Michael D. Warden:

ON FAITH & FANTASY

a FamilyFans.com exclusive interview 

Michael Warden looks like such a normal guy. Six-foot something, relatively young, even athletic. You just picture him relaxing in a coffee shop or whacking a racquetball down at the gym.

Who knew that lurking in his brain was an imagination the size of Middle Earth? Or better yet, the size of The Inherited Lands, that miraculous place where there is no magic--only words of Life and Death. That wondrous world within the pages of Gideon's Dawn (Barbour Publishing) where epic fantasy meets rock-solid faith; where an unwilling Messiah must stare down an unrelenting enemy; where a young man and a band of fugitives will risk everything for the truth.

This is the place that novelist, Michael D. Warden has created in Gideon's Dawn, a book that's rich in allegory and lyrical in text--and one that's easily the most literary fiction we at FamilyFans.com have read in recent years.

So what kind of mind can innovate this kind of truth-filled imagination? We had to find out, so we cornered Mr. Warden peppered him with questions. Here's what he had to say...

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FamilyFans.COM: First of all, Wow. Gideon's Dawn is fabulous, almost as if it were something Tolkien or C.S. Lewis might have written. What can you tell us about this new epic fantasy novel?

MICHAEL D. WARDEN: Well, thanks! That's very kind of you. I'm glad you enjoyed the book. Gideon’s Dawn is the first of a series of books called The Pearlsong Refounding. In this one, the first in the series, the story revolves around a reclusive graduate student from Texas named Gideon Dawning who is buried alive during a freakish earthquake in the Colorado mountains, and later awakens to find himself in a totally different world—a mystical world where certain words have the power to both kill and create. Once there, Gideon encounters a mysterious group of people who believe him to be the fulfillment of ancient prophecies concerning a coming redeemer, and he reluctantly becomes the centerpiece of an epic quest to save this new world from the oppression of a dark and malevolent power.

What prompted you to write fantasy fiction in the first place?

I’ve always been drawn by the power of fantasy and myth to shape the way we look at the world. From my earliest recollections as a child, stories of dragons and fairies and ogres and knights filled my imagination, and in their way conveyed to me certain truths about my own life, things I’m not sure I could have learned through other means, and which I still carry with me as a man. And now that I am an adult, I find that those same stories, along with new ones I have discovered, have a way of challenging and enriching my understanding of the world in ways that other forms of writing cannot easily match. I think it’s that unique quality of fantasy that inspired me to write Gideon's Dawn.

As a genre, fantasy has often been looked on with suspicion by many Christians. What would you say to those who believe that fantasy books have no place in the Christian life?

I think the example of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings or Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia answer that criticism more eloquently than I ever could. Those fantastic stories, written by godly men, have done far more than entertain us. They’ve made an impact on our beliefs, not just within the Church, but in the culture as a whole. The lessons from those stories have become a part of our cultural dialog. They get past our often narrow preconceptions about God and the world, and reveal to us something of the true nature and power of evil, as well as the greater, overwhelming power of God’s love and forgiveness.

I think that’s one of the key advantages to using fantasy as a means to convey eternal truths. As readers, we all come to a story with our own set of biases and "baggage" about the way we believe life is. For example, what we believe about the nature of Truth, or the nature of evil; or what we think we can reasonably hope for in life, and what is beyond our reach. Fantasy has a way of suspending those preconceptions, and allowing us to explore those timeless questions from a fresh perspective. Good fantasy, high fantasy as I would call it, not only entertains, but also provokes us to question things about ourselves and our lives that we might never question otherwise. I think God welcomes those kinds of questions in our hearts, because He knows that’s ultimately the only thing that leads us to growth.

Gideon’s Dawn is in part a product of my own exploration of questions like these. At its core, Gideon’s Dawn is a story of transformation—the amazing power of love to remake the human soul—and the courage it takes to believe that change is possible, when everything around you tells you that it’s not.

What do you see as the most challenging aspects of writing a novel like this?

I think every writer would answer that question differently. For me, the most challenging struggle is in giving myself permission to go a bit insane. To write a novel, the characters have to be more than just characters. They have to become real, as real to you as your mother or father, your spouse or your best friend. For me, that was a difficult leap. If I allow a bunch of real, living people to run rampant inside my head, what does that say about my sanity? And yet, if the people in your story aren’t real to you, how can you expect them to be real to your readers?

Another challenge is the isolation that writing of this sort imposes on your life. Not everyone understands the passion to write, and it can be hard for some of the people close to you to tolerate the long months you must spend sequestered in a room with nothing but coffee and the computer. It’s a tricky balance to maintain. A writer has to recognize that he’s not the only one paying a price for the sake of the work.

Can you tell us anything about your plans for the future?

As I mentioned, Gideon’s Dawn is the first installment of a series called The Pearlsong Refounding. I’m currently working on Waymaker, the second book in the series, which I hope to complete by Winter of 2003. On the side, I’m also laying the foundation for a different kind of adventure thriller set in modern times, one that explores the fuzzy boundaries between E.S.P. and the spiritual realm. I’m just in the research phase for that one, however.

Who are your favorite authors, and why do they inspire you?

I'm a voracious reader, and my interests are very eclectic. But when it comes to pure inspiration, I'd have to say that J.R.R. Tolkein and C.S. Lewis have had the most profound impact on me—particularly in terms of my motivation for becoming an author in the first place. What strikes me about them as authors is not just their obvious excellence as writers and passion for myth, but also their love of language. I think they understood something of the power inherent in words. Their example has been invaluable to me.

Beyond those two, I enjoy the writings of Thomas Merton, Flannery O'Conner, Sena Jeter Naslund, Herman Melville, Anita Diamant, and Dave Eggers (among many others).

Anything else you'd like to share with our readers?

Only that I'd love to hear from them! I invite anyone to feel free to drop me a line at my website.

And hey, all you readers out there, log onto Amazon.com and write your reviews of Gideon's Dawn. Let's get this book buzzing, FamilyFans.com'ers--and maybe we'll get publishers to print more great Christian fiction like this book in the years to come.

Sounds great to me. Thanks FamilyFans.com'ers!

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Want to know more about Michael D. Warden? Or read samples of his writing? Then check out his web site at: http://www.michaelwarden.com 

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