Dear Frank,
The first book of yours I ever read was a Cooper Kids adventure (maybe The Tombs of Anak?) when I was in fifth or sixth grade. I was not yet allowed to watch the Indiana Jones movies, but I had somehow already become fascinated with archaeology and ancient civilizations, so the adventures of a brother and sister digging around in ancient dungeons and tombs was a blast for me.
A few years later, I started reading your more grown-up fiction, and the book of yours that really grabbed me was The Oath. I had never encountered an outspoken Christian author use horror or fantasy elements to tell a story like that. (Aside from Lewis’ Narnia books, which were more fairy tale than fantasy.) The mental image of a dragon or monster chasing down his marked victims was captivating. I read it over a very long week in high school when I was sick at home with pneumonia, and your book made the time fly. (The feverishness only added to the experience, I think.)
I had played around with writing since middle school. I used my vocabulary homework as an excuse to create serialized chapters of adventure stories to entertain my teachers. (No doubt, there was some Cooper influence there as well; I think the first year I did this, it was about scientists exploring an Egyptian tomb.) I’ve read most of your bibliography (though I’m delighted to find I missed a few of your recent ones, and will be looking for those at the library!). But reading The Oath opened my eyes to the idea that genre fiction can be used to tell spiritual stories beyond historical fiction or Biblical epics. I started aping your style a bit, as I tried to write short stories that were more or less morality tales. (I almost typed “moralizing tales,” which may have been closer to the truth.) I was shooting for a mix of Frank Peretti, Rod Serling, and Ray Bradbury, my 3 favorite story tellers–but I’m pretty sure I fell far, far short of that lofty goal. I don’t think those stories will ever see the light of day in their original form. (But who knows, maybe I can go back and mine for story ideas…)
Nevertheless, from that point on, I was hooked–I wanted to be a writer. I got an English degree from my undergrad studies, I’ve been blogging on an off for 16 years, and I have maybe a half-dozen unfinished novels in notebooks and hard drives all over the house. While life circumstances always seem to get in the way of finishing these projects, the dream doesn’t die. I still want to be a novelist. And if I were to trace that crazy dream back to its roots, your books would be there at the inception.
So thank you, Frank. Your love of telling stories and sharing truth have been inspiring readers for decades now, and I’m one of many fans who remember fondly how your books have blessed my life.
Here’s to more years and more words!
–Dave
The4thDave Blog 