Count Otto's Dragon

By Donald A. Bemis

Description:

What Count Otto wouldn't give right now for a good moat monster!

It's no wonder Count Otto didn't want to get out of bed this morning. A blight has affected his crops, his kitchen staff's just been poisoned, and all the Counts of the area will gather soon at his castle for a feast. Worse, there's a dragon in Yonder Wood over yonder, and it just ate Father Frank yestereve. And with his moat monster missing, Count Otto has no protection against the Viking traders headed this way...

A rollicking medieval adventure full of surprises & twists & humor that will not only make you chuckle, but downright guffaw.

For all those who, like the author, never liked history until much, much later.

Book Takeaway:

God does what He wants, not necessarily what we expect. His forgiveness is permanent. So is our rejection of that forgiveness.

Why the author wrote this book:

It was fun.

I set out to write a wretched opening sentence in line with the Bulwer-Lytton competition for opening sentences. After reading it to my wife Lois, she said, "Okay, now you have to turn it into a book." She knows I enjoy writing, and my first novel (Heavens to Louie) had just been published. So I took that dreary opening sentence and decided to see how cheerful and flowery I could make it without altering the subject matter.

This book was really intended to be a bit of silliness. I did not start it with the intention of writing a Christian novel. Some will question whether it ever became one. I believe it did, but not by my doing. Friar Fred loomed ever larger as I wrote, and salvation crept in unbidden. So did rejection of salvation.

The book is not set in any particular land. My original opening sentence was set in Germany, but it eventually left the Continent for some British isle or other. The medieval Church in the story, with parallel ecclesiastic and monastic structures, is actually how it developed in Ireland, where Patrick and other monks evangelized the populace before the priests got there.