All posts by Morgan L. Busse

Morgan L. Busse is a writer by day and a mother by night. She is the author of the epic fantasy Follower of the Word series and the award-winning steampunk series, The Soul Chronicles. Her debut novel, Daughter of Light, was a Christy and Carol Award finalist. During her spare time she enjoys playing games, taking long walks, and dreaming about her next novel.

Book Reviews

The Merchant’s Daughter

December 3, 2011 Morgan L. Busse 4 Comments

I love fairytales. Magic, young women, knights in shining armor, dragons, you name it, I love it all. So when I heard about Melanie Dickerson’s books about fairytales set during the medieval time period, I had to read them. Her first book came out about a year ago, The Healer’s Apprentice (a retelling of the Sleeping Beauty story). I loved the book and wrote up a review about it (click here to read my review).

About a month ago, I received Melanie’s next book, The Merchant’s Daughter. This time she wrote about the Beauty and the Beast story set during early England. I love how she incorporates real history into her stories as if to show how these stories could have happened.

The Merchant’s Daughter follows Annabel, the youngest daughter of a merchant. Her family is too proud to do their share of feudal field work. Instead, they choose to pay for their portion. But when the family ships sink during a storm and the father dies, they owe a lot of gold to the new feudal lord, a badly disfigured young man.

Annabel is different from the rest of her family (kind, humble, the usual fairytale girl), so to help her family with this debt, she indentures herself to the young feudal lord to serve as his servant for 2 years.

You can see the Beauty and the Beast story woven throughout The Merchant’s Daughter. But Melanie’s special twist is to tell it as if it were historically accurate. There are no magical cups and candelabras, no singing, no enchanted rose. Instead, it’s the story of a young man with a bitter past and a scarred face who falls in love with a selfless young woman.

I highly recommend The Merchant’s Daughter and can’t wait to see what fairytale retellings Melanie Dickerson comes up with next :).

*I received an ARC copy of this book to review.

Personal

Thanksgiving

November 26, 2011 Morgan L. Busse 3 Comments

2011 has been a hard year for my family. So when Thanksgiving rolled around, it was difficult at first to get past all the bad things to see the good. But as soon as I started, it was like a thousands lights filling my soul. I realized that despite circumstances, God has given me so much to be thankful for.

First, I am thankful for my family. Three years ago, on the morning after Thanksgiving, my youngest son almost died. During that frantic car ride to the hospital, I believe he did. But God had compassion on my family and gave us Caleb back. We were shipped from hospital to hospital until Caleb and I were life-flighted up to Portland. None of the doctors could explain why our son went from healthy to dying in 12 hours. I don’t think we will ever know. But every time I looked at my son’s face, I am so thankful God let that little boy live. And not just Caleb, I am thankful for all my family. We are healthy and we are together.

Secondly, I am thankful for a home, food, and clothes. For the last couple months, Dan has been without a job. It has not been easy. But God has taken care of our every need. We still have a roof over our head. We have food to eat. We have clothes. We had a family give us a dryer when ours went out and we could not afford to get it fixed. We had someone else give us money to help get tires for our van (they were getting threadbare). I am thankful to God for meeting our needs.

On that note, I am thankful for my job. It came just when we needed it most. Through my job I have been able to help my family. Its also nice to have a job that I like going to every day. I hope someday to be back home, but working outside the home has given me a greater appreciation for what I had before and for those women who don’t have a choice but to work. Its hard to have a foot in both worlds, trust me, I know!

Most people never live to see a dream fulfilled, but this year I saw mine. At the end of July I signed my very first book contract. And not only that, but I signed with the publishing company I wanted, Marcher Lord Press. My first book, Daughter of Light, will release Spring 2012. That is definitely something to be thankful for :).

Early this year, Dan and I met a couple who became very dear friends to us. They have prayed for us, cried with us, and helped us during this dark time in our lives. That and they are as geeky as we are (and play a mean hand of cards :P). I am thankful for friends who when the storm clouds come, they stand right beside you.

I am also thankful for my husband Dan. He is a man of integrity, respect, and love; a man I am not ashamed to lift up before my children as an example to follow. No, he’s not perfect (trust me, I live with the guy), but I couldn’t have asked for a better companion in life. God blessed me when He brought Dan into my life.

Lastly, I am thankful for God. I do not list him last because he is least important on my thankful list, but rather because God is the one that holds everything I am and am thankful for. Without him, the rest of my list would not exist. He is the Light in my Darkness, my Defender, my Hope when all hope is gone, and the only One who could save my soul. Why God loves me with all the ick that dwells inside of me I will never know. But He does. And I am so thankful for that.

God's Character, Personal

A Tale of a Kitty

November 18, 2011 Morgan L. Busse Leave a comment

Rosie’s life began as an abandoned kitten. She and her sister were found in front of a store, tiny and alone. Her sister had been hit by a car and had a broken leg. My friend found the two kittens and took them to the vet. There they received care for their wounds. Afterward, my friend took them home, provided them with food and began to look for a home for them.

At that time, Dan and I had begun looking for a cat for our home (I am a cat lover and firmly believe no house is complete without a purring machine :)). Months before we had to put down a kitten we had adopted. Tiger left a huge hole in our hearts, which we were now ready to fill. When I read Rosie’s story, I contacted my friend and said we would take the kitten.

Rosie came home and was immediately showered with love. Our dogs loved the feisty little puffball (they would actually sleep with her). She had toys, food, fresh litterbox, and any bed she wanted in the entire house. As I watched her play in the living room one day, I realized something: Rosie has no idea the life she was saved from. And neither do we.

Rosie was born a street cat. She was abandoned and left on the side of the road. Her life, if my friend and my family had not intervened, would have consisted of disease, hunger, and early death. But Rosie doesn’t know this. Even if I were able to speak cat language and tell her what she was saved from, she wouldn’t be able to comprehend this. She has a wonderful, loving family, plenty of food, and a place to lay in the sunshine.

In the same we, I don’t think we understand the life we have been saved from by God’s grace. Like abandoned children who lived in darkness, God came and rescued us. He bandaged our wounds, gave us hope, and brought light into our lives. Does that mean our lives are easy when we choose to follow God? No. But we have a loving Father who provides for our needs, watches over us, and will never leave us.

Funny how God uses small things like the life of an abandoned kitten to teach me about Himself :).

Christian Life, Personal

Sometimes there are No Answers

November 5, 2011 Morgan L. Busse 3 Comments

I like answers. I want to know why something works, what happens when you do X, and how can I get the best outcome. I tend to get to the point, whether it has to do with work, solving a problem, or with relationships (about drove my husband mad with this early on :)). So when life doesn’t compute, I want answers.

Unfortunately, sometimes there are no answers to why things happen.

I struggled with this over the past year. Most of the time I can find an explanation on why God allows something to happen. You know, the usual answers: to grow us, to prepare us for a greater blessing, fill in the blank. But none of those answers seemed sufficient for the pain and tears shed over the last several months. I wanted to know why. I wanted a reason so I could close those doors, heal, and move on.

Did God let Dan lose his job because He has something better planned? Why did it feel God was leading us to church plant, to then not have it work out? Why do bad things happen to people who want to follow God’s plan?

I will admit this past year shook my faith down to its very core. I could feel the darkness closing in on me. I cried out to God, but couldn’t seem to hear Him. I felt alone and cold spiritually.

Now some people will say you should never question God. I believe its better to be honest with God. David was honest with God in the Psalms. Jeremiah the prophet was honest with God. God knows my heart and can see the hurt and confusion already inside. Through honesty comes truth. And with truth comes answers.

A couple weeks ago, I had my answer: that sometimes there are no answers. I could feel in my heart that God had been patient with me, but it had come to the point that I needed to let go; I would not have the answers to why things happened the way they did this year. Why? Because God is God and I am me.

In that moment, I caught an awe and terrifying glimpse of God. We, or at least I, forget how much bigger, how much smarter, how much more God knows than I do. He is running this entire universe, watching over lives, creating divine intersections, moving things along on a scale that I can’t even comprehend. So when He says that all things work together for good, even if I can’t see it, He does, and I need to trust that. So I let go.

I may have my answers someday, perhaps in heaven. But I have a feeling that by then, I’m not going to care. Why? I’ll finally be in God’s presence and that will be all I need.

Uncategorized

CSFF Blog Tour- The Bone House

October 24, 2011 Morgan L. Busse 2 Comments

It’s been a couple months since I reviewed a book with the CSFF Blog Tour. This month I’m back and with the next book in Stephen Lawhead’s The Bright Empire series. Exactly a year ago I review The Skin Map, the first book in this series. Today I will be taking a look at The Bone House, the second book.

A quick recap: in this series, Stephen Lawhead explores the idea of ley travel. Here is what I wrote last year: Ley Lines: unexplainable forces of energy around our world that allow a person to jump through time and dimensions. Kit Livingstone possesses the gift to make these jumps. But jumping can be dangerous. You never know if you’ll end up in a tiger filled jungle or on the battlefield. You need a map to help you know where to go.

Such a map exists, tattooed onto the body of a man who has mapped out these times and dimensions. This map is priceless and sought by everyone who knows of its existence. Some of those searching for it are willing to do anything to obtain it, even murder.

Stephen Lawhead goes another step and throws in a couple dimensions in The Bone House. He explores the idea of multiverses (worlds like ours, but different, depending on history and choices made). So the characters are not only jumping to different time periods, they are jumping to different worlds.

I found The Bone House a bit complicated to read because the very nature of the story requires the reader to keep track of different time periods and different worlds. However, Stephen did a good job navigating and most of the time I did not feel lost.

He also did an excellent job with description. He carefully painted each time period and world change, giving description to the food, clothing, and general feel to where the character was at that moment.

However, there were two things I did not like about The Bone House. One: all the characters. Actually, I did like the characters; each one was unique and interesting. But I was never with one person long enough to actually start caring about him/her. And if I don’t connect with a character, then I don’t feel submerged in the story.

Secondly: God was hardly there. Now I’m not saying The Bone House needed to be preachy or overtly about God. After all, the book of Esther in the Bible never mentions God. But you know by the context of the story that He is an integral part of it. I saw none of that with The Bone House. It was no different than any other speculative books I see on the bookshelf. It had a great premise and good writing. But what I wanted to see is where is God’s sovereignty in ley lines and multiverses?

When I began reading The Bone House, I thought something like that would be tackled. Or addressed. Or even debated. Instead, I read about a lot of characters on lots of adventures. But hardly any mention of God. And I was disappointed.

In fact, there were things that made me pause: a detailed account of an entrail reading and a world of cavemen. Now as a writer, I know Stephen was writing from the viewpoint of those time periods and customs and religions. But why were these emphasized and hardly anything written about God? Why not at least have one character bring up the question about God and ley lines and multiverses?

It’s a fascinating question and one I’ve thought about myself. After all, God is not only the God of our time, but He even knows what could have been. As I thought about that while reading The Bone House, I found myself even more in awe about how much more God knows and understands than I do. So to read a Christian speculative book without even asking where God is in all of this was disappointing.

Perhaps God will show up in the third book. I have a year to wait.

Do I recommend The Bone House? Good writing, good plot, interesting characters. However, as a book toted as Christian speculative fiction, I think it missed out on exploring some great questions. But don’t take my word for it, go read it yourself :). And check out what these other CSFF Bloggers had to say!

Noah Arsenault

Red Bissell

Thomas Clayton Booher

Rebecca LuElla Miller

*In conjunction with the CSFF Blog Tour, I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

Christian Life, Personal, Writing

Christian Speculative Sites

October 15, 2011 Morgan L. Busse 4 Comments

Back in 2004 I began my search for Christian speculative fiction. There wasn’t a lot, at least that I could find. Since then, over the course of almost eight years I have found books, publishers, and websites all dedicated to this genre. I know some of you are lovers of the weird and the strange like me, but have no idea where to look to find your fill of fantasy and science fiction. Let me share with you my discoveries:

Where the Map Ends. This is the first site I discovered years ago for Christian Speculative lovers. It has everything from interviews with Christian authors of this genre to book lists to forums where Christians talk about science fiction and fantasy. A bonus to this site is a section where you can learn great writing tips from Jeff Gerke.

Speculative Faith. I found this site about 2 years ago. Monday through Friday you can find articles written by people knowledgeable and passionate about the speculative genre in general and how it relates to the Christian faith in particular. Excellent site for discussion. Bonus: Speculative Faith has a current book list of pretty much all the Christian fantasy and science fiction out there. So if you’re looking for something to read along those lines, check out their list.

Speaking of books, the Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy blog tour (also known as the CSFF) consists of 30-50 bloggers who each month review a Christian speculative book or site. The goal of this blog tour is to let people know good Christian fantasy and science fiction exists. I will be participating in the tour at the end of this month. If you want to read about my thoughts on past books, click on CSFF Blog Tour.

And lastly, publishers. Since I first began writing, there are at least 4 publishers that I know of now dedicated to Christian speculative fiction. I have not been able to read everything produced, but what I have read I have enjoyed and written up reviews on. Here they are:

Splashdown Books

Written World Communications

Risen Books

And of course, Marcher Lord Press.

I hope this helps many of you on your search for Christian speculative fiction. Enjoy!

Personal, Writing

Why I Write Christian Speculative Fiction

October 8, 2011 Morgan L. Busse 9 Comments

I never set out to write Christian fantasy. In fact, I wasn’t sure what place that kind of book had in this world. Sure, there was Lewis’ Narnia series and Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. But with all the controversy over Harry Potter years ago, I didn’t know what to think. I read Star Wars, Terry Brooks, and such, but Christian fantasy? I don’t think so.

It was actually the Harry Potter controversy that made me start thinking about Christian fantasy. Could fantasy and Christianity mix? Could a good book be written where the faith element or the fantasy element was not compromised? Like I said, I never set out to do that, but in the end that is what I wrote.

Daughter of Light began as a story in my head. It was a place to play with some cool fantasy ideas. A fantasy book with a hint of faith. But as the years went by and I found myself traveling down dark roads and facing one crisis of faith after another in real life, Daughter of Light began to morph into an exploration of what it ultimately meant to follow God.

Through speculative fiction, I am able to explore what would a Christian look like if the externals generally associated with Christianity were taken away like church attendance, bible studies, or Sunday school. Now I’m not saying those are bad things (not at all), but sometimes our Christianity is defined by where we go or what we do, not by who we are.

I am also able to paint word pictures with fantasy that I could not do if I wrote about this world. For example: sin. In our world, sin is a hidden part of our nature. We see the results of sin, but not sin itself. But in a fantasy world, I can show what we look like with sin: naked, broken, with blood on our hands. Unable to heals ourselves. Helpless and bound to darkness.

Of course, there is a fun aspect to writing fantasy. I get to write outside the box, ask “what if” questions. What if we could see people the way God sees people, would we still love them? What if we could heal, but it meant taking on the hurt and pain, would we? What if you found out you’re really from another dimension (that’s a fun question 🙂). What if you discovered you’re not human?

I love writing Christian speculative fiction. It combines my weirdness, my creativity, and my faith. Here is a quote by C.S. Lewis that best sums up why I write Christian fantasy:

“I thought I saw how stories of this kind could steal past a certain inhibition which had paralyzed much of my own religion in childhood. Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about God or about the sufferings of Christ? I thought the chief reason was that one was told one ought to. An obligation to feel can freeze feelings. And reverence itself did harm. The whole subject was associated with lowered voices; almost as if it were something medical. But supposing that by casting all these things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their stained-glass and Sunday school associations, one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency? Could one not thus steal past those watchful dragons? I thought one could.”

Book Reviews, Personal

October is Speculative Month

October 1, 2011 Morgan L. Busse 1 Comment

October is speculative month! Why? A) Because its my birthday B) I will be covering/reviewing a bunch of sci-fi fantasy books and internet sites C) Marcher Lord Press is releasing 5 excellent books and C) A holiday on the 31st where I get to eat lots of candy, compliments of my husband and children 🙂

So to start off October I want to showcase a book that just released today over at Marcher Lord Press. For anyone visiting or doesn’t know, Marcher Lord Press has been dubbed the premier publisher of Christian speculative fiction. It is also the publishing company that will be producing my own book Daughter of Light (release date TBA).

Anyone who knows me knows I like the weird, the strange, and the fantastical. So anytime I can promote my love for this genre in book, movie, or game form, I will. And here, to begin Speculative month, I give you Oxygen.

I asked Randy to tell me why he and John decided to re-release Oxygen. After all, the original book was great, garnering both readers and awards. Here is what Randy had to say:

When John and I started working on the new release back in March, we thought it would be pretty easy to tighten up the writing a bit. But then we started talking about the parts of OXYGEN that we didn’t like so much, and we discovered that there were some scenes we both hated.

And that scared the liver out of us, because as a whole, the original story worked very well. A lot of readers loved it and we won a pile of awards for it. So we didn’t want to break anything, but we still wanted to fix those pesky scenes that seemed to us to be clearly broken. It took us months to polish them up, but we finally got it done, and just in time.

The main “catastrophe in space” storyline hasn’t changed at all. That’s still exactly the same.

So what’s changed?

The romantic storyline between our heroine and hero has been buffed up a bit. We added a little more heat where it was needed early on, and we removed some conflict which we thought was heavy-handed artificial — mainly conflict over faith issues. Along the way, we inserted a little more humor.

We think the result is better than before. Not hugely better, but enough better that we feel good about every single scene now.

I can’t wait to read this new version of Oxygen and will probably write up a review sometime. But don’t wait to hear what I have to say about it, click here and check it out yourself. And check back the next few weeks to find more speculative goodness 🙂

Christian Life, God's Character

Walking on Water

September 24, 2011 Morgan L. Busse 2 Comments

The Christian life is like walking on water. We see Jesus and He beckons us to come out and join Him in faith. So we do. We get out of the boat and low and behold, we are walking on water! Amazing!

But then the waves of life start to pick up. They climb higher and higher as the sky grows dark and the wind whips the water into a frenzy. Suddenly Jesus looks small compared to the things we fear in life:

I just got my paycheck and its not going to cover the bills this month.

My husband said he met someone else and no longer loves me.

Its cancer and I only have 3 months to live.

The medical bills are more than I make.

My teen daughter is pregnant.

No one will hire me.

Fear grips us. All we can see is the waves, each one threatening to crash over us. Jesus, where are you? We cry. All we can see is the storm. And we begin to sink.

I’ve felt that panicky, drowning feeling lately. I’m looking for Jesus, and I know He’s there, but right now, my life feels like a hurricane. I’m having a hard time setting my eyes on the small image of Jesus walking towards me on the water.

Faith is easy when the waters are calm. But when lightning flashes and the wind howls and the waves of life are higher than my head, faith for me is very, very hard. And when I feel like I’m facing the waves alone, they can overwhelm me.

But I am so thankful that Jesus doesn’t leave us there to drown, even when we have very little faith. Like Peter, we cry out. And Jesus comes. Does the storm stop? The storm didn’t stop when Jesus reached out to Peter. And many times the storms in our lives don’t stop when Jesus reaches for us.

Instead, we find a firm hand pulling us up and a face to look upon rather than the storm. And in my case, a reminder not to have so little faith because even the winds and waves -and life- obey the one who can save me.