Found these online. They're not usable, but they are funny.
Hotter than a Times Square Rolex.
Hotter than a hen laying hard-boiled eggs.
Hotter than a cow giving evaporated milk.
Hotter than Satan's mix tape.
Southern women don't sweat - they glisten.
Thanks, George. None of those tickle my fancy, though. The weird thing is, my Albuma example was initially a throwaway, but it's starting to grow on me. "The Albuma winds" sounds rather majestic.
Thank you for the link. I don't recall which pope started the process, but the Vatican apparently wants every diocese to have an exorcist. One of the things they do is bless buildings, which is considered a form of exorcism, so it's not usually as exciting as little girls throwing up pea soup. 
No, the idea is they chose something really hot to express/exaggerate what the heat feels like. Although now that you asked the question the way you did, clearly California Reapers is not good choice. If my readers were confused about the Realm being a republic that one day may be led by a king from one of its member systems, just imagine the head scratching when vegetables begin stalking Apollo. LoL
New naming contest. Earth in the distant future still suffers from the aftereffects of climate change in the form of stubbornly high temperatures, the result of the planet experiencing the beginnings of a runaway greenhouse effect in the early centuries of the 3rd millenium, which was only halted because Dr. Narky brought civilization to its knees with her faulty vaccine, causing the population to crash from 10B down to 1B. I had been calling this the Warming, but as Jack rightly pointed out, since the planet actually ceased "warming" long ago, it's the wrong term. I had considered calling it the Broiling (with Terrans nicknamed roast beef by other worlds), but that's too in-your-face, hence boring. I want a term (preferably only one or two words, perhaps an acronym) that people coin to describe "hot as hell", say 5-10 degrees hotter than today. Ideally, the term should also have a humorous element to it.
Here's an example: Apollo could feel the heat of the "Albuma" winds blowing, a word derived from the acronym ALBUMA, which means "a lightning bolt up my ass." Censored of course. :-)
Hotter than Satan eating California Repears at the Big Bang! No idea what the acronym/short form would be. Sefcabb? Nah.
Or maybe just: Apollo could feel the heat of California Reapers stalking him in the Amazon.
Apollo wore heat-dissipating clothing to keep the heat of the California Reapers at bay.
Hot enough to fry a camel! Hefac. Could perhaps use it as a curse word. As Apollo stepped outside, he said, "Hefac!"
Hot enough to fry fish in a river! Heffir? Nope.
Whatever the final word is, I plan to use it a few times without explaining what it is until later, and it therefore should be cool/funny enough to be worth the wait for the reader.
Etc.
Thanks
Dirk
If you're counting votes, I prefer "Satan", although either is perfectly acceptable. In a YouTube documentary I watched some time ago, the narrator pronounced it Se-tahn rather than Say-ten. I really liked it cause it was cool to hear a different pronounciation. Perhaps you can find a way to slip in Lucifer as a way that God addresses him:
Satan stepped before the Lord.
God said, "Well, if it isn't Lucifer, my prince of darkness."
Satan flinched. He hated the name Lucifer.
or
Lucifer stepped before the Lord.
God said, "Well, if it isn't Satan, my prince of darkness."
Lucifer flinched. He hated the name Satan.
With a brief exchange like the above, you would have introduced three of Satan's names (if you count prince of darkness), which would allow you to have God address him by one of those names, while everyone else uses one of the others. I did that with Connor/Constantino/Lord/Adamo. Different characters will use different names for him in book two, although the narration will always use Connor to minimize confusion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrVD0bP … Baez-Topic
Wow, Joan Baez can sing! I have some of her best songs in my regular playlist, but only just heard this for the first time a few weeks ago. Been listening to it ever since.
Safe for work.
Dirk
Mmm. No, but thank you.
I'll go with "for the Sovereign Stars" as the mantra and drop the "for" when it's a battle cry. Until I get sick of that too or a reviewer tells me it's crap.
Ah, crap. What would I use for the military mantra? "For the Sovereign Stars" seems rather long for troops to yell as they charge into battle. "For the Stars" seems weird, but "The Sovereign Stars" could work. I suppose "For the Sovereign Stars!" could be the actual mantra, but troops rushing into battle shorten it.
In my neverending quest for a new name for the Realm that doesn't suck, I chose not to use Colonies since it begs the question: Were they once colonies of the Imperium that broke away? (They weren't.) My latest is the Sovereign Stars. The adjective would be Sovereign (e.g.., Sovereign fleet, Sovereign worlds). The only "quirk" is that the prefix for ship names becomes SSS (e.g., SSS Almighty, a Sovereign destroyer).
I think I can die in peace now.
Dirk
Absolutely. If I remember correctly, Muslims consider Jesus a prophet but nothing more. Although, technically, Connor could try to convince them their beliefs are simply incorrect, that woud be something he'd be unlikely to be able to sell to most Muslims. However, his performance at St. Peter's Basilica would certainly help. Or, if I wanted to go nuts, I could have many non-Christian holy places "collapse" without explanation around the world as acts of God. Ditto for any places non-Catholic Christians revere but Catholics do not. Those are much more convincing events than mere attempts at persuasion. And, after all, these aren't actual acts of God since any reader of book one will know he's the Antichrist.
On second thought, I'll probably do some preliminary research on other religions/spiritual beliefs. With any luck, I can go deep on a couple and then give lip service to the rest. Perhaps Buddhism, Judaism, and the psychic realm. I'll probably do a lot on the last of these since it's an area I've developed a strong interest in recently.
Destroying the Dome would fit with a literal interpretation of Revelation, not a Catholic one. Catholics believe rebuilding the temple is all figurative wording. From Wikipedia:
Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christians believe that the Eucharist, which they hold to be one in substance with the one self-sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, is a far superior offering when compared with the merely preparatory temple sacrifices, as explained in the Epistle to the Hebrews. They also believe that Christ Himself is the New Temple, as spoken of in the Book of Revelation and that Revelation can best be understood as the Eucharist, heaven on earth. Their church buildings are meant to model Solomon's Temple, with the Tabernacle, containing the Eucharist, being considered the new "Holy of Holies." Therefore, they do not attach any significance to a possible future rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple.
Although I will borrow some elements from a Protestant belief of a final battle at Armageddon (Satan and his armies will gather there in preparation for war), that's merely for show. Christ and Satan both know that the "battle" will come down to Connor's choice of who (whom?) to kill. I may include a skirmish between the angels and demons, which halts when Christ returns, in preparation for Connor's decision.
Also, I don't plan to incur the wrath of Muslim readers by destroying one of their most holy sites, even in fiction. There will be some effort by Connor in book two to convert them, just as he'll try to convert others, but I'm not likely to go into much detail since it would require studying multiple other religions to figure out how best to squeeze Connor into their existing beliefs. TBD.
The Hawaiin islands were, IIRC, originally the Sandwich Islands. Maybe they should be bought by Subway?
Perhaps Hawaii should build a subway under the volcanoes.
The islands were renamed after someone named Bezos (who could it be?) from the past (and why were they renamed?). I can't imagine. Everything else is left up to the imagination of the reader.
...New Bethlehem’s founding in 2987 CE by members of the Libertarian Church, established on the Bezos Islands, formerly known as Hawaii, in Earth’s Pacific Ocean in 2312
Minor change: the Eternal Colonies are now the Independent Colonies, which seems pretty clear that they're (duh) independent (i.e., not colonies of the Earth/Imperium, as one might otherwise assume). "Free" would have worked as well, but Independent sounds loftier IMO.
My story takes place some years past the current day. Remember the pope is a guy named Peter. Although the missile sounds cool from a thriller perspective, all danger in the Holy Land comes from whoever is attacking Connor. Can't imagine who that would be. 
A missile, then, would come across as gratuitous in my mind (ie something irrelevant to the overall plot).
Thanks. I can't remember if I saw that Holy Land website or not. I bought the book for it though, among others.
Good grief. Today I stumbled upon a website (https://www.jeffbondono.com/TouristInRome/index.html) that appears to document every major tourist attraction in Rome. I haven't had a chance to go through it much, but it also includes some Vatican locations; not sure if it includes all of those I would care about. Had I found this many years ago, it could have saved me a ton of work. The pages I looked at even had pictures of each attraction, which would have been infinitely easier than me trying to dig through pics on Google images trying to distinguish real pics from those that are simply mislabeled, which happens a lot!
Now if only there were a comparable site for the Holy Land.
Do you foresee needing any other gods from outside the Cheyenne culture and demons/angels from the Bible? Is there no way to write the scene without pulling in gods from other mythologies? One of the reasons I commented the way I did near the end of the previous draft, is that it seemed like you were throwing everything into the story but the kitchen sink, which left virtually no time to flesh them out. Do you need to introduce a god specifically for wine? Does that god do/contribute anything else to the story? Will that god be a main character like Romano, a supporting character like Nnamani, or just someone who hangs around the saloon for a scene or two then disappears? Does he contribute significantly to the plot? At one point in Connor, I introduced a suspected infiltrator (a bishop) in one scene only to have him thrown out of the Vatican a few paragraphs later. Needless to say, I need to find a way to fix that. It adds virtually nothing to introduce and then immedialy toss a character, especially one who is supposedly evil.
Just some random musings without having even read the new chapter.
Who is the target audience by the way?
I should have some time to review your latest chapter sometime this month. I have to be careful how often I say that, though, as I'm under the gun to finish my estate documents, which has turned into a real bear.
I'm sorry to hear what you're going through, Marilyn. I know how much you care about the animals
Best of luck on the operation.
Dirk
No, Elon is already in the scene as Imperator Elonus "the Socialist", who increased taxes by 2% to feed the poor. As Ozzie said, "Madness!"
New naming contest:
I need a name for an island in the Pacific Ocean on which the Libertarian Church is founded in the 24th century, which was originally a tax dodge for the obscenely wealthy (followers of the Greedy Gospel). So far, I've considered Billionaire's Island, Koru Island (named after Jeff Bezos's yacht), and Lord High Admiral Bezos's Island, among others. So far I like the latter best.
Nope, not moderator. We'll need Sol to fix the groups (again)
I was going to try finalizing the list of groups to keep that I posted in Premium some weeks ago, but I'm snowed under with personal crud at least until the end of the year.
