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Although Connor will remain supernatural, his (fake) role is rather like John the Baptist, preparing the world for the (second) coming of Christ. I love the solution of him being a second incarnation of the Lord, rather than a reincarnation. Seems like a minor difference, but it solves a lot of problems. And, technically, he won't claim to be Christ, so Matthew 24:23 shouldn't be an issue. It definitely will alter important scenes, though. For example, when Connor appears on the balcony at St. Peter's at the end to address the adoring crowds, they previously went nuts because they accepted he was Christ, especially when he told them they (those present) had achieved eternal life.

I wonder how much will break. :-)

A key question is whether Connor as a potential second incarnation of God would make you more inclined to think he might be the AC than him being a potential returned Christ in a different body. Although most people didn't see the climax coming, MJ definitely did. In fact, she was the only person who figured it out without any clues from me. Elysse did too once they were on the plane back to Rome from the Holy Land.

Since Jesus warned of false Christs, Connor supposedly being Christ would, I think, make many Christians think of the AC, provided they remember Jesus's warning. Connor potentially being a second incarnation is sufficiently different, it might be less obvious that he might be the AC.

Hi, Neil. Welcome back. Please have a look at an article I posted in this forum (pinned near or at the top) with important tips for getting the most number of reviews you can on this site. Unfortunately, one of the most important recommendations is not to post huge chapters. I suggested about 2500 words as a reasonable upper limit. I'm afraid yours is 6000 words.

The reason that's a problem is that you're asking people to give a lot of their time to review one person's work, someone with whom they don't have a long-term reviewing relationship. Everyone here is trying to keep up with many of their "regulars" in trading reviews. This piece is the equivalent of what most people would post as three chapters. I have these monsters too, but I post mine in 2-3 parts, e.g., chapters 1,2,3 online correspond to one chapter in my manuscript.

It's not your fault for not realizing/remembering that after years away, but it will greatly limit the number of reviews you can expect for this for the moment. Even if you get some reviews, they're unlikely to be as thorough as they might be if the chapter was much shorter. Some of us often do very detailed reviews of chapters, but it's often (though not always) with our long-term reviewers, and even then, it's rarely that long.

You can leave the one you have up to see how much useful feedback you can get for it, but I suggest gathering more points and then start reposting it in smaller parts. Anyone inclined to read your long version will probably be even more inclined to read something shorter (i.e., part of a chapter) to start and give more detailed feedback.

Fortunately, the site now makes it much easier to gather points more quickly. Generally, you need to review (roughly) 3 words of other people's work to post 1 word of your own (those are just average numbers). Until recently it was 5 to 1. Since you will almost certainly want more than 3 reciprocal reviewers over the long run reviewing your work, all you have to do is review the work of roughly 3 people to post one piece of your own (assuming the works, e.g., chapters, are all roughly the same size). In no time, you should have enough points to never have to worry about points again.

I'm sorry to see you got burned by this. FYI, I do volunteer user support here (I'm one of the other writers), so feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns. If you want the largest number of eyeballs on your questions, feel free to post them in this forum. Someone in a different time zone may answer it before I even see it. I'll send you a connection request so we can communicate privately whenever you like.

Dirk

Minor course correction.

Rather than there being two ancient letters, one from the hermit and the other from Bishop Augustine vouching for him, I'm going to have just one letter, supposedly written by Augustine, documenting his (Augustine's) private revelation (i.e., the vision) with many of the same details as I previously wrote them. Augustine, it seems, intended it to be found only after his death, so he addressed it to Rome, and left it for his assistant to eventually find. The assistant, a corporeal priest, sent the document unopened to Rome, where Satan, a corporeal cardinal and trusted member of the then pope's inner circle, receives it, shows it to the pope, and advises him that only a few trusted people should see it, discuss it, and report back to the pope as to what to do about it.

I'll then add a scene set at the beginning of the book of these trusted cardinals meeting and discussing it shortly after it is received, with Satan steering them toward recommending that the document be filed away for future "consideration" and that there be no copies of the document made, no mention of it to anyone else, no entries by the individual cardinals in their journals, and no other record of it whatsoever.

It then gets put away and eventually ends up in the Vatican Secret Archives, where it is conveniently found by Cardinal Song and one of his assistants (since Song is blind) over fifteen hundred years later. Song would have maneuvered himself into leading the ongoing Church effort to review and release Vatican archive records to the public. Satan could easily update the document several times during the 20th and early 21st century as he watches/steers events of the past century.

Of course, having the aforementioned scene of the ancient cardinals meeting and discussing the document will be impossible to make even remotely accurate for those times, so I'll have to settle for not getting anything too egregiously wrong. :-)

I probably won't even show the whole document in the book and simply have much of it discussed (both in the past and the present) by key characters + include carefully crafted quotes from the document to use as epigraphs at the tops of chapters, quoting Augustine. Each quote would, of course, be something Satan wrote, but with me (author of the novels) presenting it as quotes from Augustine, with no mention during the novel that the quotes are fake until the end of the book when De Rosa admits to Romano that the Augustinian document was part of the subterfuge.

Much simpler. And less like a data dump, although I'm still glad I wrote the two letters since I can use them to help steer the conversation and craft the quotes.

Your destiny is to create the ultimate proletarian society.
Long live the working class!

EDIT: I have similar wording from God in the previous draft of Act II (and from Michael the Archangel in my latest draft) when Joseph asks what kind of society he's supposed to create.

NEW: No successor to the Garden of Eden is complete unless everyone runs around naked.
That's one of Joseph's first design decisions. :-)

Huh?

I'm on the prowl for potential alternatives for Josephi-La.

Since the religion is called the Josephian Heresy, I'd prefer something that doesn't use his name for paradise. Shangri-La is still under copyright. And Eden is the name of the capital of New Bethlehem, so that precludes Eden, Eden II, Eden 2.0, etc. That leaves words like Paradise, Garden, Oasis, Utopia, Nirvana, etc., and their numbered variants. Most are probably overused in fiction. I'm leaning toward the following at present, although I can probably come up with ludicrous names using many of the aforementioned words as acronyms:

Michael said, "Your destiny is to create a new ultraliberal paradise across the stars called the Galactic Advanced Refuge & Designated Ecological Nursery."
Joseph frowned. "What a crazy name."
Michael shrugged. "I was going for the acronym GARDEN."
"Ick to the name. Why don't you just called it the Garden 2.0? No acronym."
Michael considered that. "Very well. But you won’t just prevent the apocalypse. You will end all suffering everywhere."
Joseph’s mouth fell open. "Huh? How?"

Dirk

Another really nice ballad sung by a member from Celtic Thunder. It's about the first immigrant who went through Ellis Island. A fifteen-year-old girl from Ireland named Annie Moore. The song got her age wrong, though; she was actually seventeen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93-s5xD … hunderVEVO

Bill,
Deck 1 and Deck 3 both point at the same image.
Dirk

Harry who? :-)

No worries. I've never been mistaken for pretty. And welcome back.

Amazing Irish folksong about WW1 sung by Celtic Thunder: The Green Fields of France

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNkKrEN … nder-Topic

I still remember having to memorize the Canadian poem "In Flanders Fields" over fifty years ago for school.
You know you're older than dirt when you have memories over fifty years old.