Favorite Christian Fantasy Authors

[Celionswi]

The following is a list of my favorite Christian fantasy authors. Feel free to add a few of your own. Here's the list:
1) Stephen Lawhead
2) Karen Hancock
3) Patrick Carr
4) Jill Williamson

 

[JJewel]

How do we know they are christian?, I have no idea the religion of most of the people I read.

 

[Brian G Turner]

These are authors that write about clear Christian themes.

However, just a general reminder that while we're fine to discuss writers, chrons isn't the place to discuss religion itself.

 

[JJewel]

Thanks for the definition Brian, that leaves me high and dry as I rarely read anything with a modern take on religion.

 

[Justin Swanton]

C.S. Lewis is an obvious choice. I've read all his Narnia books. I like them but they are consciously children's books - they remind me of Enid Blyton - and I'm always annoyed by a writer who does that. There's quite a bit of 'talking down' that I don't think is necessary. Children can handle stories written from an adult perspective without a problem - i.e. the writer just writes the story as he conceives it without feeling he has to tailor it to little minds.

As a kid I read and enjoyed plenty of children fantasy books - like Steel Magic and The King of the Copper Mountains - that didn't talk down to me.

 

[The Big Peat]

The level of clarity needed to qualify seems to be rather variable based on what little I've seen. To start the obvious argument - is Lord of the Rings clear enough to count?

I think my favourite overtly Christian themed book would be David Gemmell's Midnight Falcon - it's only a strand in the plot, but a very big one, and the story's themes circle around some of Christianity's big ones.

 

[hitmouse]

C.S. Lewis is an obvious choice. I've read all his Narnia books. I like them but they are consciously children's books - they remind me of Enid Blyton - and I'm always annoyed by a writer who does that. There's quite a bit of 'talking down' that I don't think is necessary. Children can handle stories written from an adult perspective without a problem - i.e. the writer just writes the story as he conceives it without feeling he has to tailor it to little minds.

One may object from a 2020s perspective, I don’t think the tone of Narnia was out of
place for childrens books written and published for what was basically a middle- class English audience in the early 1950s. In fact Lewis is much better than many of his contemporaries.

Reading these as a child was terrific, and I never really thought he talked down tome. It was just part of the basic library of children’s classics, rather than read as proselytising religious fiction.
Re-reading the books as an adult, I do find them a little saccharine in places (the Last Battle is really annoying.)

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Charles Williams. Some people might consider them occult thrillers but back when I first heard of him and went looking for his work I finally ran his books to earth at a Christian bookstore in Berkeley. Sometimes the Christian themes are more overt than others, but they are definitely not children's books.

 

[Parson]

Depends on what you mean by Fantasy. I think The Shack by William P. Young is just wonderful. I think it might be categorized as Fantasy, but it is by no means that genre specific, but it is utterly Christian. --- As a general rule I do not read Fantasy.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I forgot to mention Elizabeth Goudge. Not all of her books are fantasy, neither the historical novels nor the contemporaries (well, contemporary when they were written) but I think all the children's books are. The Little White Horse is the classic that many people know or have heard of, but Linnets and Valerians is also a favorite of mine.

The Dean's Watch, one of the novels, is not a fantasy at all, and yet it has always spoken to me as if it was. There is a numinous quality to the story and the prose, for all that it is so rooted in everyday things. When I read it I feel how miraculous even the mundane things of this world are, and most of all the mysteries of the human heart, in spite of (or because of) all its follies and frailties.

 

[radcasby]

C.S. Lewis

I love his writing, but I'm not one to go about trusting because someone is religious he sets the bar. (I so hope no one ever points at my stories as an example of Christ. My characters aren't any better than Lewis's Edmond. lol)

 

[kythe]

Madeleine L'Engle wrote the series starting with "A Wrinkle in Time", as well as many other books. She incorporates Christian themes into her stories.

 

[Joshua Jones]

Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker are two of the more well known roughly modern ones (Peretti's first popular book was written in the 80s, but I'm still stubbornly claiming that was relatively modern!).

Of course, there is the aformentioned C.S. Lewis and Tolkein. For a more adult focused Lewis fantasy, I'd recommend Till We Have Faces. Also, while it isn't fantasy, his sci-fi trilogy is definitely worth a read.

Beyond that, I'm told Bryan Litfin has some good work. I've read some of his non-fiction, but can't personally vouch for his fiction. Also, Orson Scott Card is Mormon, and while the discussion of whether this constitutes as Christian or not is strictly verboten here, it may at least be said there is significant common ground regarding literary themes explored.

 

[Celionswi]

C.S. Lewis is an obvious choice. I've read all his Narnia books. I like them but they are consciously children's books - they remind me of Enid Blyton - and I'm always annoyed by a writer who does that. There's quite a bit of 'talking down' that I don't think is necessary. Children can handle stories written from an adult perspective without a problem - i.e. the writer just writes the story as he conceives it without feeling he has to tailor it to little minds.

As a kid I read and enjoyed plenty of children fantasy books - like Steel Magic and The King of the Copper Mountains - that didn't talk down to me.

I've read all his books too, it was fun reading Narnia with my little sister back then, but I could say, whose authors that made the big impact on me are those four I mentioned.

 

[biodroid]

Frank Peretti

 

[Danny McG]

Well, if you count Mormons/Latter Day Saints as Christians (they clearly are) then we have Orson Scott Card

 

[Brian G Turner]

But does OSC write obviously Christian themes? Or even fantasy?

 

[Danny McG]

But does OSC write obviously Christian themes? Or even fantasy?

I read some of his Homecoming series and I was picking up a vibe!

 

[soulsinging]

I don’t know if he’s Christian, but Tad Williams Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series (first book is the Dragonbone Chair) features what is clearly a medieval Catholic Church, down to the Book of Aedon (Bible) and a savior who was nailed to a tree. The church doesn’t necessarily play a huge role in things directly, but there are certainly themes that fit... notions of service and sacrifice, the way the church supplanted many of the old pagan ways, etc.

 

[soulsinging]

One may object from a 2020s perspective, I don’t think the tone of Narnia was out of
place for childrens books written and published for what was basically a middle- class English audience in the early 1950s. In fact Lewis is much better than many of his contemporaries.

Reading these as a child was terrific, and I never really thought he talked down tome. It was just part of the basic library of children’s classics, rather than read as proselytising religious fiction.
Re-reading the books as an adult, I do find them a little saccharine in places (the Last Battle is really annoying.)

i definitely agree this is maybe more of a era thing. I recall similar reactions to the Wrinkle in Time books... you’re flying along and suddenly one of the wise characters delivers a sermon. I remember rolling my eyes at this even as a kid, not so much because of the message but because of the heavy handed approach and the notion that adults thought they could sneak this past me. It made me think of every lame adult trying to make something boring seem cool. Or those anti-drug commercial with the fried eggs.

Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker are two of the more well known roughly modern ones (Peretti's first popular book was written in the 80s, but I'm still stubbornly claiming that was relatively

Holy cow, I rem