CSFF July 2006 blog tour day 2

Filed under Blog Tours on July 25, 2006
Keywords: christian-fandom.org, christianity, fantasy, science fiction

The blog tour rolls on. As promised here is the first part of my interview with Greg Slade, editor of Christian Fandom’s Science Fiction and Fantasy sections.

Q: Tell us something about yourself that we can’t read on the Internet.

I have some fragments of stone from repairs made to Holy Trinity Church, in Headington, near Oxford, where C.S. Lewis attended for most of his life.

Q: How did you learn about/get involved with Christian Fandom?

Back in 1997, I started a web site and mailing list called SF-CHRISTIAN (for Science Fiction and Christianity), and while looking for sites to add to the links page on that site, I found the Christian Fandom site and list. Then, in 2000, I was preparing to go and work in Hong Kong for two years, and I knew that I wouldn’t have the time to keep my assorted web projects up to date, so I approached Ron Oakes, the listmom and webmaster of Christian Fandom, if he’d be interested in merging the membership and content of the two groups, and he agreed. Since then, I’ve been helping to code pages, and generally trying to help out where I can.

Q: Why should I visit the Christian Fandom website?

We’ve been trying to make it *the* place to connect to Christian fannish content on the web. Even though there are over 400 pages on the CF site, that doesn’t even begin to exhuast the possibilities of what’s out there, so we have put in links to as many other sites as we’ve been able to dig up, whether those sites link back to us or not, so that people who hit the CF site should be able to find what they’re looking for, even if it’s not on the CF site itself.

Q: What is your role as a section editor?

Mostly, it’s to recruit somebody else to take over that job. I’m way overcommitted, and can’t really do justice to all the material which needs to be added to the site, so we’re looking for several people to take on the role of editing the Fantasy and SF sections, as well as some other sections we’d like to add, but can’t until we can recruit people to edit them.

Essentially, what a section editor does is create a page for every book which has been suggested as having Christian and fannish content (that includes over 320 fiction titles, plus maybe 100 or so non-fiction titles, most of which, alas, are still waiting to have pages created for them.) In the same way, we’d like to have pages for videos, music CDs, audiobooks, stories, essays, and even artwork, appropriate to each genre. A section editor doesn’t need to write the reviews or stories or whatever (although that helps), but they should be willing to contact other members to get permission to put their reviews, comments, and other content up on the site.

Q: Explain your review philosophy.

Through interest, long practice, and training, I am inclined to dissect both books and films for their theological content (however informal the creators’ intentions may have been in that regard), and it’s entirely possible that I devote more intention to that in my reviews than most readers (even Christians) care about.

I tend to get especially worked up when a work is presented to me as “Christian” and, upon checking it out, I find that the theology presented is not Christian at all. (I don’t mean “not my brand”, either.)

I do have a hard time giving negative reviews to works by Christians. I don’t want to discourage the authors, especially when they’re actually pretty competent writers, and a little more editorial assistance (in terms of fixing logical holes in the plot, or fact-checking, or whatever) would have changed a “thumbs down” to a “thumbs up.”

And it’s true that I do keep reading some sub-par authors in hopes that they will improve (although, truth be told, the publishers don’t generally give them the time to do so.) Sometimes, it takes me weeks or even months to work up a review of a given title, because it takes me that long to think of something positive that I can honestly say about it. (And sometimes, I don’t bother looking for something positive to say, because warning people against a particularly awful title would be a public service.)

But, of course, it’s not possible for one reviewer to take into consideration the needs of all possible readers. That’s why I keep encouraging people to submit comments for works listed on the Christian Fandom site, including those which already have full reviews, because it takes multiple viewpoints to give a complete picture.

Q: Why isn’t some sort of rating system used?

Actually, we are in the process of adding a rating system to the site, but it’s taking time to recode all the pages to add that content. Eventually, I’d love to be able to run the site through a content management system, so that adding and changing content won’t be so labour-intensive.

I will post part two of the interview tomorrow. Come back and read Greg’s views on fantasy and sci-fi, and how you can get involved with Christian Fandom. In the meantime, check out the rest of the stops on this month’s CSFF blog tour.

• Valerie Comer
• Beth Goddard
• Rebecca Grabill
• Leathel Grody
• Karen Hancock
• Elliot Hanowski
• Katie Hart
• Sherrie Hibbs
• Sharon Hinck
• Pamela James
• Tina Kulesa
• Shannon McNear
• Rebecca LeElla Miller
• Mirtika Schultz
• Stuart Stockton
• Steve Trower
• and the collaborative blog, Speculative Faith

Related Posts

• CSFF blog tour July 2006
• CSFF July 2006 blog tour day 3
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• CSFF May ‘07: TSR day 3
• Why I don’t enjoy “christian” fiction