The Winnitok Tales is a series of epic fantasy novels set in the world of Ehm.
The Hunt for the Eye of Ogin was published in February 2010 by North Atlantic Books.
The Mornith War was published in May 2011, also by North Atlantic.
Both covers to date are by August Hall, artiste. Are they not grand?
Patrick Doud 
I really enjoyed “The Hunt for the Eye of Ogin,” but to this day I am still digesting my feelings for the ending. It was a haunting twist that I intellectually admire, but am left with a feeling of being deceived and abandoned. Without ruining the ending for those who have not read it, the reason I feel deceived is due to the comment at the beginning during the trip to Ehm that “time stood still,” but there is a real departure from that theme later in the book.
I feel real empathy for Elwood and wanted some resolve for his sense of abandonment. The brief feeling of victory in the ending is quashed by the turn of events that left me inextricably sad for the 13 year-old for days.
That said, it may be a brilliant stroke as I have been on a crusade to hunt down a copy of “The Mornith War” and will likely read it cover to cover in a single sitting when my order comes in. Seldom is a book written that is so thought provoking and soul searching and for that reason I feel it a great story for all age groups.
Thank you for these insightful remarks on Ogin, Bill. I especially appreciate your concern about the book’s ending.
I hear you. Elwood’s strange, unexpected misfortune at the end of the book is nothing like what we would hope for him. It’s resolution reversed. That’s one reason for the final, italicized paragraph: to let readers know it isn’t over, that there is hope. That the end of Ogin marks a break in the story, not the story’s end. (It’s true, though, that final ‘graph really stresses the darkness and sorrow to come.) (Also, I should mention that The Mornith War doesn’t end the story of Elwood’s great misfortune either, though it does carry it to the halfway point.)
Regarding the departure from the sense of time standing still you mention–the way Elwood and Slukee seem not to move as they travel to Ehm, and the feeling in the Glade that time is standing still. I see these like the calm space within the chaos of a hurricane. Temporary, and apt to destroy. But I get how that same stillness could indicate life in Elwood’s world does not go on in his absence, meaning … well, I’d better not give too much away!
Mr. Doud,
I’d like you to know that your Winnitok Tales have inspired my fourteen-year-old autistic son to read, which his a huge undertaking! He loved the first book and is working diligently on the second. This is a boy who has trouble processing language and until now hated reading! Thank you. Please keep up the good work!
That is fantastic news, Betty! Thank you! Please tell your son I say hello. Please let him know I will continue to write stories about Winnitok, and that I hope he continues to enjoy them.
whens book 3 coming out?
No date set, but I’m hard at work on it and will of course post news here as things develop!
Good evening (or morning where you are, I think) Mr. Doud,
I know it has been some time since your last comment in this thread. I re-read The Hunt for the Eye of Ogin and then read The Mornith War fairly recently. I’m a fan of your work and eagerly await the third installment in the series (and hopefully many others, if we readers are lucky!). Is the book still on your radar, I hope?
I’d like to add that I love the vivid description you provide Ehm and its inhabitants. And I think the endings to these books are some of the most thought-provoking, compelling, and effective endings I’ve encountered in any of the books I’ve read that were written in the past forty or fifty years. There’s just something about Elwood’s pathos that resonates from the pages in such an evocative way.
Much happiness to you,
Chris
Chris,
Good morning (or evening for you, I guess). It gives me a great deal of pleasure to know you have enjoyed time spent in Ehm, and that you sympathize with Elwood in his situation… Which I have only worsened by taking so long to supply the next installment of his story! But it will come, and a fourth book, too. That is the long-planned plan. When the next book will appear, exactly, I cannot say, but I do intend to make it happen, ASAP.
Thanks so much for writing, Chris; your words mean a lot. (By the way, are you a writer yourself?)
Much happiness to you also!
Patrick
Thank you so much for your response, Patrick. I’m so happy to learn of your plan for two more books. I hope my feedback provides some encouragement for you to do your best work at your own pace.
Yes; I do write, but not words. I write music here and there, lately for solo instruments and piano or small chamber ensembles. I’ve tried a few times to write some fiction or poetry, but I just don’t seem to have the knack for it. I love reading others’ works instead.
Ah, music is the higher manifestation.
I usually have music in my ears as I write. The Winnitok books are written to a nearly constant stream of music, works that to me are like worlds. Bruckner’s symphonies, Sibelius and Bax, Delius and Vaughan-Williams: These and others are almost always playing as I write, helping me to reach that place in imagination where the work forms and grows.
I hope you do not mind if I ask, how do you compose? On the piano, or a music application of some kind, or straight from head to paper, or?
Very nice! Sibelius is one of my favorite composers. I especially love his fifth and sixth symphonies and his violin concerto.
I usually write by hand and then engrave using a computer. Sometimes I’ll just write a piece as I engrave it, but that doesn’t always work. If you’re interested, here’s something I wrote during the summer of 2018: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1LygV_IxVGi0cq06wEBIk_lP59V0RqoM4
It’s very different from this much easier-to-listen-to, smaller scale work intended for a children’s audience from April 2019 that uses more functional harmonies in a neoclassical idiom: https://drive.google.com/open?id=13iF7txw9U1qRvSwCSzZDI5Z51BY4aIiv
I’m working on a trio now that’s somewhat reminiscent of the second piece above. But I’m writing slowly these days; it’s been a busy past few months.
Chris! I look in shock at the phrase above your last comment: 19 days ago. I hope you and yours are healthy and coping okay.
I am enjoying VERY much both your Octet and Cute Little Tuba Suite; I am thrilled with both. Octet’s environment is a gorgeous mystery; the moment at about 3:05 and the piano talk that follows gives me a shiver. The whole thing is like a conversation between a group of higher beings. The Suite is just plain charming, truly lovely. (Somehow it reminded me immediately of passages in Constant Lambert’s Mr Bear Squash You All Flat, though I have not heard that piece for many years–and that thought came BEFORE I saw the image of the teddy bear that appears in the video at the Lullaby’s end!) Thank you for sending links to both of these.
I would be happy to learn more of your work. Feel free, if you are inclined, to contact me by email (patrickdoud@gmail). Be well.