Sci-Fi Still Too Unpopular with Christians

A quick comment on a very prevalent prejudice among Christians...

The other day I came across a new Christian publisher (who shall remain unnamed) and read through their submission guidelines. Down the bottom was a list of genres they don't accept. There along with erotica and porn and violence they listed sci-fi!

I promptly wrote to them and asked why as nicely as I could, and stated that I was very saddened to see it in a list with porn etc. I also said I don't need them to bend the rules for me, but I do wonder why they exclude a genre with so much potential for touching people's hearts.

A very nice lady wrote back to me immediately and explained the quandary they find themselves in when deciding what is acceptable - the traditional Lost Genre/bridging-the-gap problem we're all too familiar with. After all, the LGG was founded as a support network precisely because most Christians find our genres unacceptable, and most mainstream genre writers/publishers/readers are not interested in God. This same problem pops up all over the place.

Anyway, because of what I said, they had a rethink and took sci-fi out of the no-no list. They still don't want aliens, but futuristic is okay. So those with alien stories will still have to go to Wayfarers' Journal or Raygun Revival.

Slowly, surely, the lost genre moves forward... :) It may seem like a small step, but I was encouraged at how easy it was to point out the prejudice to the publisher, and that they so graciously re-worded their guidelines, at least a little bit...