As I type up my latest chapter set of The Temptation, King Ryons reminisces (if a boy so young can be said to reminisce) his encounter with a great beast bigger than anything else that ever walked the earth. I modeled this creature on the prehistoric giant in this video–Baluchitherium. Yeah, they call it “Indricotherium” now, but I don’t. The clip comes from Tim Haines’ Walking With Prehistoric Beasts, and it’s the closest we can come to seeing what King Ryons saw.
Those little Hyaenodons who want to eat the new-born calf–they were, in fact, almost as big as a rhinoceros. Ryons and Cavall met one of them, too. Ask him about it when you see him!
All of this fun stuff is in my Bell Mountain books; so if you haven’t read ’em yet… But this is not a commercial.
Wow, Lee! What a cool creature! This isn’t at all what I pictured, so it’s nice to see what it really looks like 🙂 I’m not sure why, but I had in mind something that walked on two legs – sort of like a humongous bigfoot.
Hmmm… If it had only two legs, it would have had two hands and wouldn’t have had to pick up Ryons in its mouth.
I’ve stood next to a cast of a Baluchitherium skull. It’s as big as me. But I made it a bit bigger for the book.
Kirk and I were strongly tempted to put it on the cover of “The Thunder King,” but decided it’d be better to let the reader imagine it.
That would be something to see in person.