to pair them together, and that’s precisely what you do! Did you have this romance planned out from the beginning, or did it develop as you wrote and learned about the characters?

Not pictured: A scene from this book.

Michael: I don't think through everything ahead of time. Often my characters are based on real people I know, or the way I perceive them. Then I establish the setting, then the circumstances surrounding the characters. It's more like real life, not planning every circumstance and the response to it ahead of time. Shakespeare had very realistic people, though sometimes in odd situations, but still reacting in expected ways. Near the end of the book I was wondering myself if the romance would happen, or if they would get angry and never speak again. 

Brad: Well, no spoilers here! But I am glad they didn’t get angry and never speak again. That would have made my heart make a frowny face. I made a reference to Star Trek: The Next Generation in my introduction. So I’ve got to ask: what’s your favorite Trek? And you can’t possibly write in this genre and not be able to weigh on this subject, Sir.

According to some fanfic, Beverly Crusher left her
husband after he became an indie author.

Michael: #1, STNG, with Data as a favorite character. #2, McCoy from STOS, though they are very much opposites. Also Riker and Dr. Crusher (don't tell my wife, but I did have a "Crush" on her). Dr. Crusher's single mom success with Wesley was admirable.

Brad: Well, this will be awkward. Your wife is always kind enough to share and tweet my blog posts for me. So I have to choose between more readers and destroying your marriage. Well, you guys are getting up there. You’ve had a good run. And, anyway, by failing to mention anyone from Deep Space 9, I do fear you’ve failed the interview. But, come on—who doesn’t love Data? So you might get a C- after all. Sci-fi or not, were there any specific influences—book, film, television, whatever—that may have helped inspire or guide Nehemiah (or the whole series) at all?

Michael: The entire series is inspired by the Pilgrims and others coming to America but in a technological setting. Many characters in the series are even named after those people. Jonathan Edwards is one example. The blend of the technology is mine and I take credit, responsibility, or blame, for it being correct or incorrect, but each piece is based on something that already exists. The tubes to transfer around Mars are based on the Chunnel, for example. Many of the life-support problems were discovered through the

This is Arizona, but it could totally be somewhere on Mars too.

Biosphere Project in Arizona.

Brad: Wow! I’ve never have an interviewee use so many words I didn’t understand in one answer before! You get the Much Smarter Than Brad award! Yay! Here’s one of my standard questions that I wasn’t asking yet when I interviewed your wife’s ancestor...so if you bump into her, ask her for me and let me know what she says, okay? For now, I’ll just ask you. What do you perceive is your greatest strength as an author? And your greatest weakness?

Michael: My greatest weakness is the lack of time and ability to edit well and thoroughly. My greatest strength is family members who do a lot of editing for me and help me fix things. Daughter and wife are my two best editors.

Sophronia says to tell you that her greatest weaknesses are a fondness for tea and crumpets. Seriously, she laments that readers sometimes say her story beginnings are a bit disorganized, and take time to come
together. Her greatest strength she believes is that she has read with love and attention to detail the stories of great authors from whom her characters are taken, She and strives to be faithful to the spirit of classic Victorian literature and help revive interest in these great stories.  

Brad: Check that out. Two answers for the price of one. You are some lucky blog visitors today, aren’t you, dear readers? Okay, it gets confusing if I’m talking to my readers and then to Michael so, back to the author: Many of the works that you and your wife write are attacks or defenses against secular humanism. First of all, does that battle come into Nehemiah, LLC at all?

The flip side of this humanist holiday ad is that
if there is a God, these people actually have
a bit of a problem.

Michael: Less than anything else I have written. This story is more of a personal story, Joan trying to figure out what she's supposed to be doing within her society, just as we as believers try to figure our our place within the church. This is also a promotional book for the rest of the Empire series. Clashes over Secular Humanism tend to antagonize people and the characters and story here are, hopefully, likeable, to draw people in and create a favorable atmosphere for them to accept the heavier messages of other books in the series.

Brad: Secondly, and on a related note, your blog and this book make it pretty clear that you’re a follower of Jesus Christ. As a believer, do you feel any sort of Christian duty or obligation to incorporate spiritual themes into your work? I suppose I’m mostly interested in fiction here, since that’s what we do on this blog, and I think your nonfiction is pretty overt on the topic.

Michael: I am very disturbed by other authors who claim to be Christian and who write material that is contrary to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As believers we are commanded in the Word of God to limit ourselves to forms of writing that exalt the Lord Jesus Christ [Super Blogger Extraordinaire Note: I asked Michael to clarify what passage he was referring to here, telling him that all I was familiar with that might work was 1 Cor. 10:31. He told me to go ahead and use that one, so I'm not sure of the exact reference he intended here]. I am not claiming to be perfect but am trying to uphold a standard of Christ and the Old Testament, where they used parables, fiction, to get across important points. We also need to keep in mind that these are works of fiction, not lose ourselves in a fantasy world. We do need to present sin as sin, and it must have serious consequences. Sin seems to be something to play with in too many works that call themselves fiction.

Brad: Hey, you won’t see anything that doesn’t aim to glorify God and point to Him come from this guy! Are you working on anything you’d like to share with us right now?

As the saying goes, the family that
writes together, fights together.
No, that can't be it...but it rhymes...

Michael: We are trying to create a multi-part homeschool curriculum. Our book Antidisestablishmentarianism was the introductory work, explaining our foundational beliefs and historical The Conflict of the Ages project has two published modules now [Blog-Writer-Master’s note: here’s one and two] and is an attempt to create an accurate picture of history, science, and literature, combining elements of all of them at times and splitting into separate studies at other times. The focus is to prepare Christians to "give an answer" to the secular world about the truth and authority of the Scriptures, to explain the origin of the universe, to tell how sin entered the world and its continuing effects, and to give an accurate historical timeline.
and scientific perspectives. It's about as long as a few doctoral dissertations.

Brad: Pretty ambitious, huh? Check it out, homeschooling parents! It’s no secret by now that these little interviews tend to get a bit violent. I suppose it’s a testament to how hungry us starving authors are for a bit of publicity that they still risk their lives coming to talk to me. I know I’ve never turned an interview down! But, reckless and illegal or not, my methods have gotten results, so I’m going to keep using them. I invited some ninjas to the party. They’re in the next room. In the spirit of your book, they’re actually space ninjas. Pretty cool, huh? Well, those space ninjas are going to turn you into a Michael Findley shish kebob if you don’t answer my questions, buddy. The first under-duress question is what your favorite book is. And don’t say the Bible—that’s cheating. And don’t say Biblical Studies: Student Edition—that’s narcissistic.

I used to go for Dr. Seuss myself.

Michael: My favorite book is War and Peace. Tolstoy has a very lengthy section at the end that explains what history should be and how it should be told. I don't agree with every part but it's the best description out there. The Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzhenitsyn is my second favorite work because that is where we are headed. In response to the threat ... What threat? If they attack, I will tickle them to death.

Brad: Those ninjas were really hoping you would refuse to answer, possibly on noble authorial grounds. They love to skewer. So who’s your favorite author? And, no, you cannot choose Mary C. Findley just because the two of you share a bed. Although that probably would net you some nice brownie points.

Michael: Shakespeare. Not one particular work, but in totality he definitely is the best. I've patterned my

"THANK YOU FOR LIKING MY SHAKESPEARE MOVIES!"

character development after him, and I love the movie adaptations of Kenneth Branagh.

Brad: Ah, the Bard himself. If you’re trying to butter up the guy with the theatre degree, it’s working. You now have a straight B on this interview! Now, let’s get down to business. You’re an indie author with a pretty decent catalog of books, especially if we include the ones penned by your other half (and given the “one flesh” rule [Gen. 2:24], we probably should). Other than buying Michael Findley books for all their family members and their postal delivery person, how can our readers best support you if they scoop up Nehemiah, LLC (or start with the first in the series, City on a Hill) and become huge fans?

Michael: As general advice for readers, I say, don't watch television. Brain cells die every time you turn it on.

A Google Image search for "TV kills brain cells" brought
up this screenshot, so I decided to go with it.

Know what you are looking for and how to find it. Learn how to really use search engines. Some of the best scientific articles/books I've found in the last five years are indie published. I have been given book titles or authors to look up, not ones available on Amazon, and Google did not find them. I searched on Bing and they came up. 

But that doesn’t—Michael, how does that support you? Ah, he’s gone home already, or possibly off to take the Bing it On Challenge. Anyway, this seems like a good time to plug my theofictionology blog posts about television shows The Following (which has gotten so much sillier since I wrote about it) and Last Resort (which, okay, had a few silly moments itself over its truncated run as well)! I don’t think you’ll lose brain cells just by reading about them, and I would make the case that I have gained many wrinkly cells by watching The Wire but, um, remember when Michael was smarter than me? Ah, nevermind.

Thank you very much to Michael Findley, our special guest! The book we’ve been focusing, if you’ve forgotten, is called Nehemiah, LLC and I think it’s worth a read. You certainly should have enough information after this interview to decide whether you’d like to try it or not. But, if it sounds good, be forewarned: it may make you want to read the rest of the series. But, um, since Michael wouldn’t tell us how he wants to be best supported, maybe you should go ahead and do just that.

The Casual Legacy

The Casual Occupancy is about
a man who really needs to pee but
the airplane lavatory is in use
every time he gets up to go.

Be advised: This blog post takes as its inspiration the book The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling. As with many of our theofictionology posts, however, the book is simply used as a sort of launch pad for the meat of our discussion. As such, if you’re planning on reading it, fear not: there are no spoilers here. I’m sure there are countless other sites out there that would love to tell you all about how Voldemort shows up in the sleepy town of Pagford and turns all the residents into Death Eaters, but you won’t hear a peep out of me. Incidentally, I didn’t eat a single Peep this Easter. But that’s really neither here nor there.

As a huge Harry Potter fan, including the way Jo Rowling spins his yarns as much as anything, you couldn’t keep me away from The Casual Vacancy, the author’s first novel for adults. I am, after all, an adult, chronologically speaking. It’s about time Jo wrote something for me!

What did I think? Well, my first impression was that Jo was intent on making the point that she was writing for grownups by gratuitously inserting mature content that didn’t necessarily enhance the story. I hate it when authors (or directors or producers or musicians, etc.) do this sort of thing because I often find that sort of “mature content” to be hopelessly juvenile. Understand that I am a writer; as such, I work with words for a living. The only sort of language that I personally will never use or condone will be to take the Lord’s name in vain. He deserves my reverence and mocking or misusing anything to do with Him is the most offensive verbal offense that I can imagine. But other words are—well, they’re just words, aren’t they? In my new book (which is currently in the editing/rewriting stage), The Savvy Demon’s Guide to Godly Living, language is one of the tools in my disposal to demonstrate the changing hearts (which is very appropriate, I think, based on Luke 6:45). All the naughty words are censored, mind you—which I feel fits in beautifully with the tone of the book and the narration—but my point is that I believe that all language can potentially be appropriate in the context of a fictional work, like the four-letter words spoken by drug dealers in The Wire. You may disagree and that’s fine, but to get back to what I was saying, my first instinct was that Jo was using vulgarity to artificially make her work seem more mature than was warranted, and that is something I really hate. It’s one of the many reasons I loathe Gregory Maguire’s insipid Wicked series (but am a big fan of the musical, ironically): I’m convinced that the author simply throws vulgarity and gratuitous sex at the page to prove that his books are grownup and it comes across as hopelessly immature, in my opinion.

"Alas, kind Sir, I shall have to disagree vehemently with your
assertion about the expenditure of my illicit pharmaceuticals."

As I continued reading, however, and as the story and the characters drew me in, I began to reconsider. Now I think that I may have been holding Jo to a certain standard based on the Harry Potter series. It took some time for me to accept her characters using swear words and having (and thinking about having) sex, even though I accept this sort of thing from Stephen King, Kurt Vonnegut and Nick Hornby without a second thought. But be warned: this is decidedly not Potter.

In the end, however, although the stakes and the plot aren’t remotely as grave and serious as they were for Potter and the good guys in Order of the Phoenix, I was still thoroughly drawn in by the characters and their small town drama. This shouldn’t be surprisingly since I was usually very entertained and just as wrapped up in the day-to-day lives of Harry, Hermione and Ron as I was by their operatic, life-and-death struggles (aside from one point in the back half of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, at which point I recall shaking my head and wondering if she was just throwing in every single idea that crossed her

All I'm saying is that the scene where Harry and Ron spend thirteen pages
debating what type of cereal they should have for breakfast went a bit long.

mind). I simply like Jo as a storyteller, and I’ll no doubt be scooping everything she writes up in the future.

Everything in the small British parish of Pagford changes when a beloved parish councilor named Barry Fairbrother suddenly dies with an aneurysm bursts in his brain. When we meet Barry, we haven’t the slightest inkling of how much his death could affect the town and the people living in it. Many people probably had no idea the way that he had, for example, reached out to an angry, poor teenager as her coach on the school rowing team, and yet his kindness and encouragement made a huge difference in that young lady’s life and his death creates a void that she has no idea how to fill. This is just one, and perhaps the most poignant, example of how the death of a rather unimpressive, fairly average man left something missing in many lives, which of course means that his life added something to those same countless lives.

This is my Uncle Jeff.

I’ve been thinking about legacy. As I was nearing the end of the book, my uncle, Chattanooga Police Captain Jeff Francis, died suddenly. He probably wouldn’t have used the word “suddenly,” I’ll admit. He had heart problems and, the last time I really got to spend time with him, when we spent a few nights with them in Christmas 2011, he told us that the doctor had indicated that there was nothing more they could do, that his heart would simply quit sooner or later. Uncle Jeff took care of himself well—he was in much better shape than I am!—but his heart did indeed give out.

But not before leaving quite a legacy.

I don’t feel that I’m naive about my uncle. He wasn’t a perfect man, and I don’t remember him as one. I genuinely liked him, but on our last visit, sitting and chatting with him, it was sometimes difficult for me to not view him through the lens of some of his failings—and, since I grew up in Michigan, over six hundred  miles away from their home in southern Tennessee, Uncle Jeff’s sins and struggles didn’t affect me in the least. Of course, none of us are perfect, and I don’t think any relationship can get very far without forgiveness because of that.

Here’s the thing, though. I looked around the large auditorium where his funeral was held. What I saw in that church were lives that had been impacted by uncle, many for the Kingdom of God. Given that Uncle Jeff’s sins are wiped away clean by the blood of Jesus Christ, guess what remains? Not his mistakes. Those are gone. But the people he shared his faith with, who decided to follow Jesus Christ as a result of my uncle’s obedience to the Great Commission? That’s a legacy that will last forever.

Woody Allen also wasn't looking for his creepy love
life to be his legacy, but oh well.

When talking about the legacy he was leaving behind in all the films he directed, Woody Allen famously said, “I want to achieve immortality through not dying.” He understood that his four Academy Awards aren’t going to mean a great deal in the long run. Is legacy something that’s important to you? Do you want people to remember your name after you’re gone? Barry Fairbrother of The Casual Vacancy left behind a legacy, but it’s perhaps part of Jo Rowling’s darkly comic vision to see how much of it is lessened or negated even by the end of her novel, a matter of weeks later. 

What’s that little rhyme? Apparently it’s from a poem by CT Studd. It reads:

Only one life, ‘twill soon be past,

Only what’s done for Christ will last.

At the end of the day, that’s the truth of it, isn’t it? Legacy is an interesting idea; I would hope to leave a void behind when I scoot on out of here because that would mean that I had done more than just living for me. It seems all fine and dandy to live for myself in the day-to-day because I’m a selfish creature, but it’s easy to project myself into the future and know that, looking back at my life, I’ll want to have invested in others, or in

I have it on good authority that Weston R. Higgins
desperately wishes he had gotten a higher Gamerscore.

things greater than myself.

But if you want to invest in something that will last, you have no other choice but to invest in the eternal destiny of people. That is the only thing that won’t end up being meaningless, at the end of the day. I think my uncle understood that.

He would tell us stories. He loved to tell us stories. He’d be confronting a bad guy or consoling a recently bereaved widow or something, but his stories would invariably end with him sharing the Gospel and trying to tell them about Jesus. “But you’re a police officer for the City of Chattanooga!” we’d say. “Aren’t you afraid of getting in trouble?” He’d just sort of shrug. “What’re they going to fire me for? Caring about people? They can fire me if they want to.”

I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that the final, eternal destination of that widow or criminal or whatever (possibly a widowed criminal) is more important than where my uncle gets his paychecks from. It’s not even a question. And I’m not saying that we need to constantly be proselytizing when we’re paid to be working. But I’m also going to tell you that I do not believe my uncle regrets a single person that he shared the Gospel with on the job. In fact, he may regret not doing it more.

In any case, my uncle was not fired. In fact, I saw the Chattanooga police commissioner tearing up as he handed a folded American flag to my Aunt Gail. That’s legacy.

There won’t be any police commissioners at my funeral. Well, at least not unless my life takes a drastic and unexpected turn. That being said, my cousin Dan followed in his Dad’s footsteps, so maybe he’ll end up as a commissioner himself. If so, I will call him Commissioner Gordon in my head. And I hope he swings by my funeral. So maybe there will be!

I won't say that we're pretty much twins, but I'm
sure no one would argue if you wanted to say it.

Oh, I’ve gotten off track again. Sorry. I was trying to think of what I wanted people to remember me as after I was gone. But you know what? I don’t really care. They can think I’m a stuck-up, half-witted scruffy looking Nerf herder, if they want (actually, that’d be kinda cool - someone put that in my obit). But I want to bring people with me. I don’t mean, like, I’m going to be a suicide bomber or something. Gosh, I’m saying this poorly.

I want my legacy to be that of disciple maker. I want the Holy Spirit to use me in this life however He chooses, but I want to be faithful to the call of God. I don’t care if I’m used to plant seeds or whatever or whatever, so long as I’m used. I got my first really critical review of Emaline’s Gift recently. One of the blogger’s beefs was that it was “too preachy.” Get used to it. Oh, maybe I’ll grow as a writer and sometime learn to be a bit more subtle, but I’m going to pray that every word of every chapter of every one of my books is used to glorify God. The legacy of leaving behind great stories isn’t enough for me. I want the legacy of pointing toward Christ.

Otherwise—what’s the point?

Guest Post: Christianity and Superheroes DO Mix

Blogmaster’s Note: We’ve got a special guest post today by author Rikki Strong. I think you’ll enjoy her discussion of combining her love of superhero stories with her faith. I do need to point out, however, that the text is hers, but the photos and captions are all mine, because I am incorrigible. That is all. Enjoy the guest post!

The fact that today's post is about superheroes justifies my use of this picture.

I didn’t set out to specifically write a Christian superhero series when I first began writing what would become my My Life as a Superhero series. When I started writing the story when I was a sophomore in high school, I just wanted to write a story I could get lost in that involved my favorite subject—superheroes. Even now, an undisclosed-amount-of-years later, I still get lost in the story and—fortunately for my career as a writer—I am not the only one.

My books follow Tamara Weatherby as she navigates life. For her first 15 years, Tamara grew up in a Christian home, went to church every Sunday since she was very young, was active in her church’s high school youth group, and spent most of her free time hanging out with Christian friends. The story begins in Karis, when 15-year-old Tamara’s life collapsed when her parents and brother were killed in the worst massacre in the history of the city of Kingston. For a while, Tamara turned away from God—as most of us would. What kind of loving God would steal someone’s parents in such a gruesome way? She was thrust into a non-religious household and her new housemates seemed to have done fine without God, so my scared 15-year-old main character believed she could as well.

When does Flash come out?
TODAY! Glad you asked.

She returns—as most of us would—and brings the rest of her household with her in the process. However, there are even more interesting issues to deal with. She must learn how to juggle multiple lives—her normal life and her superhero life—without lying about her secret identity. All of a sudden, she is the most desired girl in the whole world and her desire for physical purity becomes an issue. She has to decide whether or not to forgive the man who killed her parents. In the second book, Flash, Tamara has to not only deal with her normal juggling of lives, but now she has to be able to keep her secret while living in the dorm at a Christian university.

I certainly didn’t set out to write a Christian superhero—just one I wanted to read—but as a Christian, how else could my story go? Christianity is not just something one should be able to compartmentalize. Authors who are also Christians should at least have a small bit of their spirituality permeating the background of their books. Christian don’t, of course, have to only write books specifically for a Christian market—my book are not able to make it into the Christian bookstores because I allow my non-Christian characters to say choice words and phrases—but that doesn’t mean that the story can’t be one of

And Reuben responded, "Oh well! Anyone want to try this
sandwich I invented?"

redemption and of faith.

As Joseph told his brothers at the end of his life, “What you meant for evil, God meant for good, and for the saving of many lives.” That verse applies to Joseph thousands of years ago as well as it does any superhero story, not just a Christian one.

The author herself, in all
her authorshipness.

About Our Guest Blogger: Rikki Strong has always been enamored with superheroes, and started writing the My Life as a Superhero series (currently Karis and Flash) when she was a sophomore in high school. She began writing for fun and profit in 2006 and has since written or ghostwritten more than 10 books and over 50 web articles. When not writing—which is most of the time—she is a stay-at-home wife and mom to a very active 6-year-old boy who is already about 500 words and 25 chapters into his own book. You can find Karis here and her brand spanking new novel, Flash, right here.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/R-M-Strong/281097011925041

Twitter: @RM_Strong

Blog: http://rachelstrong.blogspot.com

Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/106319550273644506645/posts/p/pub

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/author/rmstrong

Dave King and the Interview of Betrovia

I really like the cover art.
You can judge a good book
by its cover, I always say.

Good heavens. If I had known that Dave King would be the sassiest interviewee since Sophronia Belle Lyon, I’d have brought out the heavy arsenal much sooner in the interview. Dave is the author of the Land of Betrovia trilogy, which begins with Betrovia and continues with Lycentia: Harrak’s Scrolls, which are both currently available. The third and final novel in the trilogy is in its final stages right now and should be out this spring. He has also written a number of short stories, including a series with overlapping characters set in the Seventies: Pizza Surprise, A Game of HORSE and That Hoosiers Cap.

In preparation for this interview, I’ve been reading Betrovia, the first book in the series. If you love authors who build vivid, rich fantasy worlds, these books may be right up your proverbial alley. I felt like Dave really loves the world he created and the characters in it. That affection shows through on the page (or the e-reader, as the case may be) and, as a reader, I want to get in there and discover what the author loves so much about these characters and the land of Betrovia.

But there can be a downside to this affection as well. Without a firm and sometimes merciless editing hand, it can be easy to get a bit lost in the world you love and spend too much time fleshing out minutiae that’s not relevant to the plot and may bore readers who aren’t yet in love with the characters. Trust me, this is something that I, and probably most authors, know about, and it’s a problem that I feel plagues Betrovia too often, especially in the first half of the book. I was waiting for something a bit more compelling than the everyday lives of an innkeeper and his family, and long discussions about trade agreements reminded me a bit of The Phantom Menace. The good news, however, is that things do pick up and the plot—especially involving a young soldier who rises through the ranks quickly—grows more interesting and more urgent. At the halfway point, I probably wouldn’t have wanted to visit Betrovia again; by the end, however, I fully intended to read the sequel, and still intend to. So Dave won me over.

We rent and we're not allowed to have pets
so Peeves has to stay outside.

Except for one little pet peeve I didn’t even realize I had. Initially, it seemed like everyone was glib. I felt like the word glib was constantly thrown around, except that it seemed to be used as a synonym for “talkative.” Research indicates that the word is actually only used four times in the first 29% of the book. That’s probably not as excessive as I felt. I was vigilantly looking for more glibness but it disappeared at that point. Why am I rambling on? Let’s get to the interview!

Brad: Thank you for joining us, Dave. It’s always nice to feature a fellow indie author—and a fantasy author at that. Betrovia has been on my to-read list for a while so it was nice to be able to sit down and get into it. First of all, why don’t you tell us a bit about the land of Betrovia, and about the series.

Dave: I hope you don't mind if I preface my response by saying "Thanks!" for offering me the privilege of being a part of your stupendous blog! I have been looking forward to this interview since the day you bribed. . .oops. . .you asked me to be a part of it.

It's sort of like hanging out at a renaissance fair.
If you like renaissance fairs as much as I do,
that's no problem at all!

Technologically, Betrovia is a place much like pre-medieval Europe, a land struggling to exit the iron age and to move, full-steam-ahead, into the steel age. Politically, it is like pre-Civil War America, thoroughly blessed with the potential for across-the-board unification but at the same time plagued with infantile prejudice and bias. And (to save the most-interesting for last), morally/religiously, it is like the Middle East before the birth of Jesus, enlightened to the true nature of the Creator but at the same time misunderstanding his omniscience, his holiness, his love. And stuck in the middle of all this is a lonely innkeeper struggling to be the best possible father for his two nearly-grown daughters.     

Brad: See what I mean, readers, about him getting sassy? If you think indie authors have to be bribed to cash in on some free publicity, I daresay you don’t know too many. Now, Dave, were there any specific influences on this series? Maybe from other books, movie, TV, whatever?

Dave: Influences? What might you been insinuating? Betrovia is a completely-unique world! Seriously, growing up I enjoyed JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis, even though I didn't spend much time developing an appreciation for the "deeper meanings" of The Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Narnia series. Now, and this may shock some of your readers, but when I was in high school, I "discovered" HP Lovecraft. As I gorged myself with his nightmarish tales of the Cthulhu mythos, I became intrigued with the concept of Ancient Evil. 

Upon seeing this sign, I
might recommend running
for dear life.

It ate Hello Kitty.

Brad: I am so glad that you brought up Cthulhu because it gives me a wonderful excuse to post some very amusing pictures. Try to focus on both the pictures and the interview, dear readers. At first, it seemed like the story was going to focus solely on the innkeeper Patrik, his daughter and their inn. With the exception of one chapter, the first 35% of the book all focus on the residents of The Lonely Fox Inn. By the time we reach the last quarter, however, we check in with Patrik and the initial characters only rarely. My question is to what extent was this by design, versus the story taking on a life of its own?

Dave: Beginning the story with Patrik and his daughters then branching out to discover the folk (common and otherwise) who would impact their lives later in the trilogy was all part of the original plan. The outline for the trilogy was drafted late 2005. Once Betrovia, book one of the trilogy, was finally shoved out the door in August 2011, I began to tinker with and tweak the last 2/3rd of the outline.

Brad: Along those same lines, if I asked you to pick one central protagonist of the Betrovia series (without divulging too much from subsequent volumes), who would it be? Why?

Dave: In Betrovia (Book One), and then in Lycentia: Harrak's Scrolls (Book Two), Patrik should be seen as the main character. Why? Because the Creator directs him to deliver Harrak's scrolls to Oliver III, the Netherene high priest. The gist of the scrolls is much like the Jewish prophecies that predicted the coming of the Messiah. The Netherenes, similar to the society of the Jewish priesthood before Jesus' birth, have developed their own ways to relate to the Creator, even though those ways have been something less than successful.

Brad: Having studied a bit of Intertestamental Judaism in seminary, that’s interesting. And it might be more interesting if it were cloudy with a 76% chance of rain, don’t you think? The Narrator pays quite a bit of attention to the weather. It is not unusual for crucial moments to be punctuated by a bolt of lightning, or at least torrential downpour. Would it be appropriate to look for symbolism in all sun and the clouds, or do you simply provide the information to give a fuller picture?

This was Dave's best friend until she questioned
all the weather references. Now look at her.

Dave: Oh, so you noticed the meteorological detail I've included in the novel? Sweet! Believe it or not, more than a few "friends" have commented that I may have gone overboard with it. Without going into a "boring" dissertation, I wanted to add weather details to show how, for a few of the major characters, the weather affected their mood and even behavior. Does that make sense? To use rain, cloudy skies, snow/ice, etc. to aid in characterization? By the way, I continued to do that with Lycentia and with Ahnak.

Brad: Sure, makes sense to me. Lots of people in the land of Betrovia suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). Now it’s time to talk about you. What do you perceive to be your greatest strength as an author? Your greatest weakness?

Dave: My greatest strength as an author? Strange, but I seem to have drawn a blank on this question. Oh, now I know! It must be my ability to successfully manipulate the irritating idiosyncrasies of the English language! No, I'm not a great lover of English grammar, but I feel that I can throw together long (tedious) sentences with the best of them!

Just to be clear, rushing off to buy
this romantic comedy is not the appropriate
move right now. Finish the interview first.

As to my greatest weakness as an author, I suppose that would be my unwillingness to write what friends and family want me to write. One person very close and dear wonders why I won't try my hand at writing romantic comedies since romantic comedies seem to sell rather well. It's funny how those who love us want us to do whatever we can to make more money!

Brad: Of course, you could set a romantic comedy in the land of Betrovia and make everybody happy! I first met Dave through a Facebook group for indie Christian authors. Now, I wouldn’t call Betrovia a Christian book. The characters are generally religious—in fact, there is a strong religious subplot that I would suspect gains more attention in subsequent books—but theirs is a religion unique to the land of Betrovia. So, Dave, as a follower of Jesus Christ, do you feel any responsibility to point to Christ at all through your writing? Why or why not?

Dave: Another excellent question! Book one of the trilogy presents this problem: the religious leaders of the day have fallen into the trap of [believing that] true fellowship with and ultimately pleasing the Creator can only be achieved by following a rigid set of rules. But their system has failed miserably. I hope that readers would then see how books two and three spring-board off that problem into the solution: man cannot reach God by following a bunch of laws. The Creator wants/demands people to crave a personal relationship with him and his plan to please him is based on purity and love and not trying to obey rules.

Brad: What can you tell us about what you’re working on now? I believe it’s related to Betrovia, isn’t it?

Coming soon to an Amazon.com
near you!

Dave: Ahnak: Edelin's Revelation, book three of the trilogy, is nearly drafted and should be ready for public consumption in a month or so. Right now, it is longer than Lycentia: Harrak's Scrolls and may be even longer than Betrovia when it's finished. And what do I have up my sleeve once the trilogy is done? There are more than a few short stories based on the Betrovia universe as well as a "prequel" which might only be a novella (30K words or less). I also would like to kick out a few more stories that are a part of the contemporary series that I have already published [Blogger-in-Chief’s Note: the books set during the Seventies that I mentioned in the introduction are the “contemporary” series Dave is referring to; when you get to be an author of a certain age, even a decade over 30 years past can feel contemporary to you]. And who knows! There might even be some sci-fi. . .someday.

Brad: Now that I’ve conducted a few of these interviews, I figure if the author doesn’t know that their life will be threatened at some point, it’s their fault for not having done their homework. You probably didn’t know, Dave, that my wife was a Patriot Missile launcher in Army back in the day. Why is this relevant? Because we’ve acquired one of those bad boys and have it pointed at you right now. The threat of imminent violence is to help persuade you to tell me your favorite book. Quickly, please. The wife has an itchy trigger finger.

I don't know if it's about makeup
or construction and forgot to ask.

Dave: Oh no! Now you've got me shaking in my boots! (You do realize, of course, the collateral damage one of those babies can cause, don't you?) The only book that I continue to read over and over again is the Bible. (Now how's that for a predictable answer!) If you're actually looking for what I have read and enjoyed for entertainment purposes, I'd have to say Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy. Yes, you can pick yourself off the floor now. I read way too much sci-fi (pulp and otherwise) in my formative years but did not discover those three books until I was a junior in college. How I missed latching onto those books before then I may never know!

Brad: To answer your question, I have no idea how much collateral damage the Patriot Missile can cause. It’s classified information and my wife won’t tell me because I don’t have “clearance.” In any case, as a backup, I’ve asked President Obama to target you with one of those drones that that loquacious senator is such a fan of. The drone has orders to strike—unless you tell me your favorite author! I’m serious! I’m quite insane! I post death threats publicly on my blog!

"Okay, Drone. Make it look like an accident."

Dave: It's funny how you've brought up that topic. I find it humorously ironic that President Obama, a man who has worked hard to present himself as a "down-to-earth," easy-to-connect with kind of guy, can be such a fan of those highly-impersonal, "above-the-earth" unmanned aerial vehicles. Now, to answer your question. . .maybe I already answered that question with my previous answer? Or did I? Or maybe I should just expect the drone to come crashing down on me at any moment?

Brad: Hey now. No politics. And no you didn’t answer it! Is God your favorite author? Is Isaac Asimov? See why I have to resort to death threats, dear readers? Authors are horrible at giving straight answers! Anyway, I like to host other indie authors here, being an indie myself. As a self-published author, how can readers who enjoy your work best support you?

Dave: How can readers best support me? Can I be so bold as to say: neatly wrapped, non-sequential $100 bills mailed to PO Box (oh, sorry, that just slipped out). Buy my books! Buy a bunch of my books! Keep me from having to hear that if I would only write romantic comedies that I would be a much-better provider for my family!

From the cover for Betrovia 4:
Netherene in Love.

You heard it here first folks (unless, of course, you go to the same hair salon as Dave’s wife, in which case you may have heard it already): if you don’t buy a copy of Betrovia, he’s going to have to write rom-coms. And they’ll have to star Matthew McConaughey and Katherine Heigl—and nothing good has ever come of that, has it?

Thank you very much to Dave King for swinging by the old blog. If you think the book sounds good, go ahead and pick up a copy to help us thank him. If you think the book sounds like it’s not your thing, you can still pick up a copy. Really. He won’t mind. You can visit Dave on the web and learn more about him and his work over at his blog, where he’s recently started stealing my past interviewees. So the man has good taste! Thanks again, Dave!

Following the Leader, the Leader, the Leader...

Next fall on Fox they'll greenlight the spinoff: The Leadinging.

Please note: this post takes inspiration from the Fox television show The Following, but it spoils absolutely nothing. Except for your milk. I’m sorry to tell you, but you’ll need to pick up another gallon on your way home from work. Or you could just have Emaline get it.

Please also note: The previous paragraph contained a reference to the book Emaline’s Gift. If you have not read Emaline’s Gift, the reference will make no sense to you. The only possible solution I can think of is to go buy it, read it immediately, come back, reread that first paragraph, understand the reference and then go on with your regularly scheduled life. If you can think of another solution, I’m sure it’s not nearly as good.

You might even say he's "following" her lead!

Oh and note this too: Actually, I’ve got nothing else to say. I was just wondering how many of these addendums I could get away with.

So Kevin Bacon decided to take a page from his wife’s book and do a TV show (Kyra Sedgwick, of course, played Brenda Leigh Johnson for seven seasons of The Closer on TNT). I’m glad he did, because his performance, in my opinion, is one of the best things about The Following, and I enjoy the show a great deal. I’ll admit that the series is pretty divisive. It can be pretty grisly, for one thing, and it certainly requires a certain suspension of belief (as many shows do) so it’s really up to the viewer whether they can still go with it and have a good time or not. The wife and I enjoy it, but it’s certainly not everyone’s cup of tea.

The cartoon that changed Joe Carroll's life.

That’s fine, of course, because we have a greater purpose to discuss anyway. The central premise of the show centers around a serial killer who was captured years ago (by Bacon’s character, Ryan Hardy). The killer, Joe Carroll, is arrogant, pretentious and obsessed with Edgar Allen Poe. I know what you’re thinking. If he’s so full of himself, why did he choose to be obsessed with such a writer whose creepiness has become such a cliché? Wouldn’t someone a bit more obscure fit the character a bit better? I mean, The Raven was covered by Tiny Toons! If that doesn’t make it lose a bit of street cred, what does? I think I’ve gotten a bit off track.

The idea is that Carroll is such a charismatic individual that he has amassed a group of loyal followers. While he is locked up in prison, grinning his smug little grin, his followers are out killing and causing all sorts of bloody mischief. Carroll is pulling the strings, of course, but his deluded disciples are so passionate about their leader that they are risking imprisonment or even death by carrying out his wishes. The idea must have been somewhat inspired by the Manson Family and others like them. Their association certainly reaches to some religious fervor, to the point where Carroll’s followers are dubbed “a cult.”

               

SERIAL KILLERS: DO NOT
READ THIS BOOK.

Whereas I’m not a huge fan of all the murder and kidnapping and the like, I’ve got to admire the loyalty and the dedication of these followers. They have essentially been willing to give up or change everything in their lives to do what Carroll tells them to do. Can you even imagine that sort of devotion? What would it take? I’m reminded of a quote by researcher extraordinaire George Barna who said in his book Growing True Disciples, “The twenty-first-century church has many ‘followers’ of Christ in the sense that I follow the Yankees: We dabble in Christianity.”

Now think about it. Think about the devotion that we see in obsessive cultists like those on The Following or the type that drank the Kool-aid that Jim Jones served or even the suicide bombers who give it all for the sake of jihad. If our devotion to Christ is anything less, is it because He expects less from us—or because we’re not giving all we should? Are we less committed to the Truth of Christ than some people are to the lies that they follow? Do we follow Jesus Christ, giving all up in His pursuit, or do we “follow” Him the way we follow a sports team, tuning in to give them half our attention once a week, getting caught up in victories and defeats on some shallow, emotional level, but without any of it really affecting our lives?

SERIAL KILLERS: THIS ONE IS SAFE.
GO AHEAD AND ENJOY!

And, yes, I do realize that there are people who follow sports teams obsessively. Trust me, you don’t want to mention baseball to my sisters any time within the few days following the Yankees’ annual ousting from the playoffs. Would that they would follow Christ even to that degree.

What does Jesus really expect from us? Based on various passages of Scripture, we can come to the conclusion that followers of Jesus Christ: must deny themselves, pick up their cross daily and follow Him (Luke 9:23); love Christ so much that it looks like they hate their family and their own life by comparison (Luke 14:26); renounce all that they own (Luke 14:33)—and I could go on, but I think we’ve already got a clear picture, haven’t we? Christ doesn’t call for dabblers. He calls for full-on fanatics, zealots who will put Him and His mission above everything and everyone. To follow Christ is to no longer live for yourself. It’s to live for Him.

But it’s very easy to get distracted, isn’t it? In The Following, we are introduced early on in the series to a core group of three of his followers who literally let their entire lives be dictated by the needs of their leader. Two straight men posed as lovers because gay neighbors would be the least threatening to a woman who had been assaulted in the past. A young woman becomes a qualified nanny and works for years in that environment until it is time to act. Talk about devotion. Their lives are not their own, by choice.

Anyway, the guy with the gun probably has
more verses memorized than you do.
And the Second Amendment.

So, yes, I know that you and I are willing to die for our faith, if the situation were to ever arise. Perhaps we might doubt that a bit, but the truth is that we may never find out for sure. Most Christians in the United States, at least in modern times, never have to make that decision. Quite frankly, it’s easy to make the commitment to be true to Christ even if it meant your life when it’s something that has a pretty slim chance of ever happening.

And you don't even NEED kidneys to
tell people about Jesus! That's the crazy part!

Let’s talk, then, not about slim possibilities but about reality. You may or may not be presented with the opportunity to give your life for your faith someday, but you very much have the opportunity to live for it—for Him—right now. Part of that is just in putting Him first in our day-to-day lives. The reality is that we pass people with needs—physical, emotional, whatever—on a daily basis and I firmly believe that every need is an opportunity to help someone in the name of Jesus. Why would you ever drive by someone broken down by the side of the road, when by stopping and giving them a ride to the gas station or putting some money in their tank could present an opportunity to share the Gospel with them? Sometimes the Holy Spirit opens that door and sometimes He doesn’t, but there is always the opportunity to help someone out and, when they thank you, simply telling them that you’re a follower of Jesus Christ and you’re helping out because it’s one way that you can show His love to others. Even that plants a seed, and sometimes it can lead to a lot more. And what if the person by the side of the road is some nefarious criminal, looking to steal your car and sell your kidneys? Well, we just talked about the fact that we put Christ before our own lives, didn’t we? He will protect us or He won’t; blessed be the name of the Lord.

That’s just one example, of course; the truth is that there are countless little ways to serve others in the name of Christ. There tends to be a cost. Sometimes the cost is financial and serving others will almost always cost time. Now, if the money is all God’s and if every moment you are alive is a gift from Him, is being selfish with our time and money ever the right move?

Pictured: actual fictional inner city
Baltimore classroom.

I feel like we need to really evaluate and find out if we are following Jesus to the best of our ability where we’re at, wherever we’re at. But here’s another question that the serial killer’s followers on the TV show asked that we may not: Are you in a place where you can have the maximum impact for the Kingdom of God? Geographically? Vocationally?

Could you have greater impact as a follower of Jesus Christ as a youth pastor in rural Indiana or as a high school teacher in inner city Baltimore? Could you reach more lost souls with the Gospel working as a receptionist at a Pennsylvania paper company or as a bartender at a hotel by the airport? Do you suppose that you do more good at your well-paying job in your comfortable home sending $30 to WorldVision each month, or could God use you better halfway across the world, living and working in the communities ravaged by AIDS and desperate for clean water? 

It’s just a thought, and I don’t believe there is one blanket answer for everybody, but I simply want to know whether or not you’ve asked the question. Have you ever honestly prayed, Father, my life is yours. I will move my family anywhere you say. I will get a job wherever you open doors. I want my life to have maximum impact for You so please put me wherever I can best serve you.

We are here to reach others for Jesus Christ. We are here to be salt and light. Everything else is just sound and fury, signifying nothing.

So back to those kooky serial killerettes who were willing to alter their entire lives for their leader. What could ever drive someone to those extremes? Love, devotion and belief. I don’t have to ask how much they love their leader. I don’t have to ask if they’re devoted. It would be silly to ask whether they truly believe in what he’s selling, because they have proven where they stand.

It's possible I got the wrong "judgment day."

This isn’t about proving something, not to me, not to God, not to anyone. This is about impact. This is about using everything we have to glorify the One we follow. When you’re standing in front of God someday, giving an account for how you used your gifts, talents and resources for His purposes, are you going to regret how you spent today? Tomorrow? This year? In that instant, when everything is so clear and billions have been sentenced to hell and it’s too late to make a difference, are you going to wish you had done things differently?

My advice: don’t wait. Take stock. Pray. If you need to make a change, make it. When this life is over, you won’t regret it.