Apostate Café

Periodically I’ll see what else the Web has to offer in the “horror from a Christian worldview” arena. And there usually isn’t much new. This last week, though, I came across a few interesting blogs.

All Hallows Eve, whose author enjoys “fiction that glimpses the mysteries of grace and redemption from our universal human dilemma, and the workings of unseen metaphysical forces.” What a great way to put it. And a nice nod to Charles Williams in the blog name.

Gospel of the Living Dead, maintained by a hard-core theologian and lover of zombie movies.

The Teeming Brain, by self-described horror writer, scholar, musician, composer, teacher, and part-time philosopher Matt Cardin.

Theofantastique, an academic exploration of myths and archetypes and their expression in popular culture.

And finally, horror writer Dan Keohane has a blog. His blog has been around for a while, but he is actually posting to it these days. Keep your eyes peeled for his upcoming stories in Apex and Cemetary Dance.

A quick shout out to the folks at Fear & Trembling, a Webzine of “Christian-friendly” horror. There seems to be a decent mix of original fiction and poetry, and some classic tales of the macabre thrown in as well. As of October ‘07 four issues are available.

I must to confess to being a little jealous… they claim to be “the only site dedicated to publishing original and Christian-friendly horror on the [W]eb,” and seem to have some traction; whereas the Christian Horror site at Christian Fandom has sort of languished for the last year under my editorship. But in any case, a couple of the folks involved with F&T are fellow members of the Christian Realist community, and I wish them the best of luck.

Fresh from the folks over at Relief Journal is the new Coach’s Midnight Diner: Jesus Vs. Cthulhu Edition. 276 pages of genre writing — horror stories, weird tales, and hardboiled detective fiction — in a Christian vein. There was also a sample-sized edition available, which I think is a brilliant idea: the first couple of pages of each story in a PDF, which gives you a taste for the writing, without giving the stories away. It was linked on the Relief Journal home page for a while, but seems to have disappeared. But it is available on Scribd.

I haven’t ordered my copy yet, but I plan to. Even if it turns out to be only mediocre, it is a great idea, and the type of thing we should encourage… besides, who wouldn’t want to read about mad Greek Orthodox Christians in space?

• Order direct from Relief Journal; or
• order from Amazon.