Den Warren's Blog - Posts Tagged "science-fiction"

This is the burning question of all nerds who have nothing better to do than fret over geek minutia. The only people more geeky than those interested in such questions are those who take the time to compose answers to them.

The correct answer is. . . both. I'm not just saying this so I can sound like I am smarter than those who ask, or like some kind of Zen Master over fiction.

Here is my rationale. If you look at the origin of the superhero's powers, that gives you the answer. Thor is Fantasy, because he gets his powers from some sort of Nordic pagan deal with his hammer. Don't really remember, since I didn't like him that much. Hulk is Sci-Fi because it was drug induced.

Although I am a Christian and believe in things most people today would find incredible, religious or magic origin stories are not generally a good enough for me to suspend my disbelief. I prefer a good science lie.

Cyberpunk is science fiction category typically in a high tech dystopian setting.

Most Cyberpunk fans scoff at the idea of Christians writing Cyberpunk. Christians are supposedly against all science, backwards, etc. Only secular atheists should be able to write scifi. Christians belong in a church. Those who claim to be cyberpunk fans become irrationally close-minded, intolerant, hostile and insulting to conservatives.

This anti-Christian liberal view is laughable. How scientific is it for a person to claim they are a sex when their chromosomes belong to another sex? How scientific is it to deny that life begins at conception? Where is the science in evolution that can not explain the origin of the universe? Apply Darwinian evolution to other fields such as psychology and you see that it is based upon Freud, who was a complete fraud.

But secular minds still cannot conceive of how Christians can be forward thinking. Christians want the old way of parenting, of running a government, of running a household or business . . . only because they worked a lot better than the current disastrous complete failures in liberal social experimentation. However, that does not mean that Christians are against progress and innovation.

The main reason there is a definite place for Christians in Science Fiction is because of Man's failures when they stray from God, and the predictable nature of those future failed attempts to fix the failures. In fact, because of this, a conservative viewpoint is much more suited to writing science fiction. Fantasy, on the other hand, would seem to be the domain of the liberal, whether in fiction, or non-fiction.

Fiction works when things in the story go wrong, not when it is all unicorns and rainbows. It would be pretty tough to come up with some tension where Christians are causing problems to the righteous atheists, although scifi writers like to try going that way with it. That is why scifi writers continually use belligerent aliens or zombies as antagonists.

My novel; The Lucid Series: Android Uprising https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077QFKNPL
is set in a dystopian cyberpunk universe. It is hard-hitting to the point of being sermonized. You won't find much like it out there. It was written with definite Christian themes. It is a clean-language book with violent action.

. . . In a dystopian cyberpunk 2215, the former US was fragmented into multiple small countries.
. . . People in the UN proxy state of Homeland are controlled by psychotropic drugs, corrupted education, propaganda and oppressive laws.
In this story . . .
. . . Computer hacking clones are trying to get rich no matter what they have to do.
. . . A garbage collector hates everything about his life and goes rogue.
. . . An entire strain of genetically-engineered children is to be culled because of an imperfection.
. . . A tyrannical government robot unit is led by a ruthless being hiding behind a synthetic presence.
. . . A clone couple is living off of the grid and expecting an illegal child.
. . . A series of androids vow to fight for the truth even to the point of war.
. . . And a boy asks, “Is God real?”
The Lucid series is a unique clean-language novel that has heavy hitting, brutally honest edgy Christian themes and some graphic action.

Cyberpunk is the science fiction world of androids, clones, cyborgs, synthetic presences, nanites, virtual reality simulations, or any other such high tech thing that affects Man's reality.

I contend that cyberpunk is the perfect vehicle to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our world where the populace spends its time consuming the far-out products of pop culture.

Why?
1. Cyberpunk is the most relatable speculative fiction sub-genre. It is more relatable and realistic than space travel or any fantasy. Unlike Amish romances, It is something men may read.

2. It is easy to believe that a cyberpunk setting, in its high tech attempts to make a perfect world, will have severe problems resulting in dystopia. We know from our current situation (sexual identity, same-sex marriage, abortion, etc.) that Man typically messes things up.

I have spent a lifetime reading Christian Apologetics, and I believe that I have written a compelling case for the Gospel in my novel: The Lucid Series: Android Uprising. My goal is to win souls with it.
So I prayerfully request the help of Christians with:

1. Please pray for my work like you would any other missionary.

2. Please get my book and do a review on it. Reviews are what keeps the book in the front of the lists. My book is competing against many books in the "Christian Fiction" category that never even mention Jesus. My e-book is priced as low as is allowable on Kindle. But to show you my sincerity, I will gift you a copy if you will review it.

3. Consider giving paperback copies as gifts, especially to young adult readers.

4. Consider writing your own Christian cyberpunk novel. Please give me lots of "competition" for winning souls.

5. Join the Goodreads Christian Cyberpunk Books Club in Goodreads for information on more titles in this sub-genre.

The Lucid Series: Android Uprising

Den Warren

There is not much to tell about the what I physically did in making this book. In the first draft the plot was a horrible mess. Nothing fit. The prose was beyond a disaster. I went through seven complete edits of it plus an unknowable amount of other edits to clean it up.

I have written other books in the past that I wanted to write. The Kings and Clans Trilogy, and some pretty funny spec fiction books. They all were from a Christian worldview. They contain a lot of rougher language than what the Christian market wants, but Jesus is mentioned in them. People mostly don't like that. Whatever.

But as I was writing The Lucid Series and the plot became clear, I realized that this was a book that needed to be written. Each day I prayed for the mishmash mess I made to come together. Then the message in the book became more clear. Each day the book became less mine and more God's. Ideas came into my groggy brain, seemingly from nowhere.

Yes, I was used to write it, but I'll have to give God the credit for any success it may have. (I am not saying this is any kind of inspired writing like scripture. He just helped me do better than my best.)

The voices in my head tend to believe whatever the market says about my writing, but this time I know that it is a book that has enormous potential to win souls and bolster Christians. That is why I am trying to keep myself out of it. It is like it is not mine to sell. I am only charging the minimum that is allowable by the market. (Not saying I will never raise the price, as that may be an advantage. Sometimes they get more downloads if the price is raised.)

Right now it just needs reviewers. Please prayerfully consider helping out with this. Then if you like it, please consider distributing paperbacks.

The Lucid Series: Android Uprising