Tag: the thunder king by lee duigon

Rejoice in God’s Handiwork

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Some years ago, I interviewed the famous paleontologist, Bob Bakker; and he said something I’ll never forget. He asked, “Can you imagine the fun God had, creating all these things?”

I know I’ve showcased this critter before, but it is the largest land mammal that we know of, and one of my all-time favorite prehistoric animals. It has a lot of different scientific names. Just think of it as the great beast that King Ryons rode to the rescue of Obann: that’s in The Thunder King.

Please feel free to ignore this video’s Darwinian trappings. I show you this beast so you can stand up and cheer what God has done. And no one can say God has failed to give us an abundance of material in which to exercise our minds!

So where are these animals now? Why can’t we see them?

Well, we don’t know. All we know is that God created them, pronounced them “good” when He was finished, and has the entire universe at His disposal.

And I expect to see these creatures someday, in God’s own time.

How Bad Should Your Villains Be?

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The Last Banquet (Bell Mountain Book 4) by [Duigon, Lee]

Every story needs a villain, unless you’re writing Serious Mainstream Literature that’s just plain boring. But how bad should your villain be?

A lot of it depends on what motivates the character. My No. 1 villain in the first four Bell Mountain books, Lord Reesh, First Prester of the Temple, justified everything he did, including murder, in terms of a lifelong mission to preserve the Temple, no matter what, so that it could lead humanity back to the great heights of culture and science and power which God had destroyed in the Day of Fire. It was sort of like Saving the Planet from Man-Made Climate Change–a wonderful excuse for just about anything he wished to do. This made Lord Reesh a really cool villain.

Succeeding Lord Reesh in the later books, Goryk Gillow betrays his country because he covets wealth and power for himself; Lord Chutt commits crimes–all under cover of the law–because he wishes to restore the old regime, with himself in charge; and Ysbott the Snake does evil because he’s very much a degenerate whose close contact with the Thunder King’s mask has driven him insane. And Lord Orth’s crimes arose from his moral and personal shallowness: but God regenerated him.

Different motivations give rise to different sorts of crime. The more powerful, and the more seductive, the motivation, the bigger (and more creative) the crimes.

The only kind of villain I don’t like reading about is of a type which, I regret to say, is all too common in fantasy literature: the hopelessly stupid villain who’s just plugged in to let the hero show off by defeating him repeatedly.

And I do try to stay away from writing about the ordinary villains in Washington, D.C., who make the news of our real world such depressing reading.

 

Comment Contest: Less Than 100 to Go

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Yes, we have under 100 comments to go, to get to No. 6,000–and whoever posts comment No. 6,000 will win an autographed copy of one of my books. (Sorry: if you’ve won already, I will pass to someone who hasn’t won yet.)

Anyone can play. Just “leave a reply” at the bottom of any post.

I rule out comments abusive to me or to any other reader, comments that make use of the f-bomb, blasphemy, thinly-disguised commercials, or anything just too inane to bother with.  Other than that, anything goes.

Join the dozens of happy people who have already read one of my books. Enter now!

While You’re Here…

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Just skimming the headlines this morning reminded me of that old Car 54 theme song, from 1961–only worse, of course. Great Scott, what a mess!

But as long as you’re here, why not help this blog fulfill its purpose, and take a look at my books? Just click “Books” and you’re there.

True, in my Bell Mountain series you will search in vain for any mention of Planned Parenthood, Black Lives Matter, Obama, the Republican Party, Democrats, homosexuals, exciting new forms of “marriage” endorsed by Satan himself, or special martial arts that enable 9-year-old girls to annihilate able-bodied grown men. I have purposely left them all out. You’ll just have to read about a world in which none of those things has even been thought of.

Liberals and progressives will be unhappy if a lot of people read my books. They will even be unhappy if just some of you read my books.

There are seven in print, with No. 8, The Temple, in pre-production and No. 9, The Throne, still being written.

Read the amazon.com Customer Reviews.

You know what? I wish I was you, so I could read these books without already knowing what’s in them.

 

The Largest Land Mammal Ever

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From the BBC series, “Walking With Beasts”

Hi! Mr. Nature here, with the biggest, hugest land mammal ever to live–Baluchitherium. It’s also known as Indricotherium or Paraceratherium, but I’m sticking with the old name as I first discovered it in Roy Chapman Andrews’ books.

Anyhow, this baby is a whopper. The males were 18 feet high at the shoulder. This animal was a member of the rhinoceros family. So where’s the horn? You ain’t gonna tell me a Baluchitherium needs a horn, are you?

This is the great beast that King Ryons rode to the rescue of the city in Lee Duigon’s immortal classic, The Thunder King. Uh, wait a minute… that’s me. And it’s bad form to brag. Sorry! I seem to get carried away whenever I think about Baluchitheres.

No one has ever found a trace of any mammal bigger than this one, except for whales and they don’t count because they don’t live on the land. Baluchitherium was big enough to be a dinosaur. Big enough to squash your car like a bug.

Behold the works of the Lord, what wonders flow from His hands! Bob Bakker, the famous dinosaur scientist who, more than anyone else, convinced us that dinosaurs were active, warm-blooded creatures and not overgrown stupid mountains of flesh that had to float around in swamps, once told me it was one of his greatest pleasures to contemplate the joy and pleasure God receives from His creation.

There are still some scientists with their heads screwed on straight.