Category: Book Updates

The Last Banquet is out in paperback now, and available via amazon.com (also in Kindle format)… and I need reader reviews!

Isn’t it shameful, what being made responsible for his own publicity will do to a man? I never used to be like this. I’d even do commercials, if I ever got the opportunity. So here I am imploring my readers to help spread the word about my books, and to post glowing reviews on Amazon. Who knows what depths I’ll finally sink to?

Meanwhile, we are editing Book #5, The Fugitive Prince, and Kirk DouPonce has been given the go-ahead to create another one of his fantastic covers for it. And my continuity editor is reading The Palace to make sure I haven’t made any glaring mistakes with it. You know–like the way Sir Thomas Malory forgot that he’d killed off Sir Carados and kept bringing him back. In between The Thunder King and Last Banquet, I managed to lose 18 of Lord Reesh’s devoted servants. But now that I have a continuity editor, I don’t have to worry about things like that happening.

The fourth book of my Bell Mountain series, The Last Banquet, is now available in paperback. You can order it via amazon.com, or save a couple of bucks by ordering it directly from The Chalcedon Foundation (www.chalcedon.edu –click on “Store,” then “Books,” then “Fiction”).

Please try to buy it before they outlaw it or something.

I am typing up the last few chapters of The Palace. Soon I will have to send my baby off to college–that is, to be edited–and fuss and fret until graduation (publication).

I don’t know quite how to explain the feeling of a book passing out of my hands after such a long and intimate association with it. It’s not altogether pleasurable, I can tell you that.

But–heheheh!–wait’ll you read the climax of this thing!

I have written up the climax of The Palace. Whew! I can’t believe how much I got done, these last two days.

I dassn’t tell you much about it, for fear of undercutting my already pathetic sales; but I think I can safely say the concluding chapters of this book will knock your socks off.

I’ve been on this job since March, and I know I’m going to miss it when it’s done, and miss it badly… But that’s all the more reason to get started on the next one!

The Last Banquet has at last been printed, and should become available any day now.

Meanwhile, I’m coming down the home stretch with The Palace, the sixth book in the series. I’ve entered that phase of writing where it’s hard to tear myself away to do anything else. Yes, it’s the climax: the great big hoo-hah at the end that has to justify all the buildup. I knew from the beginning what the climax of the story was going to be, but actually writing it, well, that’s the tricky part. But so far God has guided me. He’ll bring the ship to port: I just follow my Captain’s orders.

As for Book #5, The Fugitive Prince, I’ll be happy if it comes out a year from now. The editors haven’t gotten to it yet, and it needs a cover. As usual, I can’t wait to see what artist Kirk DouPonce comes up with. His covers have all been dynamite so far.

Now, if I can just get you to buy the blessed things…!

Announcing The Last Banquet: Bell Mountain, 4 in Kindle format! Click below to purchase!

Paperback copy coming soon.

You can get all current volumes of the Bell Mountain series on Amazon for you Kindle!

click on image to go to Amazon!

 

 

 

Book #4 of my Bell Mountain Series, The Last Banquet, at long last, has been delivered to the printer. That means, for the dozens of you who have been waiting for it, that it’ll be available very soon.

If you haven’t read the first three books of the series, well, what’re you waiting for? Get started!

The Last Banquet continues the story featuring Jack and Ellayne and their protectors, Wytt and Martis, and the adventures of King Ryons, Helki the Rod, and all the others. You’ll also want to see how Lord Reesh makes out, now that the Temple is burned to the ground and he’s on his way to serve the Thunder King.

OK, I’m a lousy publicist, I don’t deny it. I don’t know how to get y’all to read these books. But if you like adventure and fantasy suitable to young readers and adults, devoid of slimy stuff like vampire sex, the occult, and graphic violence, then check these out. Don’t worry about them being dull, there’s plenty of action–wars and treachery, strange discoveries of a mysterious past, weird critters: in short, everything that makes life worth living. And I have done everything in my power to ground these stories on solid Biblical theology without nagging the reader about it.

If you’re wondering how to get the earlier books, it’s easy–they’re all available through amazon.com. Or you can order them directly from the Chalcedon Foundation. We won’t be in the bookstores, more’s the pity, but don’t let that stop you.

Check out the front and back cover of The Last Banquet!

Continue Reading “Book Four: The Last Banquet Cover!” →

No, I’m not ignoring Independence Day. But in light of what the Supreme Court did to us last week, it seems idle to talk about independence in America.

I’m moving right along with the writing of Bell Mountain #6, The Palace. I presume many of the readers of this blog are interested in writing, and the nuts-and-bolts of it: so I thought I’d open my toolbox today and show you something useful, albeit unusual.

As I work on my current fantasy novel, I’ve been using Agatha Christie as my muse. Is that baloney, or does it have a meaning? Well, yes, it does mean something. It means I’m plowing into her books as a way of helping along with my own work–sort of employing her as a Sherpa to guide me up the mountain.

Not that I try on purpose to imitate another writer. But as I unroll my own story of The Palace, I listen intently to Agatha Christie’s literary voice–the flow and tempo of her narrative, her tricks of dialogue (especially to reveal the speaker’s character), her decisions as to how much or how little description to provide at this or that point in the story, and so on.

Obviously I’m not trying to learn how to write a detective story. No: I’m listening. I know that my own writing will be influenced in subtle ways (and sometimes not so subtle) by whatever I happen to be reading at the time. Under no circumstances must I dip into Shakespeare while I’m writing a book! It’d be a disaster. But there is something in Agatha Christie’s tone that I want to capture in my own writing.

Later, when I get into writing my climax, I’ll probably switch over to Edgar Rice Burroughs.

No, I don’t believe in channeling or any other such heathen rubbish. But if you don’t think one author can speak to another through her published work, then you have not yet learned anything about writing.

I don’t feel like writing about the nasty things going on in my neighborhood, so I thought I might weigh in with a progress report on my new book–Bell Mountain #6, The Palace. Also, #4, The Last Banquet, is being typeset and should come up before the end of this summer, while #5, The Fugitive Prince, awaits its first round of editing.

So far I’ve got 10 chapters written of The Palace and a lot of neat stuff dancing around in my head. (If you’re one of those folks who ain’t even read Bell Mountain yet, then shame on you!) I had to take the first three days of this week to write up my formal review of The Hunger Games, so I hope tomorrow to go back to The Palace. Maybe it’ll stop raining tomorrow, too. It being springtime, I like to write outside.

Has anybody seen any reports of that turtle as big as a car that they dug up in a coal mine in Columbia? No, it was not alive! Really cool fossil, though.

Now, if they could only dig up Obummah’s college transcripts…