Greetings, dear readers!

I’m so excited to share with you a recent interview I did with author and veterinarian, J. Aaron Gruben! I found his books last year when looking for books on the history of veterinary medicine. I had stumbled on his book A Theology of Beasts: Christians and Veterinary Medicine, which of course naturally led to me investigating his other books! Along with theological works, he also writes speculative historical fiction, and I thoroughly enjoyed his novel Crescent Tides. I don’t often find many other veterinarians who are also authors in more speculative genres, and even more, fellow followers of Christ, so I was quite excited when I had a chance to interview Dr. Gruben.

Without further ado, here is the interview!

What first drew you to veterinary medicine? Did you always want to be a vet?

I have had an interest in science and a love for animals for as long as I can remember, so the two naturally merged into an interest in veterinary medicine. As I thought more strategically about a career, I became convinced this was a noble calling that would let me play a part in fighting the curse on creation through medicine, and was a good calling for me to honor God. 

What’s your favorite aspect of veterinary medicine?

Honestly, my favorite aspect is the service-oriented nature of the field. I love being able to help people and their pets. My favorite cases are those I can see a patient’s suffering diminished, and/or help a client through a hard time.

When did you first starting writing? What drew you to it?

I first started writing in my last year of high school. An article in a magazine by medieval scholar Thomas Madden was my first nudge into writing. It was on the crusades and the many misconceptions about them in popular histories. I was oddly fascinated and wanted to learn more. So I started digging around libraries, back in the caveman days before there was much information readily available on the internet. I had the fun idea to learn by writing a novel about the First Crusade, which also felt like my chance to help correct the misconceptions Mr. Madden wrote about. In undergrad the next year I spent hours buried in obscure stacks of the New Mexico State campus library reading firsthand accounts of crusaders. I love the detective work of digging up information and sifting through the more dubious parts to piece together things close to what happened. This became a 6 year project, taking me halfway through vet school! And I haven’t stopped writing since.

What’s it like being a veterinarian and an author?

Busy. And sometimes confusing.

Sometimes the two mesh together well, but I certainly feel schizophrenic at other times. Writing has been a wonderful way for me to disconnect and unwind from emotionally traumatizing cases when I get off stressful shifts. I think it’s good to have an interest different from your main career. It’s helped keep me more well-rounded and a bit less crazy.

I’ve noticed historical accuracy is an important element in your stories (and I thoroughly enjoy your footnotes with fun and interesting historical facts!) Have you always been interested in history? What are some of your favorite eras?

Indeed! I try my best to make my writing close to the segment of history I’m writing about as I can. One thing that’s important to me is to marry historical accuracy with imagination (which I believe can help bridge the gaps between the facts we can know and those we will never know). I’ve been interested in history for a long, long time. My dad loves history and took us to local cowboy forts and reenactments, watched documentaries with us, and read us history stories. So I suspect my love for history has a lot to do with him. Thanks, Dad!

Favorite eras… That can be tough! My favorite is the Medieval era (especially the early Middle Ages through the 11th century). I also find the Victorian era fascinating, as well as the Great War (WWI) time, both the war itself and the changes in culture all around the world that preceded and followed it.

Christian history in particular is a big part of your writing. How did this become a passion of yours?

Christian history is a big part of my writing because I see it as the central thrust of history. I’m a Christian and try to be a consistent one. I believe in a sovereign God who actively works in history. So when we read in Romans 8:28 that He “works all things together for good” for those who love Him, the implication is that Christian history is the central theme of the story God is weaving through time. He loves his Bride (the church) more than anything, so I love to follow His dealings with and for her when I study history.

On a less philosophical and more practical note, I can relate more to Christians in the past than non-Christians. It’s easier for me to understand what they did or why they did it (even when they had misguided motives or bad actions).  

Are there any authors or books that have been influential for you in your writing?

Yes. Lots. Moving on…

Heheh… Here are a few:

Robert Louis Stevenson (especially Treasure Island!)Thomas Madden, crusade historian. (I’ve enjoyed his books on cities lately: he wrote one on Constantinople and one on Venice.)John France (particularly his book Victory in the East about the First Crusade).C. S. Lewis (all his books! The Abolition of Man is one of my favorites).Terry Pratchett (his books about the Night Watch are my favorite. I’m always amazed by his style of storytelling and quick wit, and hope to be able to write just a bit like that too.)Francis Schaeffer (his book The God Who is There has been especially influential).

What does your research and writing process look like when starting work on a new book?
The details depend on the project. In general, I’ll use internet resources for broad strokes, though I have to double-check accuracy even with basic facts like dates and names. Then I narrow things down by digging into published books. I scour library catalogs (interlibrary loans are wonderful!) and talk to librarians when my searches aren’t working. It’s important to me to get as close to the time of the topic as I can. I’ll read all the firsthand accounts I can find, or whatever is closest. And bearing in mind potential bias: they may have been written to make a point and will certainly be written with very different perspectives than we have today. But that latter distinctive makes them really useful. It’s easy to get boxed in by current research and never see the events as people who lived through them (or whose great-grandads lived through them) saw them.

I run over hours and hours of rabbit trails when I’m researching, finding odd topics I’d never thought about while researching something else. Often my writing comes out a paragraph or two at a time as I read something else interesting.

Your latest book you’ve published is called Kristmenn and is about the conversion of the Vikings. Could you tell us more about that and how you got into writing it?

Kristmenn is a project I’m super excited about! It started with a question: What happened to the Vikings? I suspected they converted and melded into medieval Christendom, but wanted to find out. For me, the best way to find something out is to write about it. I told my wife it would be a quick, fun project. And three years later we completed it! (We’re also finishing a children’s school study on the same topic that will be out soon.)

The conversion era of Scandinavian history is fascinating and filled with bigger-than-life characters I had never heard about. Many are awful villains, while some are out-and-out heroes. But most of them were something in between – men and women with good motives who sometimes did terrible things. It was such a different era that it’s been a journey “getting inside the heads” of the people who lived through it. I wanted to avoid making the mistake of projecting our biases onto the Christians who worked to make conversion happen. The most wonderful thing I found in my research was the result: pagan Scandinavia converted and enfolded into the arms of the medieval church. I realize some see this as a bad thing. But if you look at their pre-conversion history, it seems a miracle that these brutal murderers and (in many cases) haters of Christ would take the first step of transformation to the Christian faith. The fascinating conversion of Viking society was a long process. Baptism and acceptance of the faith was only a very first step, and the story moves on as rough men in a rough age (both Pagans and Christians) slowly became more chivalrous and directed their strength to better things as the light of Jesus affected generations. I tried to focus on individual conversions and individual mission efforts, while also discussing some of the cultural changes that developed eventually from those people’s decisions.    

What book of yours would you recommend readers to start with?

That’s a tough one because I write about very disparate things.

If you’re looking for a good fiction, I’d recommend Crescent Tides. It’s an alternate history with time travel, involving terrorists who are trying to shape the present world by changing the past. And the man standing in their way is a brave veterinarian-adventurer with a penchant for medieval history. I had lots of fun with the action scenes in this story! And if you like it, there are more in the Tangled Eons series it starts.

If you’re looking for something more academic, Kristmenn would be good, or my study Chivalry: An Ancient Code for Our Time. (The chivalry book includes projects and discussion questions, formatted as a self-study – there is also an elementary student version.)

If you’re looking for veterinary medicine topics, start with Fuzzy Logic. It’s fun, interactive, and I’m confident anyone can enjoy it.

Do you have a favorite of the books you’ve written?
Whatever I wrote latest is my favorite! But if I had to pick, probably it’d be Crescent Tides. I wove elements of most of my interests into that story: history, Christian perspectives of the crusades, humor, and vet medicine.

If there’s one thing you could have readers take away from your writing, what would that be?

That Jesus is magnificent, the Central Character of history, and is working everything toward his good, good designs. The biggest privilege a Christian can have is to work with Him toward those designs in any way he can find.  

Going off of that, in a world that is very much against Christ, do you have any tips for Christian writers?

Keep your focus on bringing Christ honor through whatever you write. Remember you are serving your readers by your writing: think about them while you shape your work. Keep at it! It’s always easy to start a project, and difficult to follow it to the end. It’s even more difficult to edit it again and again and again. But that polish is what makes it shine. Work hard to make your writing shine for Jesus!

Similarly, do you have any tips for Christian veterinarians coming into the field? Especially as more ethical and moral dilemmas seem to come into our field?

Good question. Just as in writing, keep your focus on honoring Christ and serving others. Study what God says about animals, and keep in mind the balance of the importance of human life over animal life and the responsibility humans have to care for animals. Try to think as a professional whose job is to help pet owners fulfill their God-given responsibilities toward animals.

For me, these principles clear up a lot of ethical dilemmas on their own. They tell me to advise against purely cosmetic procedures that can hurt an animal. They tell me I can help an animal patient end suffering through euthanasia without moral qualms. They tell me I can negotiate the financial piece of a case to help maximize what an owner can do without feeling guilty that they aren’t doing enough for a pet.

Before we wrap up, do you have any new upcoming projects you want readers to know about?

I’m currently writing the next installment of the Tangled Eons series. Cal and his friends find themselves on the other side of the coin in this story: someone sinister has warped their present in all kinds of ways, and they must travel into the colorful world of the 1940s to unravel it all. I’m excited to ramp up the story to shape the entire series into an epic story arc that folds in the Supinator (my veterinarian superhero from Washington, DC).

I’m also close to publishing an elementary age study on the Viking conversion era, and two fun young adult stories that grew out of my Kristmenn project. One story is about Brom Belcher (a minor character in Juvament!) who travels through Kievan Rus (early Viking Russia) and has some crazy adventures in Constantinople. The other is a time travel tale about a boy who meets King Knut in England, solves one of history’s great murder mysteries, and gets to wield a sword in battle and learn some things about himself.

I may also have written one chapter of the next Fuzzy Logic book… Stay tuned…

One last question that I just must ask, what is your favorite animal and why?
Cows. Cows are my favorite animal. They are huge and have goopy tongues that make me laugh. They’re often friendly, and I love it when I get to rub one on the shoulders or scratch her head. But they’re also big and deadly enough to be cool. They have an incredible physiological design, and the amazing super power of converting grass into protein through complex chemistry built into their fuzzy stomachs. They taste great too (but don’t tell them I said so).

About J. Aaron Gruben:

J. Aaron Gruben grew up in the Southwest and currently lives in Texas with his wife and six children. He works full time as a veterinarian. He has been writing over 20 years and is the author of works of varied genres. An article about the Crusades inspired him to start writing historically accurate stories – especially on topics that have become either distorted by political or social bias or have been forgotten by today’s general public. The major goals of his writing are to bring honor to Christ and to edify, to entertain, and to educate readers.

One of J. Aaron Gruben’s major motivations in writing is to help demonstrate that a careful search through the dusty pages of history (augmented by a vivid imagination confined to the framework of real facts) can be every bit as exciting as the perusal of the most riveting fantasy novel. Truth, as they say, is indeed stranger than fiction. And by combining careful scholarship with imaginative storytelling, Aaron hopes to make truth much more interesting than pure fiction.

When not writing or repairing sick animals, Aaron enjoys reading, hiking, dancing with toddlers, yodeling, playing board games, and playing a variety of musical instruments. He travels to conventions with his publishing company, Post Tenebras Lux Books, which strives to improve lives and revitalize old truths through quality Christian stories and studies.

Thank you for reading! You can find out more about Dr. Gruben and his novels and upcoming projects at his website, nmgrubens.com!

God bless,

C. K. Heartwing