Edifying the Faith via Rocketry and Rayguns

In this space of late we have been discussing what constitutes science fiction as opposed to fantasy, and what Christian fiction might be as opposed to pagan fiction, and finally what is Christian Science Fiction.

Let us look at a misleading answer, a better answer, and also ask why answer the question at all?

As befits a discussion of Christianity, the last question shall be first. Why bother debating which genre and subgenre tales might fit in? Most readers have eclectic tastes, and do not care if a unicorn or a raygun or a vampire is on the cover, provided the book is good. Who, beside from the marketing departments or the art department and the clerks shelving books in the bookstore, cares what labels we paste on genres, or where we draw the boundary lines?

The answer, dear reader, is that you, dear reader, care about where the metes and bounds of genres fall.

If you did not care, neither the marketing departments nor the clerks shelving books in different sections of the store nor the art department trying to decide whether to paint a bathing beauty riding a unicorn on the cover or a bathing beauty shooting a raygun or a bathing beauty in black leather staking and/or kissing a brooding vampire would trouble themselves to make it easier for you, the book buying public, to find works to your taste.

You care because of the way the human mind works, including the minds of science fiction readers: the human mind works by association.

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