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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

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.

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.

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:

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 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.

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.

Thanks. I can't remember if I saw that Holy Land website or not. I bought the book for it though, among others.

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.

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!"

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.

> E.L.Lyons
What a great name.