Christocentric Vampiralooza: Sue Dent on Anne Rice

Sue Dent flips out spectacularly over at the Lost Genre Guild again. This time, about Anne Rice.

Man, every time humans start to bore me to tears, here comes Sue with a kleenex and ninja moves.

I never realized that Rice's rather dramatic conversion (on the literary side - on the personal/biographical side it was more progressive) did not have a massive impact on reading Christians at the time.

Funny, I first read Interview with A Vampire in my God-hating days, but still appreciated her work after He brought me to heel in brutal liberty. Then, years after my somewhat abrupt conversion, Rice came back around to the Jesus gypsy wagon.

I just assumed that one of the foremost supernatural writers of the day turning to her Lord, and, therefore, turning countless eyes toward Him was probably the Christian writing story of the decade. Apparently, Sue would beg to differ. It seems that all the important Christ-following outlets barely note the dramatic shift.

But then she starts listing as important Christ-following outlets as the CBA and ECPA and ASPCA and some other letters that confuse me/sound vaguely like late-seventies power synthesizer-driven rock groups. Then I get hungry for alphabet soup.

Just to be clear: Rice has not committed to a final Lestat-confronting-the-Redeemer book. She has only admitted that it would be possible, and that the concept intrigues her.

Have I now confounded you? Go to Anne's site to get the details. I'm going back to sleep. But, first, I need to satisfy my hankering for some ELO:



Darn you Sue Dent! Darn you to heck!

Never Ceese Always Starts

Sue Dent recently scrawled a comment here at my private journal. Clearly, the woman is a ninja, because very few have ever gotten past my balance traps, caltrops and pastry-spectre and lived to leave grafitti.

So, out of grudging respect for her stealth and moxie, I thought I'd mention* her novel Never Ceese. At the amazon site, you can read an excerpt (my initial thoughts - good writing, intriguing premise, knows the genre, brings something new early on in the chapter) and order the book.

Not having read the book yet, I can nevertheless highly recommend it for, uhm, humans who like letters that are put together in patterns to form words. Also turning paper pages with thumbs or fingers. If either of those are musts for you, I guarantee you'll like pushing the thin swatches of tree pulp and decoding its inkstains.

Sue Dent can be hunted down on the internet at, of all places, http://suedent.blogspot.com/

Incidentally, my thumbs and fingers are 88% fatty tissue, 6% concrete. They seek same. Which is why my stories are likewise - 88% fatty tissue, 6% concrete.** Just like my sandwiches.***

*to myself, of course. Not you. You aren't even supposed to be here.

**Which is why no one reads them.

***Which is why no one eats them.

UPDATE: A shameless propagandist mentioned her new site http://www.suedent.net/ - I'm not going to snitch on the tipster but her name rhymes with "Sue Dent."

Secular versus Christian, or Apples versus Oranges: Smackdown

The invaluable Lost Genre Guild has a post up about the monolithic acronymns in Christ-centered bookselling: the ABA, the CBA and the ECPA. In Secular vs. Christian? Sue Dent and Cynthia MacKinnon try to expose the breadth of publishing options open to Christian writers of the strange.

I seem to recall a journal posting by Ted Dekker about the emerging culture and how the line between secular and Christian is arbitrary. Christians both engage and contribute to the culture, or at least they should. Can one understand the culture without falling into sin? Can one address the culture without cloistering?

Yes. If you can let go of rumor and assumption and embrace Christ alone, you can.