Interview with Frank Creed

Christian-fiction author of the cyberpunk Underground series; White Iron, part one of a fantasy braided novel; and contributor to Daniel I Weaver's speculative-fiction anthology project answers tough questions about his tough worlds.


Q: Writers have different motivations. What drives you?
A: I've always loved reading fantasy, sci-fi, horror and the other sub-genres of speculative fiction but until recent years, Christian bookstore shelves have been barren of spec-fic. Fans of this genre shop secular shelves because we've offered them nothing. It's been said that spec-fic is the handmaiden of philosophy. It is a perfect vehicle for delivering a worldview because it's so easily woven into your setting. Depending upon my intended audience, my motivation is either evangelism or post-evangelism by portraying characters heroically living their Fundamental faith even in the worst conditions. I feel that I use the best-suited but most neglected genre for the task.

Q: What is post-evangelism?
A: Post-evangelism is discipleship. Once someone is saved, then what? Many believers have a hard time applying Biblical wisdoms to modern issues. Through Flashpoint and the rest of the Underground Series, I hope to inspire direction and change in the lives of Christians who don't understand Scripture's lightning-strike answers to the classical philosophical questions.

Q: I thought Flashpoint was for readers age-twelve and up? Isn't that kinda deep?
A: In our society, big ideas are dry and boring. Flashpoint is set in the 2036 Chicago Metroplex and, thanks to home-grown terrorism, religious Fundamentalism is illegal. Teen-aged Calamity Kid and e-girl are the only members of their home-church not taken into custody. Their only refuge is an underground "terrorist" cell called the Body of Christ. Wide-eyed kids dodging barbed wire checkpoints, armed peacekeepers and violent gangers, while being hunted by the Federal Bureau of Terrorism, are thirsty for answers: through them, so's the reader.

Q: Don’t you fear that such a story is too racy for the Christian market?
A: I knew going into this novel that I'd be walking this 'graphic' fine line. I know what the rock-music-is-of-the-devil demographic of the Christian subculture will think of my writing, but controversy sells books. Regarding the morality of peaceful resistance, I stand on the Biblical arguments of Francis Schaeffer.

Q: Aren't your beliefs threatened by Sci-Fi?
A: What’s to be threatened? The church feared Galilleo’s Heliocentric theory of the Solar System, yet here we are today and the Earth is not flat. Fundamentalists already believe in intelligent alien life-forms: angels. If He created the entire Milky-Way and Universe just for humans (angels are extra-dimensional), my finite sensibilities see the universe as a terrible waste of space. Hebrews 1:2 reads, “Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds” --King James Version and the New King James Version. Hebrews 11: 3 contains a second reference to ‘worlds’. Editors of the NIV chose to translate ‘world’ in these verses as ‘universe’. The totality of worlds is indeed the universe, but A) this was written in a day when that was not common knowledge, and B) He could be hinting that we are not alone. There are Christians who for some reason believe that if alien life-forms were discovered, our faith would be disproven. Standing on these verses, I am not among them.

Q: May I take that to mean, you believe in aliens?
A: My guess is that He created other planetary species in His own image and because His plan seems to rely on each person's faith, I doubt that any of us will ever meet. I’d love to interact with a race-from-the-stars though, just to compare Messiah-notes: did Christ's blood cover the universe or were there many Incarnations? It is mind-boggling enough to know that He loves us humans enough to become mortal and endure what Jesus endured--the thought that the Son endured this hundreds of thousands of times gives me goose-bumps.

Q: No War of the Worlds scenario?
A: That would take all the faith right out of it. I doubt He’d allow that kind of violence to befall Earth.

Q: Since you brought it up, don't you see Flashpoint as violent?
A: I see violence all around me, and I’m not going to let Hollywood teach my kids about the proper uses of violence. Should the United States have allowed the Third Reich to take Europe? My fiction is an opportunity for a discussion of Biblical values, not just of violence but across the moral spectrum. In our fallen world, pacifism is a pipe dream. In the world of Flashpoint, the government has set itself up as god, and underground Christians refuse to bow to a false god.

Visit Frank's website at http://www.frankcreed.com
Frank has a novella published in a high fantasy anthology (Tales for the Thrifty Barbarian); is currently involved in a Christian Spec-fiction anthology due to be released this winter, and his novel Flashpoint, (see his website for the synopsis) is due to be released in autumn '06.

To Add Insult to Injury . . .

Well, I finally received it . . . my Indiana Learner's Permit! I have been driving for 3 decades but, I am a foreigner, oops, Alien in Indiana and apparently they are not positive that I can successfully maneuver along the treacherous roads of the state. The biggest challenge I have encountered to date has been the discovery of cellular phones here in Lafayette. I can't count the number of near-accidents that have occurred with folks on the phone going through 4-way stops, red lights, etc. -- all oblivious to the havoc they have just produced.

You probably can't make it out, but the license is dated January 25, 2006 -- yet I received it in July. Why? the bureaucracy lost my paperwork and then demanded more. First of all I had to wait for a year and a half to take the written test and then during the time they were to verify my documents, my visa expired and was replaced (apparently) by a permanent resident card (which never arrived though it was mailed in May '06). So, my documentation was out of date . . . however, since another bureaucracy misplaced my p.r. card--I was then left with no documentation at all! and, the licensing branch refused to send me my learner's permit.

Well, I don't know what went wrong/ right . . . but I still don't have my p.r. card but I did get the approval for the documentation anyhow? Go figure?

Now, I have to make an appointment for a driver's road test and then the whole mess starts all over again. Before they will send me my official driver's license (given I pass the road test), they have to, once again, verify my documentation. Hmmmm, I wonder if it will be four weeks as they say, or will it take another 23 weeks?

Meanwhile, I haven't heard back from the INS about where on earth my p.r. card is and when they will be issuing a second one. Time to get on the phone.

Cynthia