Looking for the King: An Inklings Novel by David C. Downing

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(Ignatius Press, San Francisco: 2010)

Aided by three wise men, two young Americans go tearing around Britain in 1940 in search of a legendary Christian relic … That, in a nutshell, is the plot of Looking for the King.

The wise men are Charles Williams, J. R. R. Tolkien, and C. S. Lewis, the most famous members of a scholarly group of friends who called themselves the Inklings. Williams is not as well-known as the other two, who became popular culture icons; but as a close friend of Lewis and Tolkien, and an acknowledged influence on their lives and works, he has been included in the story.

The relic is the Roman lance that pierced the side of Christ as He hung on the cross, confirming that He was dead and that the body could be taken down, as told in John 19:31–37. The king in question is King Arthur: the quest begins with Tom McCord’s research into the matter of King Arthur’s historicity. Apologizing in advance for what may be considered a “spoiler,” the king Tom eventually finds is not Arthur but Jesus Christ Himself.

This book matters not because it’s great literary art (which it isn’t), or an introduction to three fascinating Christian thinkers (which it is), but because in it we can begin to see how the realm of imaginative fiction might be reclaimed for Christ and put to the service of His Kingdom. Reading this novel might start other writers on that journey.

Continue Reading “Looking for the King: An Inklings Novel by David C. Downing” →

Story Game Q&A

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If you have any questions about the story collaboration, please ask them here as “comments” instead of attaching them to the story.

Let’s Write a Fantasy Story Together

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Just for fun, I invite readers of this blog to collaborate in writing a short fantasy story. To join in, just write the next paragraph of the story as a “comment.” It should, of course, bear some relation to the paragraphs that went before it. I’ll delete anything obscene, any graphic sex or violence or profanity, anything disrespectful to God or Jesus Christ, and anything that’s just incoherent. Otherwise, your paragraph becomes part of the story.

Got it? Good! The game is now open to anyone who wants to play. Let me get the ball rolling with a first paragraph. After this, I’ll clam up and the rest will be entirely the fruits of the readers’ imagination. Here goes…

Jennifer woke on a snowy morning and looked out the window. There was a centaur in her back yard, standing by the bird bath–not at all the kind of thing you expect to see in the suburbs: or anywhere else, for that matter.

The rest is up to you, folks.

Forest Schultz’s Cellar Review

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The quests of each of the first two books in Lee Duigon’s children’s fantasy series pertain to legacies of the renowned King Ozias which must be activated by two children, Jack and Ellayne.  Book One ends with the inauguration of a new age produced when Jack fulfills the first quest by ringing the Bell of Ozias on the summit of Bell Mountain.  The second quest is retrieving the secret scrolls of Ozias by descending deep underground into a secret cellar.

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The Harry Potter Rage Continues

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The Worldviews of Fantasy

The present generation was raised on Harry Potter. It is the most popular book series and most popular movie series of all time, exceeding the box office receipts of Star Wars and Avatar! But what shall we say of this Dark Tale? The good guys are homosexuals and witches. And the bad guys definitely look uglier than the good guys. We’ve come a long way from the Bobbsey Twins. Not many kids raised on the Bobbsey Twins became interested in Necromancy, Human Sacrifice, and Homosexuality. The next twenty years are going to be. . . different, shall we say? Kevin Swanson interviews Christian fantasy author, Lee Duigon on the basic differences between corrupting man-centered witchcraft and God-centered story-telling.

Check it out here

Sketch of Thunder King Cover (Book 3)

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Just thought I’d share the sketch work of the third book. It is going to be called The Thunder King. Obviously not the final look of the book but it is a very nice start.

Book 2 Is Here!

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If you liked Bell Mountain, Book 2 of the series, The Cellar Beneath the Cellar, is now available–just in time for Christmas, if you hurry. You can order it now directly from Chalcedon, http://chalcedon.edu/store/Books/the-cellar-beneath-the-cellar-bell-mountain-series-2/ .

Books 3 and 4 have been written and are now in production, while Book 5 is currently being written.

How many of these books will I write? Search me! I have a whole word to write about, with a history going back thousands of years and whole continents as yet to be discovered. If the Lord keeps giving me the stories, I’ll keep writing them. Besides, I’m as curious as you are to see how the story turns out.

Putting the Bite Back into Juvenile Fiction by Robert Knight

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Lifeless. Bloodless. Predictable.

That describes too much of Christian fiction for young people, once you get past C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia and a few other good reads. But now comes Lee Duigon’s Bell Mountain, a new novel that’s full of life, is modestly and discretely bloody in places, and is anything but predictable. Here’s the opening sentence:

This is a story about a boy who was so haunted by a mountain that it gave him bad dreams. You may have had bad dreams when you were Jack’s age, but not like these.

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