Intro and Fantasy/Sci-fi Book Suggestions

Hey everyone! My name is Devin St. Clair and I thought I would check in here since Paeter suggested I check it out. I have been a born again believe in Jesus Christ, since I was 13 (17 years) and I love truth and accuracy in God's Word. I also hold my brothers and sisters to seeking truth and accuracy. Seeing people mislead by bad pastors, theology, and extra Biblical books makes me very angry. I do a lot of reading on apologetics, creation science, church history, and discernment. I grew up Roman Catholic until I accepted The Lord Jesus Christ as my personal Savior when I was 13. I have normally considered my self non-denominational since I attended mainly Calvary Chapels. But for the moment I consider myself KJV only, fundamental, Independent Baptist.

With that churchy intro out of the way, I am also a major geek! I proudly admit it. I have always be outside the mainstream. I enjoy Sci-fi and fantasy, movies, reading, video games, CCGs, computers, robotics, ham radio, and recently tabletop RPGs. I do IT work for a living (computers). I am married (no kids - yet) and my wife is in the US Navy, but she will be getting out in august of 2014 thankfully.

Anyway! Now that my narcissism has past, let's get to the good stuff! Do any of you have suggestions for fantasy or Sci-fi novels, movies, or video games? I know that is a wide ranging question, but I have already found several movies and books in the last couple of weeks I had never heard of because of sites like this.

To tell the truth, I am embracing my geek side more so than I was before. My wife and I watched a couple of great indie movies about gammers recently and I expressed some things about myself my wife of almost 8 years didn't know about me. Needless to say she was also interested about these things and was excited. One of these "things" was tabletop RPGs. But we were both concerned about if we should get involved with fantasy RPGs because they contain references to magic and sorcery (which in the real world is always sourced from demons).

After long and intensive research I came to the conclusion there is nothing wrong with RPGs. There are a few out there I would consider pushing it, but for the most part they're fine. I know i made a sweeping statement but there are far too many details to my findings to list. All this is saying a lot coming from someone like my self whom some people could consider "legalistic" on certain subjects.

Well, there, I got it all out. So if anyone is in the Bremerton Washington area and wants to play Pathfinder RPG please let me know. We need to find others to play with, it's just hard because we don't really know anyone here.

Thanks to whoever made it to the end of my babbling. ;-)

-Devin

Welcome to the forums Devin
What video game system(s) do you have?
Some books i enjoyed are The Dominion Trilogy by Robin Parrish, Blink aka Blink of an Eye, and the Circle series both by Ted Dekker.
The only RPG game I play is the Kingdom Hearts series and don't play any tabletop games (not because I think they're evil or anything they just don't interest me) so i can't really help you there but this is a great community and I'm sure others here can help you.
Welcome again

I only play games on PC. I tried consoles, but never liked any since SNES.

Thanks for the suggestions I will check them out!

Oh and thank you for the welcome. :-)

Devin82m wrote:Do any of you have suggestions for fantasy or Sci-fi novels, movies, or video games? I know that is a wide ranging question, but I have already found several movies and books in the last couple of weeks I had never heard of because of sites like this.

That is a broad question indeed  
Are you looking for "christian" scifi/fantasy, or simply all (good) scifi/fantasy?

Oh, and hi, welcome to the forums!
Heard Paeter read your email on the podcast, glad you found your way over here

Welcome Devin! I don't have too many recomendations aside from the obvious ones. I've really only played 1 tabletop RPG but me and the kids had a lot of fun with it. Its old and you can find it used if you try. I know Paeter would recommend it to. Its called HeroQuest. You should check it out, its really pretty good and not too heavy into sorcery and magic if you don't like that.

As for books, I've recently re-read an old series by author Alan Dean Foster. He has several series (aside from doing novelisations for the greats like star wars and star trek!!!) but the one I really liked was the Pip and Flinx series. Its a really clean series that follows the life of a orphan boy as he grows up with some special abilities. When he discovers a lifelong companion pet (Pip) a deadly mini-dragon they travel the universe in a ship that can change its appearance looking for clues to his past and what his abilities are, of course saving the universe a few times along the way! Anyway, if your looking for alot of good reading check it out, I at least enjoyed it. And then once you are done, there are a ton of books that spin off to other areas of the same universe he has created!

For Love of Mother-Not (1983)
The Tar-Aiym Krang (1972)
Orphan Star (1977)
The End of the Matter (1977)
Flinx in Flux (1988)
Mid-Flinx (1995)
Reunion (2001)
Flinx's Folly (2003)
Sliding Scales (2004)
Running from the Deity (2005)
Bloodhype (1973)
Trouble Magnet (2006)
Patrimony (2007)
Flinx Transcendent (2008)


If you not a post SNES fan, don't worry! You can still buy an NES or SNES! My kids actually loved that stuff till they got old enough to handle the new consoles. If you want great RPG games on them, there are the classics....The Legend of Zelda and Chrono Trigger.

Just keep looking, I'm sure you will some geeky fun out there!

Thanks Creators! Yeah almost everything I played on SNES were RPGs Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Zelda, and Final Fantasy to name a few. I actually play a lot of games on the computer. I will check out all your other suggestions.

Devin82m wrote:Yeah almost everything I played on SNES were RPGs Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Zelda, and Final Fantasy to name a few. I actually play a lot of games on the computer. I will check out all your other suggestions.

Welcome to the community Devin! I have to say... I pretty much gave up on playing video games after the SNES. You've just listed some of my favorite games... especially Secret of Mana! It's so good!

You've got a broad criteria here for speculative (scifi/fantasy stuff) so I'm going to self-promote a little here and suggest you go check out the Untold Podcast (part of the Christian Geek Central network of shows). We produce short speculative fiction every month. We've got a variety of genres represented... and if you find an author you like... most of them have full-length works that you can go check out.

Beyond that...

In films I would recommend "The Lord of the Rings Trilogy" and "The Dark Knight Trilogy". Those are among my favorite films.

Thanks for the suggestions Nathan, I may check out your show too. I like those movies series as well.

-Devin

Hi, Devin!
For video game RPGs, there is, of course, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars 2, and Elder Scrolls Oblivion and Skyrim.

One little indie RPG for PC that I love is Don't Starve, by Klei. It is on Steam, but you can check it out on YouTube (google: "don't starve and paulsoaresjr" or "don't starve and vegetaxUrsin" -- I find they are a little more "clean" than some of the YT gamers that are out there). Whenever a game sounds interesting, I usually try to check out a little of it on YT first to see if it is something I will like.

I recently discovered the co-op table top game Elder Sign, which is a little on the dark side as you and other players work together to defeat monsters in a museum (basically, you all work together to defeat the game); a similar game is Pandemic. And a card game I enjoy is Gloom, which involves a bit of storytelling to really make it more fun and interesting. I do like to check out TableTop on the Geek and Sundry channel (also YouTube) to see if I might like a tabletop game, and they usually have the ones I am most interested in. I also discovered that the game store near my house has game demos one night a week. You may want to see if there is anything similar offered near you.

Sometimes the Gaming Theology podcast lists something that sounds interesting on the video gaming side. And another podcast I like is the Game Store Prophets -- mostly tabletop, board and card games -- which is how I discovered Elder Sign.

I could name about a million movies! If I think of anything that stands out, I will be sure to let you know. But my favorites are LOTR Trilogy, along with the books.

bellamoto, thanks for the info, it's helpful!

Welcome, Devin.  Like you, I work on computers for a living.  It's not a sci-fi/fantasy book, but I am reading (*cough* listening to) a book called the Art of Deception by Kevin Mitnick.  It's a really good book about the people side of securing your network.  Pretty fascinating.  

I have done a couple tabletop RPGs, but not Pathfinder.  I know it's a pretty popular one right now.  What CCG's do you play?  The CCG model does not appeal to me really, but I am more open to the living card game model.  I have played the Star Wars LCG a few time and looked into Android Netrunner.  I actually bought Netrunner, but my wife didn't like it so don't have anyone to play with at the moment.  I think I may try teaching my daughter and/or son and we figure out how to play it together.  

I really like Elder Signs too...good game. Another good story game is Mice and Mystics; I'd call it light RPG and I play it with my kids even. Good story and lots of fun. Other favorite games of mine: Nightfall, Legendary, Summoner Wars, Zombicide... the list goes on. (I'm WhiteBoy on BoardgameGeek if you want to look me up.)

Your KJV-only comment interests me because my brother used to believe that as well.  He and I both were independent Baptists.  I don't think he believes that any longer, but we haven't talked about it in a while so I should ask him.

For video games, I play mostly Star Wars: The Old Republic.  Everyone has talked about Skyrim for an RPG, but I have not played it.  I've heard good thinks about Path of Exile...especially for being a free game.

I'm sure there is more I should reply to, but I'll leave it at that for now.  Welcome to CGC, and I look forward to seeing you around more!

WhiteBoy,

I like Star Wars CCG (Old and Newer), and Magic. I've read a little about Netrunner, but my wife likes fantasy stuff over sci-fi. Thanks for all the suggestions, I will check them out!

Welcome welcome, Devin! I'll chime in and suggest doing a search on "RPG Maker" to find SNES style RPGs you can play for free, many of which are very well made. (I reviewed a few on the podcast for The Summer Of Free a few months ago.)

@Bellamoto and Whiteboy: That's two thumbs up votes for Elder Sign. Either of you want to post a review here or send me one to use on the show?

Thanks Paeter. I will say I am a little bothered by the symbols on the Elder Signs cards though.

Welcome to the forums!

Rickster wrote: the Circle series both by Ted Dekker.

That is a great series (the first three anyway, I haven't read the "middle" book.) Another Dekker book i would add is House. It is pretty much a haunted house book and it gets pretty intense.


I play almost all my video-games on the PS3, so some of the main games I love are PlayStation exclusive, but Batman: Arkham City is an awesome game. Portal is really cool also. It is a first-person shooter, puzzle game. It is very unique and a lot of fun!

I'm super late on this, but life goes on.

Hey! Welcome to the forums, I'm from Washington originally and got stationed in Tacoma for a few years. Even though I live in Montana right now I'll be in Yakima late December and early January. Depending on the weather on the pass and a few other things I might be interested in doing a meet up.

Also for Christian scifi I'd recommend Kathy Tyer's Firebird series. The first three are more of a sci-fi/romance, but not in a dude-scaring-away-sorta-way. Then the last two books in the series are amazing.