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I'm seriously considering changing the name of the first book from "The Rise of Connor" to "The Staff of Christ". Seems like a better fit now that Connor is playing that role instead of a reincarnated Christ.

EDIT: Good grief. That exact book title already exists from a 2024 publication, although it's a self-help book, not a novel. Also my three books for this series will all be "subtitles" of the series called "Satan's Last Stand", so my book name isn't a standalone title.

I'm not sure if this is particularly important, but I thought I'd mention it. When I just submitted an inline review for Vern's Great Do-Over story, it shows the submitted time as 5:13 PM. Yet, I actually submitted the review around 11:30 AM local time (Mountain).

I assumed the time would vary due to time zones, but I'm not familiar with any islands in the Atlantic that are 5 hours and 45 minutes ahead of Mountain time. Is the server floating on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch island, perhaps? :-)

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottsnowd … pollution/

More refinement needed. Since there are a rather overwhelming number of verses that speak to their being only one incarnation of the Son of God, where "Son of the God" refers to the spiritual being that proceeds from the Father, I can't make Connor a second incarnation. Even the Holy Spirit incarnating as Connor is problematic (the weight of Catholic thought is that Christ is the only incarnation of God). So, Connor is not an incarnation of God but rather the ultimate "manifestation" of the Holy Spirit, for the end times. He's still human, but the Spirit within him is so powerful it's unlike anyone who has ever lived, not including Christ of course. His role is akin to John the Baptist on supernatural steroids (one final, almighty push by God to prepare the human race for the Second Coming and save as many souls as possible). Naturally, he is not really that manifestation either; he's still just a demon-spawn with an ancient soul, pretending to be Godlike in a way that doesn't contradict Christian beliefs and the Bible.

The fly in the ointment here is that I would really like be able to keep open the question of whether Connor is Christ. He would give signs of being Christ returned as a boy but deny it until some point after everyone is convinced he really is Christ. So, Augustine's letter keeps getting shorter and shorter. Augustine will say his vision showed him a child with Godlike powers coming from Heaven for the end times (exact wording needs to imply he may be Christ returned as a boy). Augustine can then comment that there are no verses anywhere in the Bible that rule out Christ returning as a boy, not even Acts 1:11. He can then state he doesn't know how this is possible, but that the Holy Spirit assured him the Lord would explain it upon his return.

But why would Christ return as a boy? What advantage could there be? Story-wise, it would allow me to let Connor pretend to be Christ throughout the Holy Land tour, which would keep everyone off kilter. But if he's supposed to be a manifestation of the Holy Spirit, what advantage would there be for the AC to pretend otherwise in the Holy Land? Why not just show signs of being the HS? Other than the entertainment I'm trying to provide with the books, of course.

One added quirk to all this is that I have to explain about the discrepancies that will eventually arise between the Bible and the story world.

EDIT: I have thee ways to do this:
1. Augustine (or rather the author of the scroll, Satan) acknowledges in his letter to the pope that things will differ, potentially invalidating parts of the Bible, which should be impossible, but Augustine says he doesn't know why it will happen, but it will. And the Holy Spirit told him it would all be explained by the Lord once he returns.
2. Take advantage of the fact that no verse in the Bible claims the Lord will return as an adult, so he could return as a child, grow to be an adult, and then (supposedly) the Day of the Lord can proceed.
3. Technically, there should be no discrepancies between the Bible and the story world if the Lord returns as both Christ and Connor.

In all cases, it'll be important that I don't write anything that rules out Connor being a second incarnation, even as I lead the reader/characters down a path that looks like Christ is returning as a child.

I was about to write that I'm waffling about whether Connor should be Christ or a second incarnation. I was leaning back toward Christ because I think it's a more compelling story element, but I just realized that Connor could do all the things he did previously in the first draft, making everyone conclude that he is definitely Christ when, in fact, he'll later claim he's a second incarnation, coming to save more souls before the return of Christ. Now, if he really were the 2nd incarnation of the Lord, Connor would have access to some of Jesus's memories via the hypostatic unions. He would experience things in the Holy Land  caused by incomplete memories popping into his mind from Jesus.

>>Therefore, what fits your story better? An ancient Antichrist or a recent one?
I'm not sure what you mean.

Connor is (supposedly) in hypostatic union with God (the Son) as is Jesus. In my story, the AC didn't exist prior to the birth of the little demon-spawn. In Connor's case, he'd be claiming to have been in hypostatic union with the Son since Connor's birth. Although his soul is ancient (Adam), that element of Connor's existence isn't revealed until the very end of book one (with Adam's identity revealed to Connor at the end of book 2). When he's attacked in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, it supposedly gives him access to the Son's "memories", which would include those of Jesus. Indeed, the whole time they're in the Holy Land, he'll seem to experience snippets of Jesus's life as the tour group moves from site to site (the same as he did in the first draft). Ostensibly, the reason he experiences these is because he's in union with the Son, who is in union with Christ.

Even as I wrote about Adam in the above paragraph, I realized that means Connor, who is physically just 14 years old, will claim to be the 2nd incarnation of God, in hypostatic union with the Son (for those past 14 years) and indirectly also with Christ, but Connor's soul once belonged to Adam. If that doesn't make your head spin, I don't know what will. :-)  Fortunately, he will have ceased pretending to be the 2nd incarnation around the latter half of book 2, and he'll learn about Adam at the climax of book 2.

Cool. I realized as I attempted to convert my existing writeup-in-progress to use a second incarnation (as opposed to a reincarnation) that I've eliminated most if not all discrepancies between the Bible and the story, eliminating any need to explain why discrepancies are happening. Since Connor as a second incarnation isn't mentioned in the Bible, there will be no discrepancies. All events in Revelation can unfold exactly as written in the Bible, at least until roughly the end of book 3. Christ will return in book 3 as prophesied. Connor will end up in the Lake of Fire, although he technically throws himself in. And all mortal sinners, Satan, his demons, etc. will end up there as well, teleported to other worlds of course, with no ability to return, meaning they're technically "in" the lake forever. Connor will be able to travel freely, though, since he ceased being the Antichrist when he burned up his first (corrupt) body in the lake, which also breaks him completely free of Satan since he'll no longer have the gene that enslaves him to dear old dad.

The new writeup is going to be much shorter, although it requires trashing all the work I did to have Augustine explain key parts of his holy vision as succinctly as I could, but it was still too complex anyway. Good riddance.

As I mentioned in a post some time ago, I'm seriously considering changing Connor from being "the Lord returning as a child instead of the man Jesus everyone expected" to "a second incarnation of the Lord in a different human being". This would allow me to say that the Bible's documented end times events involving the return of Jesus will all remain valid, but that Connor is a second incarnation in a final act of grace to bring as many people to God as possible before Christ's return. Connor's role would not be the forgiveness of sins since, in theory, Christ has that covered. Connor would simply bring people into the Catholic Church, where (corrupt) priests give invalid absolutions.

The down side of this approach is that, although Connor can "remember" things from Christ's life because they are both in hypostatic unions with the Lord, I'm not sure it's as compelling since Connor would be trying to remember Christ's past (a different human being), not Connor's own ancient past. The latter is a fairly common trope in stories involving reincarnation. So in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where Connor seems to regain his memories of his past life but screws up as to which route through the Old City the original Christ took to his crucifixion, it seems a little more forgivable if he doesn't get it right since Connor isn't claiming he was there, although one would think he would get it right at the Holy Sepulcher since he's now fully aware of the presence of the Lord within him.

Satan wrote the original in the late 4th century. He or Cardinal Song or one of their minions at the Vatican could easily be in a position to replace the original with a modern forgery (that's what document forgers are for). Although the latter wouldn't stand up to sophisticated scrutiny, it merely needs to look right. Since Cardinal Song is the one who brings it to the attention of the Council of Cardinals, he can claim he had it tested. Based on those test results, it's a late 4th century document with 4th century ink and with handwriting that is a perfect match for other documents known to have been written by Augustine, whereas it would simply be the latest forgery of the original containing "predictions" of future events that had already passed when Satan drafted the rewrite of the ancient original. They could even go a step further, which is to zombify the usual document expert (and the forger, for that matter) that the Vatican relies on for the aforementioned tests. Is Satan a sneaky devil, or what? :-)

Hi Alan. I'm very sorry to read about Di's passing. I had similar feelings when I lost my mother to cancer a few years ago. Sad that it eventually happened (it was expected) but also glad she was no longer suffering. I have her picture up around the house (my father's too), so they're never far from my thoughts.

May Di never stray far from yours.

My condolences to you and your family.
Dirk

Zzzz. :-)

Michael said, "Your destiny is to create a new ultraliberal paradise across the stars called the Garden of Eden — Take Two."
Joseph scrunched up his nose. "Sounds like a movie set. How about ... the Garden of Eden — Sans Pommes or maybe just the Garden Sans Pommes? The Ancient French adds a certain elegance, don't you think?"
"The garden without apples?" Michael considered. "I like it."