Christian Dystopian Sci-fi for Teen Boys
What if the aliens who destroyed your world weren’t the real enemy?
What if your father helped end civilization—and you had no idea why?
What if survival meant protecting the very creature you were grew to hate?
Welcome to The Sword and Story Podcast—where we help Christian families find exciting, faith-filled books for their boys.
Our mission is to raise strong, courageous warriors for the Kingdom of God. Join us on a quest to discover stories that inspire our boys to grow into godly young men.
I’m your host, Laurie Christine. I’m an author, bible teacher, wife, and mom to four wild, wonderful, boys. I’m the author of the Dragon Slayer Bible Series, adventure-packed biblical fiction and devotions for middle-grade boys.
Our guest author today is Bradley Caffee.
Bradley Caffee is the author of The Chase Runner Series, as well as books Sides, Scavenger, and Captive. He discovered his love for storytelling in his years as a minister using everyday images to explain eternal truths.
Captive by Bradley Caffee
They destroyed his world. They killed his father.And now one of them is his prisoner.
Ted James hates the Skya’ja, the fish-faced aliens who destroyed the Earth. Promising humanity the clean, renewable energy that transformed them into a peaceful spacefaring species, the invaders lured scientists like Ted’s father into their project. Instead, the explosion known as the Cataclysm wiped out electrical grids, governments, and militaries. Two years later, the Earth is a scrapheap where the remaining few humans and aliens war for the resources that are left.
Living among the ruins of Charlotte, Ted wants answers about his father’s fate and why the downtown area is covered in a shimmering Bubble that seems to kill all who try to enter. A lucky shot allows him to capture the scouting Skya’ja known as Tash’jya for interrogation. The only problem is his hatred is hard to maintain the more he learns about his prisoner.
Running from Revon, a violent militia leader who wants all Skya’ja dead, Ted teams up with gutsy clinic nurse, Loren Westfield, to keep his prisoner alive long enough to get the information he needs. Can Ted uncover the truth behind Tash’jya’s mission-and what it has to do with his father?
More Books for Boys by Bradley Caffee
TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW
Captive by Bradley Caffee
An interview with Bradley Caffee
Laurie Christine:
What if the aliens who destroyed your world weren’t the real enemy? What if your father helped end civilization and you had no idea why? What if survival meant protecting the very creature you grew to hate?
Welcome to the Sword and Story podcast, where we help Christian families find exciting, faith-filled books for their boys.
Boys have a unique God-given desire for adventures and battles. They want to fight enemies and destroy evil aliens. Our mission is to raise strong, courageous warriors for the kingdom of God. Join us on a quest to discover stories that inspire our boys to grow into godly young men.
I’m your host, Laurie Christine. I’m an author, Bible teacher, wife, and mom to four wild, wonderful boys. I’m the author of the Dragon Slayer Bible Series, adventure-packed biblical fiction and devotions for middle grade boys.
Our guest author today is Bradley Caffey. Bradley Caffey is the author of the Chase Runner series. He discovered his love for storytelling in his years as a minister, using everyday images to explain eternal truths.
Bradley Caffey, welcome to the Sword and Story podcast.
Bradley:
Thank you so much. It’s so good to be on.
Laurie Christine:
Well, to start out, I would love to hear just a little bit about your family and your background. Can you introduce yourself to our listeners?
Bradley:
Absolutely. Getting into writing has been a really long journey for me. I have a wife, and we just celebrated 25 years a few weeks ago. She’s an amazing woman. I have two incredible adult children, a daughter who’s 20 years old and a son who’s 19 and headed off to his first year of college this August. I’m very proud of them.
Writing was something I never thought I would ever do. In fact, when I was younger, reading and writing were things I despised. I was a very typical teenage boy. Picking up a book was of no interest. If it didn’t have a screen, I didn’t want to do it.
Somehow I got pulled into the pastorate in spite of being that “screen-ager,” into technology and all that. I spent 12 incredible years serving churches in the pastorate, where I grew to love young people. I started off in student ministry, and young boys—teenage boys especially—really became part of my heart. I wanted to see them grow up into godly men. I think that’s where some of my books began to be birthed.
When some difficult circumstances caused me to exit the ministry track, I finally sat down one day with a coach and mentor and said, “Hey, I’ve got this crazy idea to write a story. I don’t know if writing fiction is even something I should get into, but I’ve always wanted to write a book that’s the kind of book I would have wanted to read as a young man.” I just started telling him the story, and he said, “You know what? Since you left your job, you’ve been kind of down, and the only time I ever see your eyes light up is when you talk about this book idea. So why don’t you try your hand at it?”
And that ended up turning into the very first book of the Chase Runner series, which was my debut series. That book is called The Chase, and things just kind of snowballed from there. Next thing I knew, I was being introduced to other authors and writers and editors and going to conferences. Eventually I got an agent and got published. It’s been a wild ride, and now I have five books in print, all written to young male audiences with a male protagonist and trying to hit on subjects that are interesting to them.
Laurie Christine:
I love hearing your heart for teen boys specifically and your desire to write a book that you would have loved to read. I think there’s a big need for Christian fiction for teen boys that is written well, that they can relate to, and that isn’t preachy. I really appreciate that you’re taking on that challenge.
I’m curious if you have any advice or thoughts for parents who are listening and have a son who was like you when you were growing up and says, “Yeah, I don’t want to read. I’m addicted to screens. If it doesn’t have a screen, I’m not interested.” Do you have any advice for those parents who really want to get their sons into books and engaged in reading?
Bradley:
Yeah, I faced that challenge with my own son. My son loves his video games, loves his screens, and has been very resistant to being any kind of reader.
When he was younger, I tried the very parental “you’re going to read this book” mentality. “You’re not going to not be a reader. You will not watch this movie until you’ve read the book that it’s based on,” and that kind of thing. Unfortunately, I think that birthed some resentment over the years, and I had to learn to really back off and instead try to advise him toward books that had subject matter or a style that might appeal to him.
He’s been very slow to warm up to it. Even with my books, surprisingly, he just last summer read The Chase, the first of my debut series. He finally sat down and read it, and he did enjoy it. Has he read any more? No, he has not since.
He’s graduated high school, he’s been in his senior year, he’s an athlete, and the kid has no time, as a lot of teenagers are in that situation these days. But I found that when I played more the role of a guide—“Hey, what about this?” or “Would this interest you? If it will, I’ll get it for you”—he found a couple of book series that appealed to him and he’s engaged with those.
Because I love books, I have to be careful not to assume that my son is going to love them the same way. He’s probably never going to be into books as much as I am, and that’s okay. If he occasionally picks one up and reads it, I’m thankful for that. I’ve really tried to respect my son for who he is, who God made him to be, and also understand that he’s young. He’s going to continue to grow up as the years go by, and maybe he’ll find a love of reading later on and remember that his dad writes a few books.
When I started to back off and just gently guide him toward things, he started to open up to it and has been a little more receptive. Occasionally he’ll listen to an audiobook on a trip. He’ll do that. I just try to find ways to engage him in story and get him using his imagination—even finding books about video games and stuff.
My fourth book ever was literally about a video game, just because I thought, I’m going to write a book that my son will read. He has not read it yet, but I keep promising him that the day he picks it up, I think he’ll really enjoy it. So that day is coming.
Laurie Christine:
Yeah, absolutely. I 100% believe that that day is coming. If you think about yourself as a 20-year-old, you didn’t develop a love for books until a little bit later in life. So there’s still hope. There’s still hope.
I appreciate that encouragement. I appreciate that wisdom of being a guide and not forcing our kids into something that’s going to cause bitterness and resentment down the road. I appreciate that a lot.
Okay, so let’s talk about your books. We are going to focus on your book Captive today, which I believe is a standalone novel. But I know that you’ve written a series that you mentioned, the Chase Runner series, and we’re going to talk briefly about that as well.
Let’s dive in and talk about Captive. It’s post-apocalyptic dystopian sci-fi for teens. That’s kind of a mouthful. We as authors know what all of those words mean, but our listeners might be wondering, “What kind of book is this?”
Could you give us a little synopsis of what post-apocalyptic dystopian sci-fi entails? What does that genre mean?
Bradley:
Science fiction is probably the most broad term there, and it simply means a possible, usually future, where science—whether it’s been invented yet or not—has created some sort of life that we don’t live right now. So it’s fictional, but everything is explained in some sort of science or pseudoscience that we as authors get to make up.
The other words, post-apocalyptic and dystopian: dystopian simply means things are not as they should be, whether it’s a world government or whether something has gone tragically wrong. Something isn’t functioning the way it should. It’s the exact opposite of utopia. Post-apocalyptic is absolute disaster. The world is in utter ruin for whatever reason.
So you put all those together, and you end up with this story about a young man who is growing up in a city that is destroyed. In the case of Captive, it’s destroyed by an alien race that came promising a benevolent future for planet Earth, and the exact opposite happened. He now lives in a war zone where the remnants of the alien race and the human race are at war with one another.
Laurie Christine:
Very cool. So basically it’s super depressing and tragic and everything is just awful. No, just kidding! One of the things I love about Christian—specifically Christian post-apocalyptic dystopian—books is that there is always a thread of hope and redemption in the end of the story.
Okay, so I love this: you have a twist on the classic alien invasion where the humans are fighting the aliens. That’s what we often see in sci-fi—the aliens invade, and the humans try to stop it. The aliens are always bad.
We just watched, the other week—when we’re recording this, it’s the week of July 4th—and we thought, “What’s a good July 4th movie? What’s a good classic movie?” My kids were like, “Oh, how about Independence Day?” Great patriotic movie. We didn’t end up watching Independence Day. I thought, I don’t know if I want to watch that. Then I said, “How about Men in Black? Another good alien movie for the Fourth of July.” A little more comedy. So we went with a little bit of comedy.
Anyway, we watched that, and that’s very classic: aliens invade and the humans try to stop it, or the aliens are always bad. But you have a different take in Captive. Can you explain that to us?
Bradley:
Yeah, so the world in which the story exists is one where this alien race has come to the planet. They are traveling the stars trying to bring the technology that brought peace and harmony to their world, and they want to do that for other worlds that they feel are technologically ready. They’ve arrived on Earth promising clean energy. They begin working alongside humans to create this clean energy in hopes of ending all wars on the planet, which are usually over resources.
Things go disastrously wrong. There’s an explosion they call the Cataclysm. It has destroyed the planet. The entire world is dying. The resources are few. Cities are in ruins. So of course, being humanity, we decide to pick up our firearms and say, “They must be the enemy,” and we start firing back.
As you find out as the story goes along, it really is a misunderstanding. The aliens aren’t the malevolent species that the main character thinks they are at the outset. That’s not really a spoiler, because you can kind of get that from the blurb on the back. But how far that goes, I’ll let you read the story.
Laurie Christine:
Yeah. To find out what happened, you have to read the book.
So why do you think this book will appeal specifically to boy readers—to young adult male readers?
Bradley:
When I write, especially with a young male audience in mind, I try to keep my books fairly high action. I don’t stick around in any one place very long. You won’t have endless pages of description. I obviously try to create the world and describe things so you can imagine it in your head, but I want to create a scenario where readers feel like they’re moving with the characters, that something is happening. It’s not just, “We’re going to stand around and spend three pages describing the room we’re in.”
There are genres where that’s important. Worldbuilding, especially in fantasy, is a big part of it. But I think male readers want, for lack of a better term, the explosions. They want the battles. They want action. They want things to happen.
So right away in Captive, you are immersed in a world where something is happening. In the opening chapter, this young man—who is surprisingly unlikable at the beginning; you’re supposed to not like him at first—is sitting in the rubble of an abandoned building in the basement, staring at this alien creature he has captured, hence the name of the book, Captive. He intends to get his answers. He wants to know what happened to his father, and he’s having some pretty dark thoughts about it. He’s got revenge on his mind. He’s got payback on his mind.
Then things start to go sideways. There are moments where he realizes, “Wait a minute, this is not what I expected when I finally interacted with one of these creatures.” They get forced into circumstances where they have to work together just to survive. As the scenarios unfold, he learns more and more about this creature, and that creature learns more and more about him. There’s a kind of team-up relationship that begins to happen, where both he and the creature become more open to knowing the other person. All the while, there are bad guys, they are running, and there are dangerous situations.
Laurie Christine:
Yeah. I love how the book starts right in the middle of the action. He’s already captured the alien, and you’re jumping right into the story. I also really like that you give glimpses—right away in the very first chapter—into the alien’s point of view. You see these little journal-entry-style sections where you get to read her mind and see her perspective. I think that’s really cool.
Bradley:
Yeah, that was actually something I added later to the book. I wrote the story without that, and I just felt like something was missing. I got to the end of the book and wasn’t quite sure how to wrap it up.
Most of the book is written in first person, a lot of “I” statements from the young man’s perspective, getting into his head, which I felt was critical for the subject matter. But I went back and thought, what if there was a way—not by writing full chapters from a different POV—but through journal entries that the alien is making, you get her perspective?
You start to realize that there’s another character here, another perspective. As they learn about each other, I felt like it enriched the story so much more, and the ending really came together because of it.
Laurie Christine:
That’s really cool. It’s interesting that you went back and added that in to enrich the story. I think that was a good addition for sure.
What are some of the themes in your book? I know you’ve mentioned redemption and forgiveness. What would you say are some of the underlying themes that help boys become strong, courageous warriors for the kingdom of God?
Bradley:
Especially in Captive, I’d say—as I mentioned—the main character is not a very likable person at the outset of the book. You’re meant to get a little bit of icky feelings as you get into his head. “Really? Does he really intend to interrogate this alien? What kind of book did I just pick up?”
As the story goes on, he entertains the idea that he could be wrong. There’s a sense of humility that begins to develop in his character. Getting that outside perspective is important. Young men especially can get tunnel vision at times. We’ve got our goal in mind, the thing we’re pursuing, the thing we want to be or do, and we can lose our sense of the relationships around us.
Boys are very activity-minded. We’re hyper-focused on the task in front of us, and sometimes we lose sight of the fact that there are other people and perspectives around us. That’s not universal, but based on my own experience, I feel like it’s somewhat fair.
To stop and realize that there are other viewpoints, to have humility about that and be willing to question your own motives, to be humble and to be humbled—I think that’s very important.
Then there’s a huge theme of forgiveness in the book, which I think is absolutely monumental if young men are going to be godly young warriors. Learning grace and forgiveness is crucial. To hold other people to a standard that you won’t even hold yourself to is dangerous. We all expect to be forgiven. We all expect grace to be given. But it’s very hard to give.
To be a person who is brave enough, courageous enough, and strong enough to be forgiving—I think that’s huge in the life of any young person, but especially young men, because our society often teaches us something very different.
Laurie Christine:
Yeah. And being strong and courageous and brave doesn’t always look like being the biggest or the best or the fiercest warrior. It might mean humility. It might mean putting aside your own interests. It might mean self-sacrifice—admitting that you were wrong and realizing that you didn’t have the right answer. I think that’s a really important lesson for our boys to learn.
So I am going to read the back cover copy—the blurb from the back cover of the book—just so our listeners can get an idea of what this book is about. Then after that, we’ll chat briefly about your other books.
Okay, so this is the blurb on the back cover of the book:
They destroyed his world. They killed his father. And now one of them is his prisoner. Ted James hates the Skyeja, the fish-faced aliens who destroyed the Earth. Promising humanity the clean, renewable energy that transformed them into a peaceful, space-faring species, the invaders lured scientists like Ted’s father into their project. Instead, the explosion, known as the Cataclysm, wiped out electrical grids, governments, and militaries.
Two years later, the Earth is a scrap heap, where the remaining few humans and aliens war for the resources that are left. Living among the ruins of Charlotte, Ted wants answers about his father’s fate and why the downtown area is covered in a shimmering bubble that seems to kill all who try to enter. A lucky shot allows him to capture the scouting Skyeja, known as Tastya, for interrogation. The only problem is his hatred is hard to maintain the more he learns about his prisoner.
Running from Revan, a violent militia leader who wants all Skyeja dead, Ted teams up with gutsy clinic nurse Lauren Westfield to keep his prisoner alive long enough to get the information he needs. Can Ted uncover the truth behind Tastya’s mission and what it has to do with his father?
Okay, so that was the blurb on the back cover of the book, and I am going to read just a few reviews about the book.
One reviewer says: “This is a great read for all young adults. It’s clean and will keep you reading with its action-packed story until the end.”
Another reviewer says: “Caffey does a great job grounding the story in a faith-forward but non-preachy worldview.”
All right, so Bradley, that is your book Captive. I know that you have another series that came prior to this, and you also have another series that’s coming out very soon. Actually, I think it already released in October of 2025.
First of all, tell us real quick about the Chase Runner series. Are these books all for teen boys? I think you did mention that. Are these geared toward YA readers?
Bradley:
Yes, all of the books I’ve written to date are typically for young male readers. I try to write them to be clean enough for a 12-year-old boy but exciting enough for a 19-year-old boy. That’s always been my goal.
The Chase Runner series was my debut. It’s a three-book series: The Chase, The Choice, and The Change. I tell people it’s like The Hunger Games meets American Ninja Warrior. I really set out to write the first book to be a Hunger Games-type story for families that maybe weren’t comfortable having their young men read The Hunger Games. There are some themes and some hopelessness in The Hunger Games that some people just aren’t into. It’s a really dark story.
I set out to write a similar kind of story but with a lot more hope and a cleaner storyline, with a lot less violence. So that’s the Chase Runner series—American Ninja Warrior meets The Hunger Games gives you the flavor of the books.
I also have another standalone called Sides. That book is the only book I independently published. It’s really a hyperbolic take on our addiction to our phones. Essentially, there’s a phone video game that the entire country is obsessed with, and it centers around a young man who is the only student at his high school who does not play the game.
When the game begins to take over and people begin to turn into their avatars and hunt each other in real life, he’s the only one with nothing happening to him. He discovers that his younger sister was secretly disobeying their father and playing the game, and she has to run to be protected. His role in the story is to take her under his wing and get her out of there, so to speak.
It’s a very high action-packed video game adventure—video game become real life—with a bit of a statement on how much time we spend staring at those little screens we carry around.
And then you mentioned my series coming out in October. That one is about a post-pandemic world, so it’s a little bit relevant to recent history. Essentially, a virus has wiped out 90% of the Earth’s population. The main character is a young man living in a city with two of his friends, and they are surviving by scavenging for anything they can find.
One day he comes upon some information about an underground society where civilization has been preserved, and he needs to go find that society. All the while, the evil powers that be in the city want that information as well for their own purposes. He ends up on the run with his friends. That first book is called Scavenger and came out in October 2025. That will be a two-book series.
Laurie Christine:
Very nice. Well, I am super excited about all of these books. Every time I interview authors, I end up spending a lot of money on books because I think, I need all of these books for my kids. I have four boys; I need all these books for my kids. I know that my boys would really enjoy these.
So tell us where we can find your books and what’s the best way to find out more about you.
Bradley:
All the books are on all the major sites. You can find them, of course, on Amazon. Everything except my indie-published book is also on Barnes & Noble and other major sites. There are a few local bookstores in the Charlotte area that carry my titles.
To find out more about me, the best place is my website, bradleycaffey.com. You can learn more about my stories and how I got into writing. There’s also a free short novelette that is actually a prequel to my debut series—a non-spoiler prequel—so you can start there if you want to. That is free to download.
It’s also a great place to contact me if you have questions. I occasionally get emails from fans, and I really love those and try to answer every single one that I can. So I encourage people to reach out.
And then, of course, there are the social media channels, which I wish I were more active on than I am—but I think every author says that. I can be found there as well, at Bradley Caffey, Author.
Laurie Christine:
All right, well, thank you so much. I will make sure to have links to your website and your books in the show notes for this episode.
Bradley, thank you so much for joining us. It’s been so great learning about you and learning about your books.
Bradley:
Thank you for having me on. It’s been an absolute pleasure. I love to talk books, talk stories, and especially stories for young men. We need more of them. So thanks for having me on.
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