Behold, Christian science fiction. And my first Christian fiction of the new year (actually, my first Christian fiction review of the new year; my backlog at the time of writing is like two months long, so I actually read this back in December 2024).
Tangent: If Christian fantasy is a thing (albeit not one that, aside from Narnia, I've ever seen really done well), why isn't Christian science fiction more of a thing? I should write some, except I already have like 60 writing projects going on right now. One of which is a Christian urban fantasy 'verse, which will probably never take off.
Okay, back to the actual review. Unless I somehow missed it, we never actually learn what in the universe "Gemini's Key" is, so I'm not sure what's up with the title. I'd say it's a reference to other books in the series, except this is book 1.
When I started reading this, I was like "This is supposed to be Christian fiction, at least according to the multiple places on the cover that say that. So why is everyone being so hostile toward religion?" Then I realized conversion stories were a thing, which made that make a lot more sense. However, Halverstadt has mastered -- or at least understands -- the subtle art of not rushing such things. If you do rush a conversion arc, it just ends up looking like instead of integrating it, you got out your shoehorn.
Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T for violence.
4 stars.
(Endnote: If Earth hadn't been at the center of the society in this one, I'd have thought it a perfect setting to send some Lancer players.)
I think the tricky thing about Christian sci-fi is that sci-fi is by nature very reliant on science, and there's this harmful disconnect between Christians and science in the world today. Not to mention that sci-fi is usually set in the future, and we're told in Scripture that no one but God knows what the future holds, so probably some writers feel uncomfortable imagining it.
ReplyDeleteTechnically, Madeline L'Engle's Wrinkle in Time is considered Christian sci-fi. And there are those three books by C. S. Lewis.
I suppose that's true.
DeleteI didn't really get much Christianity out of A Wrinkle in Time, but it didn't have evolution either, so...