I
Am a Donkey; Lord, Give Me the Words
By
Yvonne Anderson
How does a
person who avoids CBA novels and doesn’t care much for science fiction end up
writing Christian sci-fi? Well, it’s like this…
There came a
time that I felt a nudging of the Holy Spirit to write a book. I prayed and
pleaded, because this was seriously not something I wanted to do. But, “not my
will, but Thine be done,” and so, in February of 2002, I set sail on the uncertain seas of the writing
world.
If you’re a
writer, you know about the swells, the troughs, and the periodic doldrums of
that life, so I’ll spare you the details. But after a near drowning, the Lord
allowed me to rest on the beach of non-writing for a time.
Of course I
thought that part was my idea. “I’m finished,” I said as I built myself a shelter
of driftwood. “I’ll never write fiction again.” And I busied myself with life
on dry land, never planning to go to sea again.
In the course
of establishing a “normal” life, I ran across an innocuous-looking little
nonfiction book called The Gospel in the
Stars by Joseph A. Seiss. Originally written in the mid-1800s and reprinted
in the 1970s, it explained the theory that when God created the heavens and the
earth, He portrayed the gospel message in constellation pictures for early man
to “read.” What an intriguing concept! But I struggled with the archaic
language as well as technical terms (vernal equinox, declination and ascension,
etc.) the author apparently assumed the reader understood.
“This is
fascinating,” I said, “But it needs to be simplified.” In an attempt to make it
easier for the average dummy like me to grasp, I decided to write a story in
which the characters discovered these things for themselves. Yes, yes, I know;
I was never going to write fiction again. But this wasn’t really writing. It
was just for fun; no one would ever read it but me. And it was just a short
story, so I wouldn’t waste a lot of time on it.
That’s what I
told myself as I waded in for a quick dip in the ocean… and was caught in a
current that took me far out to sea.
Was it
because I’d just been reading about stars and had stars on the brain? For
whatever reason, I set the story in space, on a planet of my own creation. I
named it Gannah, from the Hebrew word for “garden,” because when God created
our world, that’s where human history began: in the Garden.
Giving it an
outer-space setting meant I was now writing sci-fi. Writing blind in the genre,
really, because I’d never read much of it, and my only brush with it on the
screen was the original Star Trek show when I was a kid. Which I didn’t like.
Funny thing,
though. Once I got wet, I realized this was the best swim I’d ever had, and the
short story turned into a full-length novel. But even in 120,000 words, I
couldn’t fit in everything I’d discovered about the planet Gannah. So I began a
sequel, all the while laughing with delight at what a wonderful sense of humor
our God has. Putting the likes of me
to work writing Christian sci-fi? Only the God who made a donkey speak (Numbers
22:21-31) would do something like that.
Though at sea
once again, I was never alone. God was with me, of course, but He also brought
me into contact with other seafarers. At latitude January, longitude 2011, I
connected with an independent publisher who liked Gannah and asked a
provocative question: What’s your vision for the series?
Series? What
series? I’m just having fun! But with a three-book contract in hand (what, me?
a contracted author?), I had quickly found a long-range vision.
I published
the third and fourth titles in the Gateway to Gannah series in 2014. And, released from my contract, I republished
the first two earlier this year with minor revisions and new cover art. The
series is now complete, and all titles are available in both print and ebook at
Amazon. Each book can stand alone, but when put together, they tell one lengthy
tale.
After
releasing the third title, I noticed from the reviews that people who had
started with Book 1 enjoyed it more than readers who jumped in at Book 3. So when
I published the fourth, I added an overview of the series up to that point to
enable first-time visitors to Gannah to get their sea legs quickly.
Whichever
starting place you choose, I invite you to fly through the Gateway to Gannah
for some serious sci-fi adventure!
Dassa skates toward the palace in
completion of her Third Quest, unaware the Karkar Plague has returned to ravage
Gannah.
On a medical starship not far away,
Dr. Pik is ordered to find a cure for the plague – an unlikely assignment,
given his inbred hatred of the whole Gannahan race. Duty trumps prejudice,
however, and he succeeds… but that’s just the beginning of the story.
Dassa and Pik survive attack by
space pirates, food poisoning, savage Gannahan beasts, and a plane crash. The
hardest part, though, is enduring one another’s company.
The Creator who wrote the story of
redemption in the stars has commanded her to share it with her reluctant
savior. That’s not all He requires of her, but the rest is unthinkable.
Dassa is back on Gannah, but things
aren’t going the way she’d planned.
A
shuttle crash leaves her marooned 10,000 kilometers from the settlement just as
a blizzard sets in. Injured, she takes refuge in Ruwach Gorge. Seeking food and
shelter, she stumbles across the ruins of a place she’d always thought was a
myth. What she finds there casts doubt on some of her fundamental beliefs.
Her
husband, Pik, reluctantly takes charge of the settlement in her absence and
organizes a search for her. Rebellious settlers and a wayward daughter make
things difficult enough. But when the planet’s animals threaten to break the
ancient treaty and resume the old Wildlife Wars, Pik’s hard-pressed to hold
things together. If he can manage to find Dassa, will she have a home to come
back to?
Alone in the mysterious canyon where
reality and fairytale are flipped, Dassa wonders the same thing.
How much is a life worth? And who will
pay the price?
Fifteen-year-old
Lileela returns from the planet Karkar, frothing with bitterness over what she
perceives as abandonment by her parents. Why do they want her back now? And why
does Karkar demand such a huge payment for delivering her?
Neither
she nor her family suspects that Karkar’s true motive is revenge. The tiny New
Gannahan settlement has no hope of repelling an invasion – no hope, that is,
except for One the Karkar can’t see.
While traveling through desolate
terrain, Adam stumbles upon an impossibility: a village of Old Gannahan
survivors. Hard to believe. Harder yet, it seems one of them is the true heir
to the throne.
Will
Adam right an ancient wrong and lose his inheritance? Or ignore the truth and
lose his integrity?
-----------------------
Yvonne Anderson writes fiction that
takes you out of this world.
The Story in the Stars, the first in the Gateway to Gannah
series as well as her debut novel, was an ACFW Carol Award finalist in 2012.
The adventure continues with Words
in the Wind and
Ransom
in the Rock and concludes with The
Last Toqeph.
She lives in Western Maryland with her husband of almost
forty years and shares the occasional wise word on her personal site, YsWords.
A member of ACFW, her name comes up now and then as having been with The Borrowed Book
blog for a couple of years and coordinated Novel Rocket’s Launch
Pad Contest for unpublished novelists.
Oh, yeah: she also does freelance
editing.
If you like good conversation, you may contact her through
her blog,
Goodreads,
Twitter,
or Facebook.
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