Tag Archives: Young Adult Fantasy

Fantasy and Our Training in the Cosmic War

All good fantasy points to the truth of God, who we are in the sphere we breathe in, who our enemy is, and who we can or will become.

When we look to hope, and the refuge above ourselves, we have joined the cosmic war. Our training has begun.
And the entire rightful aim of training for war is peace—when evil will be no more in the cosmos. Until that time of complete healing, we can but bind the world’s wounds after groundbreaking conflict, when the seeds of peace are sown in peace by the makers of peace. – Fantastic Journey pg. 155

Jenelle Schmidt in Mantles of Oak and Iron speaks of conflict, training, and more than survival in the cosmic war:

The glow of their accomplishment washed over each of them as they ambled across the Academy grounds together. They continued in silence, an easy comaraderie settling over their group. They needed no words, and they needed no applause or recognition for the task they had accomplished. They had done their duty, they had survived nightvines, frigid rivers, hungry grymstalkers, and deadlier yet, warring personalities. They had climbed mountains and pushed through their own exhaustion. They had not come through the fire unscathed, but they had come through it. And more than all they had endured, they had shared the ordeal together and become brothers. …

When you stand beside someone and face the enemy together, you become brothers. When you train together to defend our nations, you become brothers. The second you stepped across the Academy threshold, you became a part of this family. Don’t either of you forget it again. …

In this cosmic war, to be part of God’s family is an indescribable gift, and we catch glimpses of who we will become. It is intriguing that we are told we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. Isn’t it fascinating, that in order to be like him we must see him clearly? That will be a glorious day, when the cosmic war is won.

In the mean time, it’s back to training, and occupying until he comes. There are people to help and encourage, and things we need to learn to fight the unseen battle well. Through him we shall do valiantly, and defeat the evil within. The end of ourselves is in sight. Not the true, just, joyful self he made us to be, but the self that would swallow everything in pride and selfishness. Thank God for that!

What place will you take in the war of the cosmos? Where will you stand? With who will you side, and on what grounds? Why do you fight?

Crossover – Find the Eternal, the Adventure

Stormpoint Feb 2024 – The Anti-hero’s Weakness

In the wide world of ideas the anti-hero is gaining ground.

I find stories that admire anti-heroes repellent, unless the anti-hero grows beyond their selfishness. Anti-heroes have a major weakness, namely, that they never grow stronger. Instead they fail, make themselves victims, and revel in their failure. (Anti-hero and anti-heroine is synonymous here.)

After they are knocked down, they don’t get up again, not in any true sense. That is repellent in any person, and most of all in a story, which most readers go to for encouragement, enjoyment, and a guiding ethos. (I had to look that word up. Ethos is a Greek word that refers to the character of ideals and beliefs of a community or ideology. It includes the idea of alignment of passion and caution. –Loosely paraphrased from Google.)

Great fantasy books show us the beauty of justified self-sacrifice and the ugliness of it’s opposite, the unjustified anti-hero. How fantasy explores what is worth dying for and what is worth living for opens worlds of choice and myriad possibilities before our eyes.

In The Fourth Scroll, Karen Grunst takes the lead character down the path of a true heroine. When she refuses the path of the anti-heroine, Sarah discovers that the life she expected to live must die (figuratively). And she grieves that loss. Suddenly she is forced down a completely different path with only the vaguest notion of what her new life will entail as the novel ends. Though I have not read this book, this is a great point. This is true of many things in our lives, as it is of Sarah in this clean fantasy.

Amy Earls in Forbidden Reign gives us another truth in this quote. “Elohim walked with me in those frightening places, and maybe the darkness as well as the light is a part of His plan. Sometimes things must die before the world sees the life they can bring.”

Dying and living can both be dangerous and deadly. That is the nature of choice in life. For whenever we live to one thing, we always die to another. Dying for the sake of hope often brings life. As it does in [the above books]. Paths divide and hearts choose. It is odd that it is often necessary to die, sometimes literally, in order to truly live. —Fantastic Journey pg. 197

Freedom from the tyranny of self is freedom indeed. Doing what is right brings freedom, even if it brings the death of something dear to us.

The weakness of the anti-hero, and his very real despair, propagates a lack of strength and whining, to put it bluntly. We are all weak and complain at times. The anti-hero stays there. See the end of anti-heroes, in more ways than one, and turn from emulating them.

Give your admiration to heroes, to simple people who strive for truth and light and good. Imperfectly striving, but still heroic, still fighting for something far beyond themselves. Follow those who refuse to stay down under the weight of darkness.

Crossover – Find the Eternal, the Adventure
Have a great week!

Azalea

Stormpoint November Nights – Conflict in Fantasy

Why do we need inner strength?

Some may say fantasy combat is very unrealistic. We see their point.

If they mean stories where a sudden miracle out of story context saves the day, or the hero gains an illogical, unstoppable power, or the heroine performs flying martial arts, though beautiful in grace, which would never stop an enemy.

But there is one place where combat is real, always—inside the mind, heart, and spirit where the ground is set for any conflict to be won—or lost. If we lose there, we lose outwardly, no matter our fighting method or weapon. The inner fight determines the results of the outer. –Fantastic Journey pg. 137

Because the inner war in fantasy touches the outer war. Not just of the character, but also the conflicts of the author and the reader. Here is an excerpt from Lance and Quill, that I recently rewrote.

He touched her arm, then dropped his hand. “Each defending the other, we can defeat these gossip-mongers. No matter, that you do not possess the death touch. That is a small thing.” He was laughing at her. Gently. “You are fierce enough without it.”

He bent near, full of heat again. “Alaina, you need to be strong in your strengths, the gifts given you, not in another’s. Not in Kyrin’s—but Alaina’s strengths—gifts from the Master of all. Take his truth to you; take joy in it. You are strong, Alaina. Know it.”

She shivered. Her battle to accept her weaknesses, her struggle to find her place in the world, to be strong—he saw it? Burn him—no, no. But he did see too much.

The place she sought was not completely shaped, nor completely known. She wet her lips. “You could live with one who is a pawn of peace, not born of your sands, whom no other would have? You would have the—the heart of one who is spoiled?”

“Do not call yourself so! I have Tae’s word you are not touched. Even if you had been, it would not be to your blame. That rests on Ali Ben Aidon’s head.”

Alaina’s face burned. She was a healer; she should not blush at such things. She smoothed the paper in her hand.

His voice lowered. “I see your power. I would live with one who speaks truth, though it does not favor her. With one who picks battles that need fought, no matter how many lances oppose her—”

“Battles ill fought, this morn,” she said. “Right words at an ill moment and ill words at the right moment.”

“You do not start a battle with me that you cannot win.” He was laughing at her again. “Unless I must.” A smile tugged at her mouth.

Alaina needed inner strength for her battles, inner and outer. Her willingness to do battle within touched everyone and everything outside her. Her conflict taught me, as I wrote it, how I could better fight to acknowledge my God-given strengths and build the strengths of others.

And, dear reader, I hope her battles strengthen you. How, I cannot tell. You must brave her inner arena and grow in the forge you find there.

May you have a blessed Thanksgiving!

Azalea

Crossover – Find the Eternal, the Adventure

October Stormpoint – Relativity destroys Strength

Saying morals are relative destroys our inner strength. And the strength of story. It unravels the framework, the structure, and the heart of the story, which ought to tell us something about how relativism works – or doesn’t – in us.

If we believe relativism, it’s like trying to fight on dry dunes. The sand is never stable, giving us nothing to rely on. That tyrannical belief begins in us, when we redefine, excuse, and explain what we can about our circumstances in attempts to justify our actions. Relativism is the mark of the bad guys. There is no solid ground to stand on, no reliability. It is false, deceptive ground. We can build no lasting framework, no structure here. There is no place of inner strength to find.
Wyldling Trials and The Shadow Elf’s Mission reveal inner strength in their good characters because they fight on the rock, or a least toward the rock. They are fighting relativistic thinking. That fight between the relativistic villain and the underdog who says, ‘no, the same rules apply to you and everyone,’ is a forge. Often a forge of pain.

As we have said, there is always some kind of pain in training: from that of tearing, expanding muscle, to rigorous trial of spirit, to heart-pain that makes room for compassion or which turns that which is weak inside to steel. … Hence, forging forces are needed in the inner arena. The training arena, the gladiatorial arena, and the liberating arena of ideas where spirits strive through the ages—all have served this purpose. When a fantasy story combines the external elements of training, the contest, and the gaze of witnesses with high inner stakes of the moral war, we have a great story and fly through the pages . . . –Fantastic Journey pg. 145

You can’t have any kind of story that rings true, that has a framework, or structure, or heart without objective morality, which is a rock to us. What inner strength we have comes from what we stand on, from our rock. We must choose, we do choose, relative truth or objective truth in every circumstance. Will we tell ourselves tales or the truth?Oddly enough, the more relativistic a character in a story is, the more we hate them. As I say in Fantastic Journey, “Principles, or their lack, drive the blade in every world.” We use the blade in a right or wrong way. Every moral rock, all reality attests to this, even the reflections of reality we call story.

What ground do you choose to fight from? What is your rock? Or rather “who” is your rock? Yourself or???

Fight well!

Until next time,

Azalea – Crossover, Find the Eternal, the Adventure

June Storm Point – Growing by Conflict in the Arena

Conflict in the spiritual arena makes or breaks a story’s characters. Conflict in that arena also builds up or tears down something in us as we read. That thing is goodness. How do we face the inner battle, how do they face it? Much depends on how that battle is portrayed. Through the characters, their actions and reactions, is the author of the story leading us on an adventure of hope, or through a tale of despair?

Characters we admire can inspire us to goodness, or characters can drag us through the ugliest levels of inhuman evil. I started to watch the series 1883, and I pulled it out of the dvd player very soon. When I watch or read something I want to be encouraged, warned, taught, inspired, and given strength to go on by a real look at people, not have indifference to darkness and evil rubbed in my face, and worse, my spirit. All we have to do to know evil intimately is to look inside. We don’t need anyone to tell us how corrupt we are.

People who try to rewrite our perception of history and claim it is valid because it is reality, are not doing us any favors. I especially hate it when they try to make out that people of past ages were as bad as we are, and end up showing the worst of us. Is that going to do anything good? Is it true?

We enjoy our heroes and heroines, handsome and beautiful or not, whether they overcome together or are pitted against their enemy alone. Their spirit, their strengths, and yes, sometimes even their weaknesses, endear them to us—when they show themselves human, yet with a capacity for greatness. [That is reality. All of us have the capacity to rise above greed, hate, and evil in all its forms, in Christ. We have been given the gift of change. Story is about change in ourselves and changing things.] Things we all wish for. We all wish to be brave, to overcome wind and wave and monster—to be a hero to someone, even if only in the ocean of fantasy. –Fantastic Journey pg. 51

Elisa Rae’s newest release showcases a conflict that shows beautifully how the spiritual arena can change characters for the better, from the lowest verbal spat to running for your life. Whether in a literal arena or that of a court, the stakes are high, and every challenge gifts us the capacity for growth.

“I long to be free.” I blushed. “He says I am a fool, wishing for something I can’t comprehend, but I understand enough. I wish to make my own decisions and not consider what would please my master.” I clasped my hands at my waist and bowed my head briefly. “You probably agree with him.”

“Quite the contrary.” Greyson glowered at the far wall. “Freedom is precious.”

After a moment of stilted silence, he spoke again. “Be at peace. Bartle will see that Silda does nothing to harm you when reporting to her mistress. And if the servant doesn’t attend to the warnings, I will see to it personally.” His ominous tone sounded almost malevolent.

I watched his expression for a few moments, debating what kind of fae he was. There were so many possibilities. He was too large for a sprite and too small for an ettin, not to mention possessing the wrong coloring. It would be rude to ask, and considering clothing completely covered him form the neck down, he seemed to be possibly hiding his true nature.

“Lord Greyson.” A halfling with glasses tucked into the wild thatch of hair at the top of his head bowed to Greyson.

“Lord?” Panic tightened my chest. Had I been overly familiar with a noble of the Unseelie court?

“I have need of your verification of this order for three hundred barrels of Tiren blackberry wine,” the halfling explained, holding up an invoice.

“Pardon me, my lord.” I curtseyed. “I really must return to work.” I hurried off without waiting for a response, my heart thundering in my chest. An Unseelie nobleman–I had been casually conversing with a member of the court. What a fool he must think me.
The Unseelie’s Wallflower

Because freedom truly is a precious thing, fighting for it carries the most risk. And the highest reward. Never stop fighting for it. Above all, for the freedom to do right, to do good. And doing that often calls out evil. Be wise as serpents . . . There is a wise and foolish way to wage war, of course.

The Unseelie’s Wallflower is a great tale, and one you will enjoy if you like stories of fae and humans and clean, adventurous romance. You can check it out here.

If you can’t get that one at the moment, read one of your old tried and true stories where the battle was hard, the conflict stiff, and the reward worth it all. If not immediately, in the end.

Not being overcome by evil, but overcoming evil with good. Now there’s a reality possible in the arena. Think about what helps you overcome in your arenas of conflict. What stories stiffen your spine when you are in the grip of the enemy and everything hangs in the balance?

Crossover – Find the Eternal, the Adventure

Until next time, all the best!

Azalea

May Stormpoint – The Strength of Beauty

Spiritual Strength in Story

Strength begins in the spiritual arena. Our Stormpoint for this month is how conflict in fiction spills into battle in the inner arena.

Inner strength draws evil, or pits us against it, as our authors’ books this month attest. C. J. Milacci’s Fugitive of Talionis has a heroine who is top of her class as a kidnapped trainee but who is just at the beginning of her inner journey that will strengthen her or break her. That’s the thing about hard circumstances. They make us more bitter and defeated, or wider of heart, stronger in both spirit and body. For each affects the other, as the inner arena touches, even directly feeds, the outer parts of us.

Paths of fantasy, under water or over wold, take us to interesting places and wondrous spaces, not to mention introducing us to fascinating people where every character is involved in the battle we all fight.
Fantastic Journey – The Soul of Speculative Fiction and Fantasy Adventure Pg. 8

Gaining the skills to survive, the will to conquer, the hope that makes us look up, the courage to fight, all drive us to become strong. And the simple yearning for justice, that evil will not always rule by force and fear, that also strengthens us.

But where are the roots of spiritual strength, and what are the results? The roots of every strength are in truth. The true truth of your circumstances. The truth of what you think. The truth of what you believe. The truth you act on. The truth of what is real, not what you wish were real.

“Call me crazy,” Nika says as we walk around some old rubble, “but I thought you were going to share a little more than that.”

I rub the back of my neck. “Remember Ava?”

“The girl who died in the river?”

I nod.

“Of course I remember her. Not something easily forgotten.”

She goes quiet, and I can tell she’s replaying the scene in her mind same as I am. I can still see Ava slipping from my grasp into the clutches of the river. Her lifeless body washing up on shore hours later.

“What about her?”

“Leddington is her hometown.” I let the words sink in.

“Oh.”

I lick my lips. “I need to tell her family what happened. Tell her sister that with her last words she wanted her to know that she loved her. You get that, right.”

She nods. “Yeah. I’ll back you up.” . . .

“I need to do it, Nika. But how can I face them when I’m the reason she’s dead?”

Nika stops and grabs my arm. “Bria. You’re not the reason Ava’s dead. She drowned because of Commander Ark, because of Colonel Valarius. Not because of you.”

“Maybe.” I shrug. “But I couldn’t save her.” I stare off into the distance.

Nika squeezes my arm that she’s still holding. “But you tried.” . . .

“I just wish I could have done more. Wish I could have held onto her. Kept her alive.”

“It’s not your fault. But I get it.” Nika ducks under a branch. “You’re not the only one with regrets. I have them too.”

I look over at her in time to see a flash of pain sweep over her face.

“But we can’t let those regrets rule our lives. God’s forgiven us both, and He has a path for us to walk in. If we allow ourselves to be hindered by everything we wish we could change or undo we’ll never really be able to walk in the freedom of God’s plan for our lives.”

I let her words sink in, not sure how to respond. Silence stretches between us, but somehow I think we both need it. As we hike the last miles of the forest, I can’t help but wonder what Nika regrets.
Fugitive of Talionis – ARC

Turning from the false and following what is true gives us strength and leads to more strength.

The impact of choice remains to be seen. Candace Kade’s Enhanced demonstrates this.

Don’t miss these good reads, (Enhanced is out, and Fugitive of Talionis goes live on Kickstarter the 22d.) There will be new authors and books and more on choice next month.

Have a great week,

Azalea – Crossover – Find the Eternal, the Adventure

Fantastic February!

Note: The first part of this post was supposed to be live January 15th, but my website was down. So please forgive the two-parts.

Part I

It is here! Jaye L Knight’s Daican’s Heir! Or almost. It’s due to release the 17th.

Blurb

For three years, the Resistance has suffered under oppression—first from Emperor Daican and now from his daughter. In her quest for vengeance, Davira has ripped Arcacia apart, and more blood is spilled every day. Newly married, all Jace and Kyrin want is to be able to live their lives in peace. In order to do that, they must help restore the rightful heir to Arcacia’s throne.

Carrying the weight of everyone’s hopes for the future, Daniel works every day to be the leader and king they have all fought so hard to see him become. With the Resistance and their allies from all across Ilyon united behind him, he prepares for a final confrontation with Davira. But to do so will require facing the full might of Arcacia’s military and Davira’s wrath.

When Jace and Kyrin become the primary targets of her ravenous hatred, Daniel finds himself in a race against time to stop his sister and avoid the bloodbath she is determined to unleash. Can he find a way to protect his loved ones and bring peace to Ilyon or will Davira succeed in bringing them all to their knees and destroying everything they hold dear?

Pre-Order Information

Pre-order available now. It’s releasing February 17th!

Pre-Order Link

Author Links

Part II – Stormpoint – Inner strength

Recently we talked about how fantasy inspires us. One thing it inspires in me is inner strength. Good courage.

Over the coming year I plan to touch on the following. What is inner strength? What is it’s impact in the spiritual arena? How does choice enter into the issue? How does beauty affect inner strength? What forges our inner strength? Villains are also strong. Can we tell good power vs the villainous? How do we sense it in others? We must also forge the steel of our metaphorical blades. Why moral relativity weakens us, and the reality of morality is essential. What a lack of inner strength results in, and what untold riches inner strength gives to us. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Right now it is time to dig deeper into what that elusive inner strength is.

At root, it is the ability to hold to truth against opposition. It is not stubborn blindness or wishful thinking. For the truth must be searched out, and tested. If we find a lie, it must be abandoned. If what we find is true, we must hold to it, no matter the odds. Inner strength is also the will to fight for what is right.

Truth must be searched out. The beauty, the mystery, and the adventure are vital to our spirits. Fantastic journeys invite us to search beyond what we see for truth, to dig deeper for courage. –Fantastic Journey pg. 313

When you dig deeper, what do you believe inner strength is?

Until next time,

Azalea

Crossover – Find the Eternal, the Adventure

150 – 175 Best Fantasy Books or Your 2017 Guide to Epic Fantasy: Post 1

Fantasy and the 7 Senses

You know the five senses that we all use.

And we explore fantasy adventure with all of them: Sight, scent, taste, hearing, touch. (Inside our minds, of course.) And of course intuition, the 6th sense, is never far from reach in a great fantasy story.

But I think there is one more sense.

Fantasy brings together the six senses into a whole and creates a 7th. The seventh sense is one you can discover often if you dive deep into fantasy realms and keep your eyes open.

The greatest fantasies create at moments a unique experience, a kind of sense not to be found anywhere else in the universe we can see. Except in bits and pieces; a kind of joy-filled truth caught in goodness or day dreams or dreams of the night, where odd things that strangely fit are often found.

This 7th sense grasps gleaming facets of truth that we could not see before. It touches them, tastes them. Not first examined by our reason, but felt deep in the actions and reactions you experience while captured within fantasy characters. Inside the kind, the evil, the young and the old, the weak and strong men and women and creatures of fantasy. It happens without your noticing it, while you are enthralled by the hero or heroine you find in many hearts, sometimes growing from a single weak seed. It makes you revolt against evil, also often growing unseen, battling within.

We are so often blinded by our familiar world it usually takes a moving deed, a circumstance, or a state of being in an unfamiliar setting or against a stark backdrop for us to see truth clearly. Such clearness can be startling.

Such was the case for me. Not long ago, I was moaning that there were not very many good fantasy fiction books from the faith sector of our world. Not that I dislike general fantasy, far from it, I admire their authors’ skill very much. I only wish more of us imitated the high bar of storytelling without deserting high moral quality.

I was shown how wrong I was to moan. Patrick Carr’s Shock of Night, Anna Thayer’s Knight of Eldaran Trilogy, Andrew Peterson’s Wingfeather Saga, C. S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters (a novel delightfully re-read) all kept me up late into the night. Sure, there is definitely room for more faith-based fantasy where adventure is never sacrificed, but I’ve discovered treasures everywhere over the long years—from epic fantasy to dieselpunk and beyond. If your heart is hungry . . .

I want to share my otherworldly discoveries on my lifelong venture into best fantasy novels with you.

Join the quest, and find your next adventure! There will be at least 70 posts in this series, and who knows what we may find?

If you don’t want to miss a single grand adventure, sign up in the side bar, where special treasures are reserved for those who seek them.

We’ll venture into worlds unseen where your heart will beat fast at necessary sacrifice, thrill with the triumph of downtrodden hearts against overwhelming odds, and draw lines of right and wrong in blood. You will laugh in side-splitting humor, cry with loss, fight against evil and rage against its seeming victory. But in the end you will come back to peace, hugging gems to your breast. And for those who can see, there is a light going before you.

Follow it.

Let no wall of ignorance, busyness, or other unworthy reason bar you from your next journey to unearth . . . what, I cannot tell. Prepare to use your seven senses.

Crossover: find the Eternal, the Adventure.

Here’s a minute taste of one journey waiting for us on my best books shelf, seeking its place in future posts like The Romance – Exploring Treachery and Trust.

From Victoria Hanley’s The Seer and the Sword:

Torina looked at the boy, at his heavy curling hair and remote, wild eyes.

“If he is my slave,” she asked, “does that make him my own?”

“All your own.”

“I can do whatever I want with him?”

The king nodded.

The princess shivered. “What is your name, son of a king?” she asked.

“Landen.” The boy’s manner, still that of a prince, contrasted oddly with his dusty rags and bruises.

“Vesputo,” Torina said.

“Princess?”

“Cut his ropes, please.”

The commander looked to his king, who inclined his head. A blade was drawn. Vesputo severed the ropes carelessly, trailing fresh blood. Landen rubbed his wrists as Torina stepped closer to him.

“My father fought your father.” She said it very softly, speaking as if no king or soldiers looked on. For her, they must have been forgotten.

Landen looked at the ground. A pulse in his neck beat, like the heart of a newly hatched bird.

“Landen,” she whispered. “I never had a slave.”

The boy stood quietly.

“And I never will,” she continued, lifting her chin. “Papa,” her voice rose. “You gave him to me. I set him free.” . . .