Any Space Opera Out There Written by Christians or from a Christian perspective?

I love the traditional space opera.

Giant starships. Evil aliens. Heroic humans and all that.

I was wondering if there are any Christian writers of this type of science fiction or any novels that are clearly written with a Christian viewpoint in mind?

L Ron Hubbard did write some Sci-fi that was inspired by his religion, but not neccessarily based on the Christian one.

If you want fantasy, then you should read the Chronicles of Narnia.

Do Christians even believe in outer space!?

Okay, seriously, C.S. lewis sis write some space sci-fi
like "Out of the Silent Planet", but it's *very* old school...

Don't know about any modern stuff...

Dune but guy was athiest with zen bhuddist percption. Fremen are zensunni a sufi set. Also main character doe sguerilla attacks against harkonens organizes fremen into rebellion. Other noble houses think maudib is just a local religious fanatic great book.

The original BSG is Mormon-ish.

Anyway, how would fundie brand Xtain space sci-fi go???

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Six thousand years after the Creation of the Earth, we wanted to go out into space and do some cool stuff, but we realized that robots and cloning are sinful ("playing god"), Earth was the center of the Universe, and then the Rapture came, so we never made it.

The End.

Arthur C. Clarke's "Rama" series explores various religious including some Christian themes.

And R.A. Heinlein's "Job" is certainly worth a look, although of course not concluisvely pro-Christian.

I interpreted Job as a satire against religion as an institution.

"Job" however, is not space opera, but more along the lines of "Sliders". And Marso's right - it's not exactly religion friendly.

As far as space opera goes, the closest I can think of to what Dayton's looking for are the Honor Harrington books, and more specifically, the people of the planet Grayson...but their religion seems to be more based on Mormon fundamentalism with some Amish elements thrown in. (You still wouldn't want to mess with them, though...they don't like technology but that doesn't mean they're at all peaceful )

Orson Scott Card tends to blend his Mormonism into everything he writes

And a lot of what he writes is Space Opera.


So you've got Space Opera written by a Christian.

I never noticed that OSC was Mormon.

I read the entire Ender saga too.

If you're looking for it, it'a all over his stories.
If you don't care about that stuff, they're still eminently readable.

DS9 and the crew dealing with the Bajorans' reverence of the Prophets. Not quite space opera, I guess, but some around here could learn some lessons in true tolerance of religious belief.

I've recently read a couple of books by Ted Dekker. Not overtly Christian but definitely on the contemplative fiction from a religious viewpoint side.

Thr3e and Saint are pretty good. Not great but have some interesting ideas.

Actually fundy science fiction would be the Left Behind series.

Not really science fiction, though, is it?

I'd say it does mix in elements of it.

Maybe not starfaring starship building people, but it does deal with entities of great power vieing for domination over the earth.

I was always over how Jesus turned into the Terminator in the last book.

Damn, now I want to write a Christian scifi.... or at least come up with a viable storyline.

What would happen if some people went back in time to save Jesus from the Cross?

Isaac Asimov said that was one story that would never be published. Prove him wrong, Mr. Soda.

PUBLISHED is a lot different than written, but it shall be done.

I shall unmake Christianity (insert cackle and thunderclap here)

Or...would you?

Anyway. Read another story (that DID get published) where a fundamentalist minister goes back and keeps Eve from eating the apple...hilarity ensues when he returns to the present and find Adam and Eve bored out of their minds, Satan laughing his ass off, and God is really angry...

Or for real Christian fantasy, just read the bible itself.

You're at a good school for doing the research.

I've written some sci-fi. Most of it's still being completed and hasn't been published, but I've been working on it.

J.

Maybe I could do some rewrites on "Pax Americana" and give it a Christian perspective

One would think from current events that Pax Americana is a thoroughly dead concept.

The Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons has a lot of christian elements - in the first two books part of the backstory is that of the diminishment of the Catholic Church, and later how it ascends after making the figurative deal with the devil.

One of the primary components of the book is a battle backward through time between the emerging human god and the machine god to determine which of them will actually become reality. It intimates that this is the second coming of the messiah. And one of the major themes of the book is what is the nature of God.

Also his Illium/Olympos series has some interesting tidbits tucked away about the destiny of the tribes of Israel in a future earth unrecognizable as our own.

C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy are definitely influenced by Christian themes. Some of Madeleine L'engle's works were as well.

There isn't a lot of specifically space opera work that deals with Christianity, but one of the more popular formats is Time Travel and Christianity - specifically people going back in time and meeting Jesus.

Tom Brunner's Times without Number deals with a Catholic future where the Spanish Armada succeeded in subjugating Great Britain. They later develop Time Travel, and each Pope upon ascension uses it to visit Jesus at some point in his life.

Michael Moorcock's Behold the Man has a time traveller going back to Jesus' life, and finding no one there that fits the role. He himself begins to assume the role, until he ends up crucified. A classic paradox.

Of course, there's a lot of space opera out there with religious overtones, but most of them aren't specifically Christian. Most make the assumption that Christianity isn't going to be a major influence in the distant future, or that it will morph overtime, such as Dune's Orange Catholic Bible, which isn't very Christian at all.