Tag: King Ryons

Video Treat: King Ryons’ Great Beast

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

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.

A Present for ‘Bell Mountain’ Readers

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

I love this video! Most if it’s taken from Tim Haines’ Walking with Prehistoric Beasts, and a lot of the animals in it have already appeared in my Bell Mountain books. If you’ve read them all, you’ll recognize quite a few of them–the mammoths that stampeded through Market City, the giant birds that stalk the plains around Lintum Forest, the big but inoffensive knuckle-bears, the Thunder King’s pet saber-toothed cat, the death-dog that almost made a meal of Ryons and Cavall: and of course the great beast that carried the boy king to his city.

Anyhow, except for what our own imaginations may provide, this is about as close as you can come to seeing these critters in the flesh. Enjoy it! And have a happy Labor Day.

Progress on ‘The Temptation’

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Image result for images of ruined city

Books don’t write themselves. You have to be there, writing them. This has been difficult for me, these past two weeks: doctor appointments, car inspection, really horrible weather, and so on.

Nevertheless, I plug away at it, trusting in the Lord to give me the story that He wants me to tell. Ten chapters of Book No. 11, The Temptation, are written. Fnaa, King Ryons’ double, has just gone down in history, although he doesn’t know it yet. Lord Orth is preparing for a long missionary trip into the Wallekki country. And if you haven’t read any of my Bell Mountain books so far, those last two sentences won’t make a lick of sense.

It has become necessary to re-visit Old Obann, the massive ruins across the river from the living city. It was the capital of Obann’s empire, destroyed by God’s wrath in the Day of Fire. It is not a nice place. I wouldn’t recommend messing about with it, but Lord Chutt, the usurper-in-chief, never listens to me. He has plans.

I won’t find out what happens next until I write it.

Cavall Lives!

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Image result for images of large dogs

If you’ve been reading my Bell Mountain books, you know that Ryons, the boy king who was born a slave, has a guardian who never leaves his side: Cavall, the hound.

This is a picture of a dog who looks enough like Cavall to be him.

In The Thunder King, the hermit, Merry Mary, knowing that she will die soon, commands her dog to stay with the boy and protect him. A child wandering all alone in Lintum Forest needs a wise and valiant dog. Cavall has been with him ever since–to the rescue of the city of Obann, and all the way out to King Thunder’s fortress and back.

At this point I don’t know where they’ll be going next; but wherever it may be, they’ll go together.

The Giant Birds in My Books

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

The “terror bird” in this National Geographic video is very similar to the huge, flightless, killer birds that haunt the plains of Obann in my Bell Mountain books. One of them killed Martis’ horse and ate it, almost bagging Martis, too. Another was raised from a chick by Perkin the wanderer and is now a kind of bodyguard to King Ryons. Perkin named it Baby.

If you’ve ever wondered what these creatures look like, this video will do.

These are fearsome predators, and you don’t want to be walking alone on the plains when one of them is hungry. You probably don’t want to be riding, either: the bird can outrun most horses.

Not at all a poor guardian for a boy king with a lot of enemies!

A Test for True Love

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Image result for images of kids playing in the woods

After 39 years of marriage, I’ve finally hit on a test for true love. If you can answer this question “yes,” after 39 years, your marriage is founded on true love. And the question is:

When you think of your wife (or husband), do you ever think, “Gee, I wish we could’ve been kids together!”

Are you kiddin’? Like, as quick as boiled asparagus, baby! How I would have loved for us to play with wax dinosaurs, or my Erector set, or Monopoly, on a rainy summer afternoon. Or to lead her through the woods to Hangman’s Tree. Or to the throne-shaped stone in the woods, that I’ve salvaged, so many years later, to be King Ryons’ throne. You bet I’d like to share those things with Patty! And I’m sure I would’ve enjoyed her father’s running commentary on various radio programs (alas, her parents died before we met).

I am rather glad, though, that she never knew me between the ages of 15 and 25.

How One of My Characters Grew: Old Uduqu

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

One of the delights of writing fiction is, when you introduce a character, you really don’t know where he’s going to wind up.

Uduqu, the old Abnak sub-chief with a scar from a stone axe on his forehead, walked onto the stage early in Book No. 2, The Cellar Beneath the Cellar, and is still here, seven books later. He was just a walk-on, but soon began to fill a major role in the stories.

Once or twice the story put him in such peril that both my wife and my editor were convinced I’d killed him off–and were they mad at me for that! But I’ve come to have such an affection for this hard-fisted old man that I don’t see how I can carry on the tale without him.

He befriends King Ryons and comes to look on him as a kind of grandson. He discovers God and comes to love Him, always striving to know Him better. He rescues Helki from a charging army, and wins a giant’s sword as a trophy, becoming the king’s personal champion. And as his overworked legs begin to fail him, Uduqu discovers reading and writing–the very first Abnak ever to make a serious go of literacy.

He has been within sight of the great sea in the West, crossed the mountains in the East, and marched all the way out to the Thunder King’s fortress in Kara Karram. Along the way he fights a desperate duel that avoids a bloody battle and makes peace between enemies.

What he’ll do next, I have no idea.

But I can hardly wait to find out!

Not bad for a walk-on character.

Revisiting ‘The Palace’

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

As I try to prepare myself to write another book, when my Lord makes a new story available to me, I re-read the previous books in my Bell Mountain series. I’m now more than halfway through Book No. 6, The Palace.

Two of my favorite scenes are in here: King Ryons’ pursuit of the White Doe, which leads him into an encounter with the ancient kings of Obann, and the Battle of the Brickbats, in which the king’s army fights to recapture Silvertown from the Heathen–a battle whose outcome is decided in a most unusual way.

I love these, and I give God the glory for the finished work. It’s like He shows me the story and I just write it down.

I’m sure the next book will surprise me. I have no idea, yet, what form it will take.

Those of you who are new to this blog, and enjoy it–well, give my books a look-see, will you? Click “Books” at the top of the page for covers, blurbs, and sample chapters.

The Great Beast from ‘The Thunder King’

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

As long as I’m reading The Thunder King, I thought I’d treat you to this video clip from Walking With Prehistoric Beasts, featuring the mountain-sized animal that rescued Ryons from the “death dog,” aka hyaenodon.

Don’t mind them calling it “Indricotherium.” They’re always changing the name. I stick with the old name that it had when I was a boy, “Baluchitherium.” Whatever we call it, this baby was the largest land mammal that ever lived–and the one that Ryons met was the biggest of them all.

Marvel at the work of God’s hands, and rejoice in it.

The Death Dog from ‘The Thunder King’

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

This is the monster Ryons and Cavall encountered on their way to Obann, as told in The Thunder King, Book 3 of my Bell Mountain series. (No, it is not about Labor & Industrial Relations: that is an amazon.com error that has cost me sales!) You might want to turn down the stupid music, which adds nothing to the presentation.

I wanted to give you a video of the “knuckle-bears” seen by Jack and Ellayne at the edge of Lintum Forest, in Bell Mountain, but the only one they had on youtube was literally two seconds long.

What? You haven’t read any of these books? (He shakes his head in painted disbelief.) Well, click “Books” at the top of the page and see what you think.