Will The Bell Toll ??
A review of Lee Duigon Bell Mountain (Vallecito, CA: Storehouse Press, 2010)
288 pp $14.00
Reviewer: Forrest W. Schultz
Lee Duigon's Bell Mountain is set in a fantasy world in which the survivors of the collapse of a technologically advanced society have fallen back to a civilizational level comparable to that of our Middle Ages. And this world has a religion similar to the one in power in our medieval period, i.e. it had degenerated from the pristine original and its clergy tyrranize the people. Its top official, the First Prester, similar to a Pope, believes that religion's purpose is to prop up the state! That is just one example of its decadence that could be cited!
The only thing the reader is told about what God intends to do to remedy the situation is to send a boy and a girl -- Jack and Ellayne -- to the top of Bell Mountain where they are to ring the Bell placed there in days of yore by the renowned King Ozias. Jack and Ellayne prepare their supplies and then sneak out of town to set forth on their journey where they encounter all kinds of strange beasts and strange people along the way, including the assassin sent forth by the First Prester to terminate them.
Like any good adventure story written for children, this is one which adults will appreciate even more. Lee Duigon has thus far been known for his thoughtful magazine articles. If he continues to write literature such as the book under review here, he will soon become known as a storyteller as well.