Robert Treskillard's Blog — Epic tales reaching beyond the wisdom of the ages™

I know. I know. Yesterday’s post was a bit hard. Maybe I should have mixed the bad with the good in my review of DragonLight, by Donita K. Paul.

Be that as it may, I did not. So here we are with all the good stuff!

But first, a commercial: Make sure you visit her website, and also check out the first four books in the DragonKeeper Chronicles:

DragonSpell	DragonQuest	DragonKnight	DragonFire

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Okay … enough dragon talk! Time for some serious evaluation of Donita K. Paul’s DragonLight, last book in the DragonKeeper Chronicles.

Today I’m going to get my minor-minor-gripes out of the way so that I can end tomorrow on a real positive note. This is a great book, so take this with a grain of salt!

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This month, the Christian Science-Fiction & Fantasy Blog Tour is covering DRAGONLIGHT by Donita K. Paul, which is published by Waterbrook Press.

What Dragons Would Be Interested In This Book?

All kinds … big and small. Whether you like to read your books before a toasty fire (started accidentally of course when you sneezed), or flying through the clouds, you will enjoy this book. After enjoying it myself—and mind you, I’m half-way to being long in the fang—I passed it on to my seven year old meech so she could enjoy it!

What In This Book Is Of Interest To Dragons?

Everything! You’ll follow along with that nice DragonKeeper, Kale, and her husband, Bardon as they take you and your friends on an adventure to save both truth and the lives of their land. You’ll meet other meech-dragons, as well as your large flying cousins, and many small, clever and talented minor-dragons. You’ll see how the dragons help save the day, and also how the black-sheep of the family, if I may borrow an expression from your world, causes lots of trouble.

Why Do You Think I’m A Dragon?

Aren’t we all deep down? Maybe you forgot and need a bit of reminding going through the tomes. Only by grace…

Where Do The Dragons Go?

To the far north. To the unexplored lands where the wild beasties roam and where nothing is what it seems. Keep your eyes sharp, and your wings strong!

When Do The Dragons Fight?

Almost right away! You’ll be hooked from the first chapter! Things start to go wrong right away (can I put those two words together?), and you won’t want to put the book down! Not only that, but the witty banter of those bipeds will keep you flipping the pages.

Which Dragon Is Your Favorite?

Probably Gymm … plays an awful important part in the book. Without that little dragon, I don’t think the quest would have … well, er, I really shouldn’t give anything away.

How Can A Dragon Purchase It?

By going to our favorite Dragazon.com.

And make sure you stop by tomorrow for a more down-to-earth evaluation!

Here are the other tour members:

Let’s just say that my kids are fans of my book!

Last month for Father’s Day (June 15th here in the U.S.), my children worked many long hours and gave me a statue of King Arthur.

They made him out of Sculpey Clay that you cure by baking, with tin foil for filler, and wire through his arms and legs. Then they painted him and attached him with super-glue to a custom wooden base and covered him with lacquer.

If you look closely, you can see he is wearing a golden torc, has trusty Excalibur at his side, and has a shield with a cross on it. His hair is long and red, which you can see from the back view. He stands about 8-1/2″ tall on top of the 1-1/2″ wooden base.

This was a great gift for me, because that was the day I finished my first draft! Now King Arthur smiles back at me on my desk, inspiring me to “do again the bold deeds of old” … and write about them!

Austin Boyd, former navy pilot and spacecraft engineer and now award winning author, has some excellent advice for Christian novelists on his website.

His main advice is to invest in yourself as a writer, and as part of that, he recommends certain tools that will help you do just that.

And when he says “invest in yourself", he means it. He spent nearly $7,000 before he ever considered approaching publishers or agents. Not that you need to spend that much, but the important thing is that if you are serious about being published, don’t skimp on the time or training you need to get there.

Here is one quote from his advice:

I could have self-published for about $10,000, but I wanted to sell my work, not force my novel on the market.

And his patience and efforts have been rewarded, with three novels in print, and a new novel coming out soon co-written with Oliver North. His last novel, THE RETURN is part 3 of the Mars Hill Classified series, and was released in 2007.

With nothing left for him on Earth, Rear Admiral John Wells didn’t hesitate to lead a third NASA team to Mars, but he never dreamed that one day they’d look out their laboratory module into the lights of a slow-moving vehicle not their own.

In the third installment of the Mars Hill Classified series, life on Mars becomes increasingly more unpredictable as the past collides with the future and nothing, not even the dead, is as it seems. Meanwhile, back on Earth, the fate of hundreds, including John Wells’ family—presumed dead these last six years—rests precariously in the hands of Malcolm Raines, self-proclaimed Guardian of the Mother Seed and Principal Cleric of Saint Michael’s Remnant, and his insidious plans for the Father Race. Wells will find himself in a race against time and all odds to expose the truth: about Mars, about Malcolm Raines, and, if he’s very brave, about himself.

Just announced at the Christy Awards banquet on Saturday, Stephen Lawhead has won the Visionary category (fantasy / science-fiction / supernatural) for his novel Scarlet.

The Christy Award was established in 1999 to recognize novelists and novels of excellence. The goals of the Christy Award are:

• Nurture and encourage creativity and quality in the writing and publishing of fiction written from a Christian worldview.
• Bring a new awareness of the breadth and depth of fiction choices available, helping to broaden the readership.
• Provide opportunity to recognize novelists whose work may not have reached bestseller status.

Here is a description of the novel from Stephen Lawhead’s website:

After losing everything he owns, forester Will Scarlet embarks on a search for none other than King Raven, whose exploits have already become legendary. After fulfilling his quest—and proving himself a skilled and loyal companion—Will joins the heroic archer and his men.

Now, however, Will is in prison for a crime he did not commit. His sentence is death by hanging—unless he delivers King Raven and his band of cohorts.

That, of course, he will never do.

Wales is slowly falling under the control of the invading Normans, and King William the Red has given his ruthless barons control of the land. In desperation, the people turn to King Raven and his men for justice and survival in the face of the ever-growing onslaught.

From deep in the forest they form a daring plan for deliverance, knowing that failure means death for them all.

Scarlet continues Stephen R. Lawhead’s riveting saga that began with the novel Hood, which relocated the legend of Robin Hood to the Welsh countryside and its dark forests. Steeped in Celtic mythology and the political intrigue of medival Britain, Lawhead’s trilogy conjures up an ancient past and holds a mirror to contemporary realities. Prepare for an epic tale that dares to shatter everything you thought you knew about Robin Hood.

Congratulations, Stephen!!

I wanted to point everyone who chances by here to check out the blog and music of someone I consider a friend, Edward Waters:

Rambles Of One Windborne - Bard Of The Grey Wind

He considers himself a Christian Bard, and he just wrote a post about hearing God amidst the din of the world. This can be found here at God Will Seldom Shout.

Edward is a poet, singer-songwriter, essayist, aphorist, and tutor in Biblical studies. His main website can be found at Edward Waters—Bard of the Grey Wind. There you will find his poetry, free downloads of his music, essays, and wisdom.

All highly recommended!

Y Gododdin

Those French Academics! What gall to point out that King Arthur wasn’t English! I can just see the French snearing down at King Arthur from their castle as he clip-clops by with a coconut-shell laden adviser.

You can read the news article here.

At least they didn’t claim he was French. Now that would have been audacious!

So what nationality was King Arthur? This question has been given many answers over the years, with some even thinking far out thoughts that the legend is from the Samartians!

From my own study of the issues, I certainly don’t think he was English in the sense that he was Anglo-Saxon. These were the people he was repelling.

So was he Celtic? My answer is yes.

But from where is the question. As the Celtic peoples were pushed toward the margins of Britain, they were not thought of as “Cornish", “Welsh", or “Scottish” … they were simply different regions of what could be called a pan-Brythonic kingdom, sharing a very similar language, customs, lore, and traditions.

(This Brythonic kingdom also includes what is now Brittany, France. Hum?)

In my series, I start Arthur out in Cornwall, move him to Wales, but he will also fight battles up near Scotland. His fame will spread throughout Britain.

This, in my opinion, is why the very early Northern Brythonic poem Y Gododdin mentions him as the greatest warrior to whom you cannot compare even a man capable of killing 300 in a single battle.

If you want to read a very detailed treatise (not all of which I agree with, but very interesting) on the origins of King Arthur, take a look at The Historicity and Historicisation of Arthur written by Thomas Green, Exeter College, University of Oxford. Here he has a lot to say on the original sources, scholars, etc.

I ran across some free software on the internet that makes “word clouds” out of any writing. By this I mean that it creates a graphic of the most used words and sizes them according to how often they are used.

I pasted in the first third of my book and this is what it produced:

Not only is this fun, but it is useful to find those words that an author uses too much. For instance I use SAID too many times. I learned this from one of my Genesis Contest judges, but if not, this tool would have helped me to catch it.

But there are other words there that surprised me, so this will help my editing process. Even the “small” words are important to look at, as they are among the top 150 words of the document.

Why did I only submit the first third of my novel? Well … because I didn’t trust this website enough to “give” the owner my entire novel. If he wants to try to write my last two-thirds, that’s fine! But I’m not going to submit my entire novel to a stranger, and I suggest you show prudence as well. Doubtful there is little danger here, but why throw caution to the wind?

One Hint About My Book: If anyone reads the “word cloud” above, you might notice the name “Garthwisyk” there. If you are interested in reading about some of the legends behind my series, do an internet search on “Garthwys” and you’ll have some fun reading.

And the very discerning among you might actually catch a tiny coincidental tie in to Stephen Lawhead’s book, Merlin.

The BBC just put up a news item about a King Arthur book, written by Philip Reeve, which won the UK’s oldest book award for his novel “Here Lies Arthur".

He beat six others to win. The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) award is in its 71st year.

According to the article:

The legendary figure of King Arthur is presented in Reeve’s tale as a war-mongering, self-interested “thug".

The book [has] also been described as a political satire and an expose of the ancient art of spin-doctoring.

The author puts it this way:

“It’s a slightly irreverent take which presents Arthur as a not very important minor warlord - or gangster - in about 500AD.”

And this is why I am writing about King Arthur—to provide a counter thrust to the post-modern trend of deflating and destroying everything that holds up an ideal. Of making everything spin and fakery. The post-modern goal is to knock the wind out of belief, faith, hope, and love.

This is a spiritual battle.