Mythic Orbits 2016

The name "Mythic Orbits" was simply intended to suggest both science fiction and fantasy and to identify this book in a distinctive way, along with any that follow after it in a series. Ideally this collection would include the best stories published in a particular year, but that wasn’t possible this time around. This collection of stories is tagged with 2016 in the title because that’s the year of publication of this anthology, not of the individual stories within it (with a few exceptions). In addition to science fiction and fantasy, this anthology of 14 authors includes what we would have to call horror and paranormal stories as well as more definitive science fiction and fantasy. Just as Mythic Orbits 2016 represents a wide variety of genres, there is no single theme to these tales, though the subject of empathy or lack thereof does come up in them repeatedly. This is most definitely not an anthology about orbits which are somehow mythical. What this is, is a showcase for the best stories in the general field of speculative fiction by Christian authors. The first goal for this anthology was simply to demonstrate that Christian authors really can write speculative fiction well. Stories with a wide range of appeal are included here, mostly serious, some with humor, some with “happy endings” and others clearly not so happy. But all of them worth reading. Some of the authors wrote using Christian themes but others did not. Some of these stories feature Christian characters in speculative fiction worlds, some make use of Christian themes either subtly or overtly, while some have no discernible connection to Christianity at all. There is no specific content or doctrinal test for these tales, though they are basically clean. As long as the violence mentioned in a few of…