Must Christian men turn to the past to find great fantastical tales?

Are there any undiscovered jewels lost among the dusty tomes lining the shelves of stories past? Read on, as we tell a tale of our recent journeys, and decide for yourself.

Having despaired of locating modern Fantastical fiction — written for adult — (dare I say it . . . Men?), we turned our attention backward in time, a path our feet have so often gravitated toward when frustrated by the dearth present in modern day writing.

But in this disheartened rout, unlike so many other times, we passed by the admittedly tempting safe harbors of Lewis and Tolkien, where so often we’ve taken shelter, crying all the while “oh where are the great modern day Christian authors, who would write for such as we?”

But as we marched wearily onward, a faint cry reached our ears from the depth of a wood by which we were about to pass. Though it were the blackest of woods, we could not but heed the call, and gladly there we met author John Buchan. As the sunset and the blackwood encroached, he whispered to us a tale set in Scotland of the 1600s, during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.

Witch Wood is a speculative tale of ancient pagan magic and a battle between true godliness, variations of false religiosity, and the unseen world. There are no anti-heroes here, no pale pastels, no gray areas or moral ambiguity. Only good and evil, true heroes fighting self-sacrificially for the right, unsympathetic villains, the banally self-ignorant, and the willfully sinful.

The supernatural elements of the story are so elegantly portrayed as to cause the hairs to rise on the back of the neck. Better, the author does not make the mistake that so many modern Christian authors do, namely, the monster is never shown in the light of day. One only catches glimpses of him as he darts between the deep wood shadows, never losing the power of dread.

The setting is gorgeously illuminated in the imagination of the reader. The characters are vibrant and true to life. The story and the stakes were such that we often found ourselves clenching fists and gritting teeth.

In short, we’ve found, finally, a “new” fantastical tale worthy of the attention of Christian men. It’s so satisfying to say that!

P.S.- It would be unworthy if I didn’t give credit where credit was due. I discovered this story when Leo Vaughn mentioned it in a recent post on his Substack blog- Resurrecting the Real.

He’s a writer of Christian fantasy himself, frighteningly smart, and his blog is a great read. Check it out!