Christian books on the rise

The annual International Christian Retail Show (ICRS), held in Atlanta last month, brought together more than 9,000 industry professionals and retailers, and the buzz was clear: the market for Christian fantasy and Christian romance is hot.
With the Book Industry Study Group reporting that the current estimated $2.4 billion per year in Christian book sales is expected to increase by 6 percent annually until 2009, both secular and Christian publishers are targeting those readers with a barrage of new titles in both categories.

August 15, 2007 by Uncategorized 2

You may also like...

2 Responses

  1. Fang-Face says:
    August 15, 2007 at 6:11 pm

    Christian Fantasy?
    Off hand, I’d say that “Christian Fantasy” is an oxymoron. The reason why was probably put best this way; at least behind some of the rhetoric:

    Being the heathen I am, I always thought “Christian Fantasy” had something to do with snorting blow off a gay hooker’s ass while pretending that you’re a happily married straight dude, but it turns out that “Christian Fantasy” is an entire literary genre that apes the themes built by giants like Tolkien and Rowling, then pastes over the icky stuff–like devil juice, err, magic. And the girl characters probably aren’t so “smart” and “uppity,” either.

    Like the Potter series, it has mystical creatures, macabre events, epic battles and heroic young protagonists.

    But, unlike the Potter books, this genre has overt Christian tones: messiah-like kings who return from the dead, fallen satanic characters and young heroes who undergo profound conversions. What you won’t generally find: humans waving wands and performing spells.

    Or, ya know, fun.

    And certainly no resemblance to actual humanity.
    –Melissa McEwan, The Washington Post indulges its fantasies of a Harry Potter book with Christian overtones, at the web journal Shakesville, 19 Jul 2007

    Mind you, the term “fantasy” in this case can be subject to equivocation. On the one hand, whether or not there is any actual fantasizing behind Christianist novels is a valid point. On the other hand, where the term is used to describe a literary genre (holy texts are not literary, but religious), the bible itself would be categorized as Swords and Sorcery.

    Reply
  2. tomeboy says:
    August 15, 2007 at 7:14 pm

    Re:Christian Fantasy?
    Off hand, I’d say that “Christian Fantasy” is an oxymoron.

    And I would disagree. Christian allegory is replete with fantasy motifs. Nothing new. See C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, Chesterton….

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

LISNews Archives