A gentle dragon, Smooka, is lured deep into a planet-wide cave system, where he takes an epic journey with a princess dragon to her domain, now under a glacier. Deep under that ice, the pair fall in love and discover ancient secrets that foreshadow the coming of humanity. Many dragons have put themselves into a glacial-age hibernation and they will later awaken either to destroy humanity's chances or to be its salvation. "I love this story. The dragons very quickly became real people to me. Smooka grew from a faintly ridiculous blunderer into a wonderful hero. This is one of the most imaginative, delightful books I've read in a long time." Dr. Bob Rich
Bent Lorentzen was born in 1953 in Roskilde, Denmark -- the ancient Viking seat from which dragon ships invaded the known and unknown world. In 2003, his 136-page fantasy, "Dragon's Moon," won 4th place in the Dream Realm Awards. Reviewers have described this book as a beautiful blending of "Watership Down," "The Ugly Duckling" and "Jonathan Livingston Seagull."
"Dragon's Moon" is a dramatic interpretation of his cultural anthropology thesis from the 1980's... on the bio-cultural roots of good & evil, and the middle path as a means of navigating the dichotomy. In 2009, Lorentzen published its 262-page sequel, "Krona, The Dragons of Nistala," an epic saga that culminates with the dinosaur extinction event of 65 MYA. Many have likened this novel to an uncomplicated "Lord of the Rings" and C.S. Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia." Both books, each a love story as well, are specifically designed for children and adults alike. "Dragon's Moon" actually is written with EASL in mind, but without in any way distracting anyone born into the English language.
As a young child, Bent Lorentzen's parents emigrated to Montreal after accusations of child abuse surfaced in Denmark. Ritually abused and tortured in every imaginable way for 18 years by his parents and Catholic clergy, including being locked for months at a time into a toxic dirt-floored basement torture chamber, Lorentzen managed to survive by finding nurturing archetypes in the forests to which he often ran away into. Bent's younger sister, Agnes, committed suicide due to this ritualized torture.
He ran away from the abuse for the last time in 1971, and in college, he studied biology/environmental science and later graduate level anthropology and neurobiology as well as US Constitutional law. Plagued by a severe form of PTSD -- dissociative disorder -- he found healing through Buddhist meditation techniques and becoming a monk for several years at an ashram.
Lorentzen worked as an ornithology research assistant during the DDT crisis of the 1970's, when the Bald Eagle became an endangered species. He has also worked as a taxi driver in NYC, teacher of autistic children in Massachusetts as well as a natural history teacher in Florida, teacher's aide for blind students in the California state university system, certified therapist for the dying under hospice care, newspaper associate editor in the Washington DC area, and in Denmark he worked as a mental health counselor for the county of Copenhagen. In that capacity, in 2003 he was appointed a delegate for the Copenhagen Social-psychiatric Development Council. He also founded Many Leaves One Tree (MLOT) in 1992, a 501c3 NGO to help promote the art of women surviving ritualized torture. In 1994, Lorentzen won a Ben & Jerry's Foundation award for social consciousness due to this work. He has also worked for Renault, both in sales and marketing, and received an award in 1982 from former President Mitterrand of France for that effort, since Renault then was state-owned.
Bent Lorentzen's articles have been published in major publications, such as The World & I, Viking, Baltimore Sunday Sun, Recovery Today, Altair, Pangaea, etc, with some having been purchased by the United States Information Agency (USIA) and disseminated worldwide via embassies. In 2002, his short story, "Passage" - a Cherokee shamanic response in Central Park to 9/11 - won the Ground Zero prize in New York City. At Youtube, can be found many of Bent Lorentzen's social documentaries.
