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If it's inline, go to the Reviews screen (the one with the four tabs that shows posted and received inline and regular reviews). It should be clearly visible on the posted reviews tab (marked as draft, I think). It hasn't actually been posted yet.

>There's a rare good prologue in 2001's Dawn of Man (https://screenrant.com/2001-space-odyss … nal-scene/).
Although I found the film painfully boring, the opening scene with the monolith, the apes, and the accompanying music were excellent. I loved 2010, which (mercifully) didn't spend too much time showing off a director's vision of a sci-fi future and just told a great story. It remains one of my favorite films.

>have learned to peek past the prologue before making a buying decision.
That I totally agree with. Assuming I ever finish a book, I always intended for both the prologue and chapter 1 of Rise of Connor to be available for preview on sites like Amazon. If you don't like those two chapters together, you won't like the book.

My prologue has been criticized for having too many characters (Romano, Connor, Father Bianchi the tour guide, Antonio the ghost, and the head of the Swiss Guard protecting Connor in the Holy Land (can't remember his name offhand), but it's a necessary evil since the prologue is simply an excerpt from chapter 32 in the Holy Land, where all five characters are always present.

I don't think it's a big deal, though. Connor and Romano are obviously the key characters in the prologue and are featured again/fully introduced in chapter one. The rest will pop up again later, so I don't really care if the reader forgets who they are in the meantime. I think readers know that prologues often leave a lot of unanswered questions, usually intentionally so.

It boggles my mind that some readers claim online that they never read prologues, which I think is stupid. The author obviously thought the material important enough to the story to put it before anything else. Technically, mine is optional, but I kept it to set the tone of the book and to showcase key elements of the story as an enticement to read on (Revelation/Apocalypse, Catholicism, Connor's remarkable powers, the Holy Land (esp. the Sea of Galilee), and Vatican Swiss Guards).

Better than Connor defying the laws of physics with no plausible explanation, the wine from the Garden of Eden will be the source of his boosted power.

I think the solution to how to handle the stench of so many dissolving demon corpses is that Megiddo is considered holy ground. They won't dissolve within its boundaries, or they don't stink when dissolving. Probably the former. Whichever way I go, it needs to be consistent from book one on, where some demons died in a church.

How about Omega Force as the name Connor coins for his cousins?

The other option is for someone to explain that once the Antichrist is born, Satan will not receive another soul for another kid.

I was trying to think of a better way to handle the fact that Connor is much more powerful than his "cousins" from the breeding program, rather than just say it's due to some unknown in Campagna's DNA. If I do use the mother's DNA as the source of why Connor is much more powerful, the geneticist could be the one who verifies that her DNA augments the DNA that Satan bred into the kids he used. In other words, she could be a carrier of the genes for those abilities, though not herself able to benefit from them. But when you combine them with De Rosa's enhanced DNA (from his breeding program), you get Connor, the most powerful human of all time. But, you ask, how did she get those genes? Simple. One of her ancestors was among the few who ever escaped from the South American compound. Since her ancestor took off, she's descended from a breeding line that Satan lost access to. After many generations, she's a wild variable unintentionally injected into the breeding program by Satan himself, when he raped her. How's that for karma?

Although Connor is the most powerful human, he's not as powerful as he'll be when he eventually gets into the final battle. There are a number of ways I could handle that. For example, perhaps St. Michael brings him ancient wine derived from fruit from the Garden of Eden. I like that, but Connor may also go back to the Sea of Galilee for some skinny dipping at the urging of everyone's favorite kooks, Moses and Elijah. If you recall, an angel in book one confirmed that the waters had been blessed by Christ, perhaps when he performed his miracles there (e.g., Peter's huge catch of fish), and that the waters are supernatural. That's why modern Christians go to the area to be baptized in its waters. The waters or the wine, or both, enhance his powers to a degree he doesn't realize until he gets into battle. I'm thinking of having Michael withhold true knowledge about what the wine can do; he'll tell Connor a made-up legend of the wine's powers to improve virility, or some similar nonsense. Connor will discover his power boost when he enters battle.

When you combine Connor's DNA-driven abilities with the wine and Galilean water, he goes off the scale, power-wise. For example, he'll be able to swing his sword across the throat of a demon, decapitating him. But, there's nothing too special about that. Where the fun starts is when the heads of the next three demons near the decapitated one also go flying off, all the result of Connor's first slash. Since one sword can't reach four heads at once (unless they surround him), the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th demons are decapitated by a directed concussive force or shockwave resulting from the power of Connor's slash. It happens so fast, the force/wave behaves as if an extension of the sword itself. Physics-wise, it's total crap, but I don't care. It's a cool effect that I intend to use a number of times during the battle.

Better yet, Connor has his cousins join him for a swim in Galilee, and Michael shares some of the same wine with them. Naturally, they won't reach Connor's level of power (only he'll have the ability to mow down multiple enemies with just a slash, punch, or kick), but it would be easy for a small fighting force to hold its own against a much larger army of demons. One issue will be the stench of so many demon corpses in close proximity.

Last item, then I'm going to bed: Naming contest. I need a great name for Connor to call his genetically enhanced cousins, which includes both young men and women. He could call them simply "cousins", but I'm hoping for something more interesting, relevant to the story.

G'night.

>I'm a little nervous about breeding in supernatural powers but will comment later.
It's no different than if the powers were the result of artificially editing the human genome. Basically, my story implies that humans can have such powers (i.e., the "potential" to have such powers exists in all humans), whether by editing the genome or breeding the necessary edits into the genome.

Just a quick note before I forget: Although Connor's soul was provided by God as part of the wager with Satan, Connor's predecessors originated far in the past from human parents, and all descendants through to the present day are fully human, the result of Satan's carefully controlled breeding program. Both boys and girls are part of the program, so both lineages can be controlled to produce the Antichrist more quickly since, as Christ said in the NT, no one knows when the end will come except the Father. Turns out it comes not long after prophecy about the coming of the Antichrist is fulfilled. Just in the nick of time, too. Close one!

A brief history about the compound and breeding program can be related to Connor by one of his genetic relatives, so it doesn't all have to be experienced firsthand by Connor, although I definitely think he should visit the compound. Perhaps that's where the most recent generation of kids still live, hiding away because people fear their powers. That could lead to a coordinated attack by superstitious locals while Connor is there. I think he should also be challenged by one of the kids (alpha male), who wants to see if he can best Connor and take over as leader. They fight physically and Connor seems to lose, pinned to the ground by the other kid. Just when the kid thinks he's stronger and better, Connor surprises him by throwing the kid off and overpowering him. This could be the first reveal that Connor is truly more powerful than any of the others. Another step in revealing his true power to the other characters and the reader could come while Connor is being trained by St. Michael. It might even be a surprise to Connor just how strong he really is. The final step would be during the battle, when Connor holds nothing back when fighting the demons. Heads will fly!

I had a neat idea for book three. Since Connor needs a human fighting force at the beginning of the final battle, I thought that Connor, being the result of genetic manipulation based on Satan's millennia-old breeding program, would have had predecessors from the breeding program. Turns out, many of them are still alive, even though Satan had ordered them destroyed once Connor was born. The program was run from a compound in the the jungles of South America, run by a trainer who took pity on the last batch of kids created for the program, so he led them to a local priest, who assumed their care.

In book three, Connor learns of their existence, so he goes there to discover the rescued kids all look very similar to him, he being the culmination of the breeding program. All those kids (now young adults) have powers similar to Connor, just not as powerful. The reason Connor is stronger than expected is because Campagna is his mother.

Satan's zombie body is a dead version of one of the past generation of kids from the program, whose DNA Satan forced into Campagna's body for the birth of the Antichrist. Satan is unaware of how powerful Connor is as a result of being Campagna's son.

The problem with the breeding program is that it eventually runs into a dead end, when the last few batches of kids turn out to be increasingly sterile. Satan's zombie body was created long before the batch of sterile kids, so he can still reproduce using his assumed body.

Connor tells his predecessors from the breeding program the truth about what Satan had been doing with them, and asks for them to fight for him, which they agree to do. The end result is that a batch of super powered young adults become Connor's human army in the battle.

There are some issues with making this work and simplifying the details, but it could be a great way to give Connor an interesting ancestry and a cool fighting force for the final battle, all relatives of Connor through Satan's zombie DNA. And it should be a great addition to the plot. These kids all underwent rigorous training before Satan ordered them destroyed, including knife and sword fighting. Handy, huh? Connor also undergoes similar training in preparation for the battle, probably overseen by Michael the Archangel, an ancient friend of Adam's. Connor is a natural at this, in part because of his enhanced intelligence, strength, and speed and in part because all his ancestors were bred to be good fighters.

I'll have to come up with a reason why Campagna's DNA makes Connor so powerful. Perhaps it's just random luck involving the DNA, although I'd prefer a better explanation. TBD.

The breeding program might completely eliminate the need to have a geneticist in the story. Not sure yet.