by Lee Duigon
My newest book, “The Wind from Heaven,” has just been published. It’s No. 13 in my “Bell Mountain” series.
What happens when God stirs up a spiritually dormant world, and moves its people to seek Him?
Visions happen, and prophecies. Acts of desperate heroism—and villainy. Nations on the move, and wars for survival. A doomed and desolate past reaches out for the present and holds the keys to the future. Holy men who don’t believe in God; and children, reformed criminals, the old, the powerless, who do: with conflict everywhere.
Adventures happen, and fabulous discoveries. Ordinary people are called upon to do extraordinary things. The whole world is wakening to a frightening realization that the last thousand years has only been a kind of sleeping-spell that held them in apathetic sin and ignorance.
All right, all right—let’s not get carried away. The books are fantasy-adventure novels embedded in a Biblical worldview. I’ve tried to write them to an audience of intelligent twelve-year-olds; but thousands of adult readers have enjoyed them, and I’m always surprised when readers let me know the stories are a hit with children as young as eight. Published by the Chalcedon Foundation, all thirteen are available at the Chalcedon Store (www.chalcedon.edu/store), amazon.com, and elsewhere—in both paperback and ebook formats.
I’m proud that I’ve been able to leave our own world’s politics out of my books altogether: even liberals have enjoyed them. As far as fantasy goes, I think that’s as it should be.
For fantasy, like poetry, should be about bigger things. Universal things. Fantasy has access to regions of the heart and mind that are not readily available to other kinds of story-telling. It can provide the read with an imaginary world which offers a new perspective on the real world.
One purposeful difference between my books and many other fantasies—if not most of them—is that I’ve strictly ruled out magic and sorcery. “Bell Mountain” is not a Harry Potter knockoff. I do create characters who claim to have extraordinary powers, but that’s something that has always existed in our world. I allow nothing that’s not allowed in the Bible—which, you’ll have to admit, gives ample scope for marvels.
Why write fantasy at all? I mean, our world’s on fire, we have plenty of serious problems to worry us—why bother with the imaginary problems of an imaginary world?
But problems of faith, meaning, sacrifice, temptation, the lust for power and wealth, government, war, and fear are anything but imaginary; and the world of Bell Mountain has them all. Nor are there any super-heroes, super-wizards, or fantastic martial arts to call upon. The problems in “Bell Mountain” must be faced and dealt with by ordinary people with ordinary resources.
And what resources are those? The same real resources available to us—faith, wisdom, courage, self-sacrifice, and endurance. The motto of the Shackleton family, believed in whole-heartedly by the explorer Ernest Shackleton when he went off to try to cross Antarctica, was only this: “By endurance we conquer.” He didn’t succeed in crossing Antarctica, but when his expedition met disaster, he performed a rescue operation that was little short of miraculous.
The Bible itself, and high points of our own world’s history, have inspired me and upheld me throughout the writing of these books. I revel in an inexhaustible mine of inspiration.
And I hope my books will inspire others.
I have discussed these and other topics throughout the week on my blog, http://leeduigon.com/ . Click the link and stop in for a visit. My articles can also be found at www.chalcedon.edu/ .
© 2021 Lee Duigon – All Rights Reserved
E-Mail Lee Duigon: leeduigon@verizon.net
