The Gathering Darkness (the Connor series) - Dirk B. (Page 52 of 57)

The Revelations of Dirk - a must read :-)
You're probably right in that I was probably too broad to include all Catholics and Orthodox as having figurative interpretations. I just assumed that the Orthodox would be similar to the Catholics.

And I'm not convinced that we will truly understand all the Revelation of John until we go through it. That should give you some freedom in your writing.

Satan is already condemned to hell (Matthew 25:41) where it says that hell has been prepared for him. And there is Revelation 20:10. He is thrown into the lake of fire forever. Satan has seen the glory of the Almighty God and rebelled. There is no excuse and no forgiveness. You can say that Rev 20:10 is figurative, however, if the best figurative description of hell is a forever lake of fire and torment then it must be a bad place. Satan basically commits blasphemy of the Holy Spirit (Mark 3:28–30) but on a grand scale. And there is no turning back.

I know that what I've said in the last paragraph might constrain you mucho, but only you can determine what you want.

Cool additions:
- Depending on how bad you sinned in your life, the harsher the planet will be that you will be sent to live on.
- At the end of the story, I can have the real Christ crown Connor on Earth as king of all those worlds.
- Possibly with the ability to see what is happening on each of the worlds he has to rule. Probably using some special orb filled with water from the Sea of Galilee.

The War for Souls Begins/Has Begun - possible alternative title for book 2; Nnamani's line was "The war for souls has just begun."
Great Deeds Await - possible title for book 3

My preference though is a title that could apply equally to Connor and Jesus. Something like "Rise of the King", but that title would only work for Connor, whereas "Return of the King" would only work for Jesus, assuming it wasn't already slightly used.

Crowning of the King - primarily refers to Connor.
The Lesser King - unused, I really like this one, but it also only applies to Connor.
All Hail the King - relatively unused title; I like this one; applies to both Connor and Jesus
King of the Stars
Into the Lake of Fire, Beyond the Lake of Fire
The Father Chooses His Champions Wisely - a line from the epilogue, refers to both Connor and his mother; a bit long, though.

The Lord of the Earth - currently the name of the trilogy, but I could rename the trilogy and use this title for book 3

Continued next post...

Not a fan of End War. Not lofty enough.
Needless to say, The Day of the Lord is taken.

I could also see giving Connor a different title than king, like The Shepherd or The Caretaker. The book could then be called the Unholy Shepherd or the Holy Caretaker.
Great Deeds Await, with or without You at the end.
The Antichrist Burns or The Burning of the Antichrist, which, technically, he does.
Burned Alive!  possibly with The Destruction of the Antichrist as the subtitle, although the subtitle is a little misleading; he is burned alive and destroyed, but he is brought back to life by God, who declares the Antichrist part of him to no longer exist/been burned to nothing)
The Immortal Sinner - since Connor will become immortal at the end.
The Antichrist Triumphant.

EDIT: Oddly, the Unholy Shepherd has been used before too, although only once, released in 2019 or 2021, for a murder-mystery. 4.8 stars on Amazon, although only from 9 reviewers (friends & family?). So, I consider that title usable.
EDIT: A Kingdom of Fire and Faith. -- Google's AI suggested this one.

From the looks of the two lists (including my previous post), it will almost certainly be one of the titles in blue. Right now, "The Lesser King" and "The Unholy Shepherd" are in the lead.

I like Unholy Shepherd best too. The title is meant to reflect the difference between who he was, and who he became in the end.
The Lesser King is nice too because Connor is crowned king at the end (i.e., he not only survived but came out on top), but unlike his father, Connor freely acknowledges that he is not the greatest king.
The other one I like is the Immortal Sinner because Connor becomes immortal at the end.

Since the name of my trilogy (The Lord of the Earth) is rather long, especially when it has to appear alongside the name of the novels, I'm probably going to rename the trilogy to one of the above three (probably the Lesser King) and perhaps one of the others as the title of book three. Except I don't think I want Connor to be both Shepherd and King.

A few thoughts:
Lord of the Earth - helps a little bit with shortening it
Earth's Lord - seems too abbreviated.
Earth's Supreme Lord
Final Gambit (gambit means calculated move)

Oh well, think I'll go enjoy NFL football, Thanksgiving, and family. Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Of all of the above, I like Satan's Last Stand best.

I prefer last stand to last gamble/gambit in part because of Custer's Last Stand. My target audience of course knows/expects Satan will lose in the end, but I think the reason people read those end of the world stories is to see how. Although his last challenge is a key driver for the story, ultimately it's about Connor being able to overcome Satan's control over him (genetically programmed to obey daddy, raised to believe his father has been wronged, etc.) and ultimately triumph in the end, albeit as the Lesser King and the Unholy Shepherd (if Gandalf can have a billion names, why not two titles for Connor (in addition to Antichrist).

It just occurred to me that there is a great reason why Connor looks like his maternal grandfather at the same age. He doesn't just get his looks from his father (zombie De Rosa's DNA), he also gets them from his mother, who carries many of the same genes from the breeding program, only some generations removed. I was going to make her father the one who escaped from the breeding program, but that causes all kinds of potential problems. De Rosa saw the picture of Campagna's father at a young age, when he looked like Connor. If everyone in the breeding program looked alike (not quite twins, but close), then alarm bells should perhaps be going off in Satan's mind.

So where did I leave off with regard to Lesser King Constantino? :-)
Some of this may change as I go forward.

I've worked out that the Lake of Fire does punish those passing through it based on how grave their sins were. Those persons are then reunited with their bodies and transported to a place (usually a planet) that reflects their sins. The worse the sins, the worse the planet. The way I intend to remain (mostly?) consistent with Revelation is by taking the position (articulated by the Father, no less) that those planets are "inside" the Lake of Fire and the mortal sinners who were "thrown" into the lake will never return from there. Hence, they are forever being punished in the Lake of Fire. Tada!

I took it a step further as well. They will remain "alive" and must "toil" on their planets until they develop into true righteous beings. Living forever when you have to work every day to feed and clothe yourself, etc., would be a hard life. Thus, the sane ones eventually choose to stop committing grave sins. Soon thereafter, they are able to "die" and enter a higher spiritual plane (though not Heaven) where their thoughts can subtly influence those mortals who remain alive, nudging them toward righteousness. Enough dead (ascended) righteous beings on a planet will slowly transform it into a righteous paradise for those who remain alive. Now repeat that thousands of times, once per planet, and each planet eventually becomes a paradise. Since these once mortal sinners can reproduce, there will be ever more of them, spread across ever more planets (sent to those places by God), until they spread righteousness across the cosmos (this last part is probably over the top, still thinking about it).

Connor asks God whether any of those beings will ever be allowed into Heaven, and the answer is (probably) no, since I want their souls so that the planets on which they lived all turn into paradises. But, the Father tells Connor he's not averse to additional "rescue missions" to lift some of them out of the Lake of Fire (remember, all those planets are, symbolically, in the lake) and into Heaven. Or, perhaps when their planets and inhabitants have been transformed, then the dead can enter Heaven. I currently lean toward the former.

Connor, whose new body is immortal, will have to rule this entire kingdom initially as Lesser King but will eventually send his children, grandchildren, etc. to all those worlds to rule them as Lesser Princes and Princesses on his behalf. The Father tells him to focus on becoming the Shepherd (spiritual leader) of all those beings. He's to help turn all those grave sinners and their descendants into righteous beings. The task will be much easier than trying to turn all humans currently on Earth into righteous beings since demons won't exist on human planets anymore.

During that conversation, Connor jokingly refers to himself as the Unholy Shepherd. But the Father corrects him and calls him the Holy Shepherd, telling him that the Antichrist no longer exists since Connor's old body, bred by Satan, burned up in the lake of fire. When Connor asks if he'll ever get to Heaven, the Father tells him to remember that the Father chooses his champions wisely (meaning yes), which is the line I used in the epilogue from book one.

Satan, as I mentioned previously, is transported to a moon spiralling into the Milky Way's black hole. Some of his demons may go with him, or all demons (except Satan) will go to a hellish world they can never leave. Unless there's a book four. :-)

The End