Things are not so pleasant here, just now–Patty’s hernia, we really need to get that operation–so please pardon me for blowing my own horn a little.
Here’s a review of The Cellar Beneath the Cellar–No. 2 in my Bell Mountain series–by a reader in Australia. He really liked it! Well, why not? The book won a silver medal for fantasy.
While you’re at it, please send up a prayer for us. We need one.
This scene is from the very beginning of Book 2, The Cellar Beneath the Cellar: Jack and Ellayne, having rung the Bell, find the assassin, Martis, swooning on the snow. Drawn by Kathleen.
I love the idea of having young adults fiction illustrated by young adults and children. I’ve been posting pictures drawn by Katheleen and her sister, Kerolyn, 9; they live in Brazil. If we ever get to the point where we can do a second printing of Bell Mountain or any of its sequels, I wonder if I can get one or more of these drawings included.
Well, back to work for me! I’ve got to write a cover blurb for Behold! and start the next chapter of Ozias, Prince in Peril.
Here’s another drawing for Bell Mountain by 9-year-old Kerolyn in Brazil. It’s a scene from Book No. 2, The Cellar Beneath the Cellar–Obst and Uduqu giving King Ryons a much-needed bath.
I like the idea of illustrating my young readers’ books with pictures drawn by children! I don’t think it’s been done before, and I wonder why not? I’d love to see more pictures done by young readers themselves, all around the world. Hey, is this way cool, or what?
I wonder if I can get a picture of the Baluchitherium in The Thunder King (Book 3) emerging from the river with King Ryons on its back, scattering the Thunder King’s army just as it’s about to take the city of Obann.
Every now and then I remember that this blog is supposed to get people interested in my books. Here’s a review by Robert Knight of Book 2 in the series, The Cellar Beneath the Cellar.
A Superb Sequel Takes Bell Mountain Readers on a Wild Ride by Robert Knight
How about it, folks? My Bell Mountain series has grown to 13 books, with two more being prepared for publication and another being written. I don’t mean you should skip No. 1, Bell Mountain, and start with No. 2: Bob’s review of Cellar just happened to be handiest.
Fantasies written from a Biblical point of view–that sums ’em up, I guess. It won’t cost you anything to click “Books” on our home page and get acquainted with them. And you’ll find some more reviews in the Archives.
It seems so long ago, 2013. Then again, in only eight years, twelve more of my Bell Mountain books have been published. But it all started with Bell Mountain itself; and imagine my surprise and delight when I learned I’d just won a major international book award!
The next year I won a silver medal for Book No. 2, The Cellar Beneath the Cellar. There were no more entries after that, so no more awards. Gotta be in it to win it. But I was in it twice and I won twice. How cool is that?
Now I’m struggling with the new book, The Witch Box–too much talkin’, not enough action. I have to solve this, somehow. Maybe if I throw in a lot of left-wing anti-American crap I can be nominated for a Pulitzer.
Jill at Chalcedon HQ today informed me that the first three books of my series (Bell Mountain, The Cellar Beneath the Cellar, and The Thunder King) are now available as Apple iBooks, which can be accessed via the app on your phone or ipad. I have no idea what I just said.
Anyhow, you can click the Apple icon on any of those three books, and you’re in business. Eventually all the books will be available as Apple iBooks. They’re going for $1.99.
Just in time for Christmas!
One of Kirk’s models posing as Ellayne for the cover of “The Cellar Beneath the Cellar”
When I was writing horror novels in the 1980s, New York publishing houses had one rule for cover art: You’ll take what we give you, writer, like it or not!
I’ve had the good fortune to have artist Kirk DouPonce illustrate the covers for all the books in my Bell Mountain series. Unlike the way they do it in New York, Kirk reads the books he illustrates and confers with the writers. So he and I usually bat ideas back and forth until we find one that we both like.
Yesterday we agreed on a cover for No. 13, The Wind from Heaven. I really mustn’t tell you what it is; but I think it’s going to be great. He didn’t say how long it would take him to come up with a preliminary sketch: I don’t think it’s wise to pressure an artist to hurry.
And meanwhile I’m waiting for it to stop raining (three days in a row now!) so I can finish writing No. 14, Behold!
![The Cellar Beneath the Cellar (Bell Mountain, 2) (Bell Mountain Series) by [Lee Duigon]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51fPPSpV78L.jpg)
For the benefit of new arrivals at this blog, from time to time I like to introduce my books, now known collectively as the Bell Mountain series. With twelve titles in print–wow.
I won Global E-Book Awards for the first two books in the series. The Cellar Beneath the Cellar, pictured here, shows the skill of artist Kirk DouPonce at its uncanniest: if that girl on the cover isn’t really Ellayne from the book, then something very spooky’s going on here.
There’s somebody walking around out there who’s supposed to live in my book.
If your characters don’t connect with your readers, your book won’t work, your story will fall flat.
I introduced the fierce old Abnak sub-chief, Uduqu, in Book No. 2, The Cellar Beneath the Cellar. I liked him and kept him around. And in Book No. 7, The Glass Bridge, he took part in a desperate battle.
I won’t forget how my wife and my editor reacted when they thought I’d killed off this character. They were about ready to scalp me. Sheesh, what was I thinking! But they only had to read a few more paragraphs before they learned Uduqu was all right, after all.
There are characters who walk into the story just to do some little thing and then wind up staying to do a lot of things, and growing, and getting you attached to them. With 12 Bell Mountain novels published so far, there are of necessity an awful lot of characters.
Why am I talking about this when I have to crank out a Newswithviews column? Oh, I don’t know. Do I feel a need to justify populating my books with all those characters?
Well, heck, it’s a history–like Livy’s history of Rome. Count up all the characters in Livy sometime. True, the history of Obann, in my books, is fictional. Some uncharitable souls have said the same of Livy. Not to mention Geoffrey of Monmouth, and Herodotus. I guess if you don’t like their histories, you won’t like mine, either. But there’s something to be said for a book that’s stayed in print since 400 B.C.
[Confidential to “Unknowable”: I hear you, brother!]
I found this in the archives yesterday and thought you might enjoy it: me being interviewed by Grant Warren in By the Fireplace, in 2016. The link to the interview is embedded in the link below.
I don’t suppose I’ll ever be happy with the way I do an interview, but I try, I try. I’d much rather hear somebody fantastically famous and universally loved coming on the air in prime time to extol my books–but I’m afraid I’ll have to settle for… me.
Anyway, it’s in God’s hands.