Something happened this week that caused me to ask: Is there any fiction genre left written for Christian men?

In the course of my ongoing and indeterminable search for great speculative fiction written for Christian men, I ventured into the Fantasy aisle at my local Christian bookstore. After all, who doesn’t love a rollicking, medieval tale of stalwart heroes combating great evil and horrible monsters? And if all else fails, a guy knows that’s the one place he might find books still written for him.

But . . . but . . . Something happened in the fantasy aisle when I wasn’t looking.

Gone are the chiseled warriors standing atop craggy mountain summits and overlooking forbidding castles, hands folded on the pommels of their swords, feet resting atop slain foes.

Instead, I now find those self-same heroes holding the waists of gowned maidens, their once determinedly set jaws now slack as they gaze into the fawning eyes of their female companions.

No monster in sight.

What’s worse, someone spilled pink ink all over the covers. And glitter!

I ran stumbling from the store, hair fisted in one hand, the knuckles of the other pressed tight to lips closed in a failed attempt to stifle my wails of mourning. Must a guy simply give up reading altogether?

In my lament, I sought solace in that well-worn office bookshelf, the one housing some of my favorite classics. I pulled a cherished tome free and hugged it to my chest while I sat, rocking forward and back, eyes unfocused. I worked through the shell shock, struggled to come to grips with this new world- one in which even that once venerable and safely testosterone-infused genre, the one formerly known as fantasy, has gone the way of the dodo bird.

Extinct. Deceased. An ex-genre, as John Cleese might say.

Finally, my heartbeat settled, and I wiped the tear-blurriness from my eyes. I opened that well-worn leather volume I clutched in still-shaking hands, laid it on the green desk blotter, clicked on my brass reading lamp, and lost myself once again in this manly tale of globe-trotting adventure, high-seas disaster, tyranny, betrayal, true loyalty, and long-delayed justice. Once in which even Jesus himself makes a early cameo and a final, triumphant entrance.

Of course, I’m speaking of the timeless epic, Ben Hur. As a baby Christian, this is one of the first Christian fiction books I found, and it’s still a favorite.

If your sole exposure to this tale is from the movies, I’ll only say you’re missing out. How can a two-hour movie capture this one-thousand two-hundred word masterpiece of a book? It can’t. And even though the movies were, in fact, great- the book is even better.

And it’s available in full-length audio! (. . . but avoid the virtual voice version). My own publisher, Blackstone Audio/Downpour, has a fantastic human-narrated unabridged audio release. And I say that not because they’re my publisher- this was a favorite long before I ever published, or even thought of such. (BTW, Downpour still, for most titles, lets you download an audio file you really own- and can keep forever- to play anywhere sans the restrictive corporate app)

So- even if the world is being turned slowly upside down, and everything a guy thought he could count on continues to crumble- there are still wonderful Christian books a guy can enjoy.

Perhaps soon we’ll be able to bring you one that’s not one hundred and forty-five years old!!???