Any catholic scifi or fantasy writers here?

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Wrote a couple novels that are self-published. :o

One sort of mystery a few years back and a horror/demonic one last year.
 
Yes sir, I am a Catholic author with two books out (self-published) on Amazon and Nook…
 
Viki63 said:
A site I find helpful and interesting is www.Catholicfiction.net.
I submitted my book and they published a really thoughtful review of it.
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I submitted my novel Nearer the Dawn there, and they managed to have a typo in one of the words in the title. Hint: It wasn’t the first word, and it wasn’t the last word.

I’ve asked for a correction, but in the meantime I hope no reviewer thinks I can’t spell the most common three-letter word in the English language. 😃
 
Meeee! 👋 Glad I didn’t completely miss this thread! :bounce: I don’t check this forum as much as others. Ahem. 😊

I am working on a Catholic sci-fi novel as some who’ve read posts I’ve made about it can recall. It’s about interstellar-FTL-travel capable aliens who haven’t committed Original Sin (yet). And what happens when they come to Earth. :cool: :cool: Cue Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones (not really - it’s closer to C.S. Lewis but . . . well, anyway. It is what it is, or rather, what it will become by the time I finish it. Never mind.)

Here are some groups on CA - the first two I started, the rest were started by others:

**Exoplanets and Astrobiology from a Catholic Perspective - forums.catholic-questions.org/group.php?groupid=1809

Catholics Who Write Lounge – forums.catholic-questions.org/group.php?groupid=747

Fantasy Witness – forums.catholic-questions.org/group.php?groupid=1513 (this one really needs more members - I feel bad that I haven’t contributed enough to it)

Sci-fi Lovers Unite With Catholicism – forums.catholic-questions.org/group.php?groupid=493**

There are a lot of science fiction writers in the Lounge, and a lot of the Sci-Fi Lovers write.

Here’s a couple on Facebook that I like: facebook.com/groups/366357776755069/
and facebook.com/groups/SFDS.CatholicBooks/
 
Maybe some of those groups on CAF should be combined. I just posted on Sci-Fi Lovers Unite with Catholicism. Wonder which one has the most members?
 
Hiya, everyone. I posted back in page one, but now I’m facing a tough challenge in my current scifi/fantasy novel and I needed someone who could aid me, and be willing to put up with crazy and possibly…I dunno how to say this…offensive, revolucionary ideas? I can’t exactly sign up on any other forums for personal reasons ^^;
 
As an avid sf reader, and friend to a Jesuit in the 70s, I was wondering something…there is a crossover between Harry Potter and Dragon Riders of Pern (by an author called Bobmin356 on fanfiction.net, first story is The Queen who fell to Earth, fanfiction.net/s/7591040/1/The-Queen-who-fell-to-Earth ) and he has a not-very complementary subplot in the 3rd story about the Church trying to decide if Dragons have souls. I got an answer to that question from my Jesuit friend 40 years ago (although it isn’t an official Church doctrine, as it is a hypothetical question), and was wondering if others had encountered the question and answer, too.

Basically, he said that the Church (and Bible) were given by God to man, and any other intelligent beings we might come across weren’t involved in that interaction between God and this aspect of His creation. Thus, any aliens from other planets are not the responsibility of the Church.

So, anyone else thought of the question, or encountered that answer in their lives?

Tom A.
You attacked Reason; that’s bad Theology – G.K. Chesterton
 
Here’s a link to Books and Media page of the Vatican Observatory, with some publications including “Intelligent Life in the Universe: Catholic belief and the search for extraterrestrial life”, Br. Guy Consolmagno, SJ

vofoundation.org/books-and-media
 
With all the self publishers here on Kindle, I must ask, do you receive a decent amount of profit from them?
 
punisherthunder said:
With all the self publishers here on Kindle, I must ask, do you receive a decent amount of profit from them?
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No, but since I wrote for the greater glory of God and not for profit, it doesn’t really matter, except that all my net profits from Kindle are going to charity.
 
meteoric said:
As an avid sf reader, and friend to a Jesuit in the 70s, I was wondering something…there is a crossover between Harry Potter and Dragon Riders of Pern (by an author called Bobmin356 on fanfiction.net, first story is The Queen who fell to Earth, fanfiction.net/s/7591040/1/The-Queen-who-fell-to-Earth ) and he has a not-very complementary subplot in the 3rd story about the Church trying to decide if Dragons have souls. I got an answer to that question from my Jesuit friend 40 years ago (although it isn’t an official Church doctrine, as it is a hypothetical question), and was wondering if others had encountered the question and answer, too.

Basically, he said that the Church (and Bible) were given by God to man, and any other intelligent beings we might come across weren’t involved in that interaction between God and this aspect of His creation. Thus, any aliens from other planets are not the responsibility of the Church.

So, anyone else thought of the question, or encountered that answer in their lives?

Tom A.
You attacked Reason; that’s bad Theology – G.K. Chesterton
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Have you read anything by Brother Guy Consolmagno? He’s also a Jesuit (Brother) and the Vatican Astronomer. He’s a grad of both University of Arizona and MIT and is one of the world’s experts on meteorites. He’s also a science-fiction geek of epic proportions. (He spoke at a couple of conferences at BosCon this year.) I’d highly recommend to you his book “God’s Mechanics,” which is an examination of how tech-oriented people relate to God. It also discusses the topic you raised. It’s available fairly cheaply on Kindle.

There are a number of SF novels that confront this issue (often with Jesuits as protagonists), most notably the Hugo-winning “A Case of Conscience” by James Blish, which is excellent. Mary Doria Russell’s “The Sparrow” and its sequel “Children of God” are also quite good, but kind of skirt the issue of whether the alien race the Jesuit planetary team encounters should be the subjects of conversion. It seems to be pretty much taken for granted that they have souls. (Blish’s Jesuit protagonist comes to a wholly different conclusion, but for good reasons.)

Brother Guy has said that we already know as Catholics there are other intelligent beings in the universe than humans, and we know that God takes an interest in them - Angels (and demons too, I suppose.) On that precedent, we can presume that if there are created intelligent beings on another planet, they have souls, God would be interested in them. The residents of Japan and India might have seemed as strange and otherworldly to European Jesuits during their first encounters as the aliens, if any, in another star system, and yet the Church concerned itself with their conversion. Whether the distance is thousands of miles across the ocean, or thousands of light years away is just a matter of degree, don’t you think?

EDIT: Sorry, I missed the post above me when I wrote this!
 
Arizona_Mike said:
Have you read anything by Brother Guy Consolmagno? He’s also a Jesuit (Brother) and the Vatican Astronomer. He’s a grad of both University of Arizona and MIT and is one of the world’s experts on meteorites. He’s also a science-fiction geek of epic proportions. (He spoke at a couple of conferences at BosCon this year.) I’d highly recommend to you his book “God’s Mechanics,” which is an examination of how tech-oriented people relate to God. It also discusses the topic you raised. It’s available fairly cheaply on Kindle.

There are a number of SF novels that confront this issue (often with Jesuits as protagonists), most notably the Hugo-winning “A Case of Conscience” by James Blish, which is excellent. Mary Doria Russell’s “The Sparrow” and its sequel “Children of God” are also quite good, but kind of skirt the issue of whether the alien race the Jesuit planetary team encounters should be the subjects of conversion. It seems to be pretty much taken for granted that they have souls. (Blish’s Jesuit protagonist comes to a wholly different conclusion, but for good reasons.)

Brother Guy has said that we already know as Catholics there are other intelligent beings in the universe than humans, and we know that God takes an interest in them - Angels (and demons too, I suppose.) On that precedent, we can presume that if there are created intelligent beings on another planet, they have souls, God would be interested in them. The residents of Japan and India might have seemed as strange and otherworldly to European Jesuits during their first encounters as the aliens, if any, in another star system, and yet the Church concerned itself with their conversion. Whether the distance is thousands of miles across the ocean, or thousands of light years away is just a matter of degree, don’t you think?

EDIT: Sorry, I missed the post above me when I wrote this!
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Hello… I used to be pretty active in the Forums, but I was distracted with office drama for a while. 🙂 Anyway, I’m back. I’m an author and essayist. Trying to spread the news right now about my new mystery, The Blood Cries Out. You can also find the new book trailer here.
 
Karl, this looks really good. I will have to get hold of it. Thanks for sharing.
My book is set in Seattle too but in the future, which gives me more leeway. Be interesting to see how you do it.
I tried to Look inside the book but it’s taking forever to load. Maybe it’s my computer.
 
Thanks, Vicki. Hope you were able to access it! I just downloaded a preview of your book. It looks interesting. 🙂
 
ME!!! My project is the first draft of the fourth book in my mystery series. Book three is getting ready to be sent to my publisher next month!

If you get a chance to read Karl’s book, I highly recommend it!👍
 
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