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Michael Garrity wrote:After having re-read TSW and TSW:P several times, there does seem to be some comedic potential contained therein, to wit:

"A demon walked up to me and said that it hadn't had a bite in two weeks, so I bit him"

"A demon walked up to me and asked if it could borrow twenty dollars until payday. I asked ' when's payday?' The demon said 'you should know, you're the one who's working'

"I just flew in from hell and boy, are my arms tired!!"

Q: What was the last thing that went through Satan's mind before he died?
A: Fragments of missile casing

Chuck Norris is what demons want to be when they grow up

Demons pray to Chuck Norris that he doesn't crush them like bugs

When Chuck Norris was asked his opinion about Abigor, he called Abigor 'A promising Rookie'

There are no clocks in Hell because Chuck Norris decides what time it is.

When Yah-Yah said "let there be light", Chuck Norris said 'Say Please'

The energy required to create and maintain the bubble universe in which Hell resides is roughly equalt to 1CHNRhK (one Chuck Norris Round House Kick)


The booing may now begin......

Mike Garrity

1. 5/10
2. 4/10
3. 5/10
4. 7/10
5. 6/10
6. 5/10
7. 10/10
8. 4/10
9. 10/10
10. 5/10

Chris OFarrell wrote:Hell, I'd be happy to put $50 towards a commision for an artist on deviantART to make sure we get a cover worthy of the book!

I would put in $20 as well.

Thought I would throw my thoughts into the Great Cover Debate.

First, the layout does need to be changed; as is, it looks like a work of occult fiction, not military/alternate history/deicide. Whatever image you do choose needs to show humans winning, but at a human viewpoint (not an aerial shot); may I suggest a tank and demon (about 12 feet tall, we don't want the uninformed saying "no way, that's too big to take down" and putting it back on the shelf, so footsoldier size), with the tank having clearly just fired and the demon with a large hole somewhere- chest, stomach, neck, artistic license. Plus it can relate to the cover of Pantheocide, which I would suggest be our favorite f-18 drilling an angel full of holes. The first should be at the Battle of Hit, the second the Battle of Los Angeles*. If the artist is good enough they can add the impression of that tank being on a line of battle (ignore that the demons didn't get close to the tanks; again, artistic license.) Overall the color of the background should be somewhere on a range between dull red and tan- hell and desert.

However, while the cover itself should not be gothic, the font should stay so, but it needs to have less curves; Cambria perhaps, or something like it. The tassels and such are just clutter. And someone else said this, but the fond for Armageddon? should be another size bigger, and Salvation War a size or two smaller. The author name should be in an imaginary box in the lower right or left, whichever works better artistically.

And the back should be rewritten, but others can move forward on that better than I can. Under no circumstances remove the last line, though.

And that's about it. I hope that is of some use.

* On that note, I found the collateral damage in that battle amusing since that's not the first time it's happened to the city. The first was in World War 2; look here and you may gain appreciation for the city's enthusiastic ability to throw dakka into the air. They still find shells occasionally.

They did get close to the tanks, in the battle of Phlegethon River.


And for the art, there's also the CGSociety guys. They look expensive, though.

A massive angel with his wings open over LA, taking anti-aircraft fire, would be an AWESOME cover for Pantheocide. Good idea, Westrim!

how about this one? a soldier in HellPat camo stepping over a dead demon. but cut out all the background and leave that black.

What about a scene of the demonic phalanxes forming up in the desert, while in the foreground a line of tanks is waiting aimed their way?

The spirit behind the offers of cash is very much appreciated and I am most grateful for the support. However, availability of money per se isn't the problem; it's budget. I have to work out how many copies of the book are likely to sell, what the total royalties from those sales will be and decide on budgets for copy-editing, cover design and several other headings as well. Since (unless TSW:A hits breakthrough numbers which might happen) the book is a niche product, the budget for each of those headings is limited. Given experience to date, most investment is being made in editing and copy-editing. Hence the extended production time. The most valuable contribution people can make is to leave nice reviews on Amazon when the books come out (although, I have noted when people did slash-reviews on The Big One, the result was actually to increase sales significantly. Why is an interesting cause for speculation. When TSW:A comes out, I anticipate a lot of slash-reviews from people who haven't read it or have one axe or another to grind. We've already had that on TVtropes).

I don't know anybody on DA. If somebody would like to take the subject there and ask if anybody wants to do a cover design, I'd be grateful for that. A usable cover gets the author credit on the data page and an honorarium (to be negotiated).

CaptainChewbacca wrote:A massive angel with his wings open over LA, taking anti-aircraft fire, would be an AWESOME cover for Pantheocide. Good idea, Westrim!

As epic as it would be indeed, we must all remember that the cover's purpose is to label the book, and give the prospective reader a reason to read it. As such, the cover can't be overly flashy or graphic. Look at World War Z's cover, or even at the covers of the Harry Potter series. As much as it disgusts me to say, Twilight even had some good covers(until someone told me it was about disturbingly homoerotic vampires, I didn't know what it was and actually thought it might be worth a read). Armageddon??? needs a nice, simple cover that conveys the point.


HOWEVER. The current cover, being a step in the right direction, is also way too odd and corny. A reader will look at it and say "lol what is this", then promptly walk away, leaving all the Daemon crushing goodness behind. So we should aim for something epic, but simple.

If you want, Stuart, I can go on Amazon and write a review completely trashing the story and declaring than all Christians should boycott this product immediately. People of deviant sexual lifestyle becoming humanities heroes! God not only not being supreme but being a jerk as well! Tony Blair taking religion more seriously than God's Own George Walker Bush! James Randi (again with the sexual deviance!) leading a crack team of D&D nerds to victory!

Clearly this is the work of Satan and I feel the need to tell the world so.

Can I get a hallelujah!

Gil Hamilton wrote:If you want, Stuart, I can go on Amazon and write a review completely trashing the story and declaring than all Christians should boycott this product immediately. People of deviant sexual lifestyle becoming humanities heroes! God not only not being supreme but being a jerk as well! Tony Blair taking religion more seriously than God's Own George Walker Bush! James Randi (again with the sexual deviance!) leading a crack team of D&D nerds to victory!

Clearly this is the work of Satan and I feel the need to tell the world so.

You, sir, are my hero, and a genius. Have a cookie.

(::)

Gil Hamilton wrote:If you want, Stuart, I can go on Amazon and write a review completely trashing the story and declaring than all Christians should boycott this product immediately. People of deviant sexual lifestyle becoming humanities heroes! God not only not being supreme but being a jerk as well! Tony Blair taking religion more seriously than God's Own George Walker Bush! James Randi (again with the sexual deviance!) leading a crack team of D&D nerds to victory!

Clearly this is the work of Satan and I feel the need to tell the world so.

No such thing as negative publicity, they say.
I wonder if doing that will make fundies ask themselves what's so bad about it, and buy the book to find out.
Does the Bible ban curiosity?

I wonder if doing that will make fundies ask themselves what's so bad about it, and buy the book to find out.

Well... sorta. If you get a minister saying 'This book shows mankind slaughtering angels and demons by the thousands, its an abomination against god's word' to a room full of 1000 parishoners, at least 20 or 30 are going to buy the book cuz it sounds awesome.

I'll be mobilizing the evangellicals here, you can be sure we won't lightly suffer Stuart's blasphemous book... which I helped write...

Maybe they won't check the acknoweldgements.

Recap:

-Heaven and Hell have surrendered however both are vast and unexplored.
-HEA is not unified in purpose,with cracks beginning to appear as each state seeks to pursue its own agenda
-Yahwah,Satan & Uriel are siblings.Ehlmas as Yahweh's son is of the same species and implies females or some fort of asexual spawning.
-Yahweh & Others are thus implied to come from beyond the Minos Gate from Universe A or are more powerful entities native to Universe B.
-Angels,Demons and Humans are descended from a common evolutionary ancestor,a hominid of some sort

-The Universe B realms of Heaven and Hell are self-contained planar realms/planets with Klein bottle dimensional topologies or at least are similar to Mobius strips with n dimensions greater than 2
-Universe A & B are like a Tao,with one expanding and another contracting, a base pair that links to a higher Universe C superuniverse of sorts,of which they are a component of
-The Minos Gate is key to understanding everything as humans come from beyond it from Universe C but no known entities of human,angel or demon design can penetrate it nor interact in a meaningful way with the environment beyond it.

-Devils are a separate species from demons and inspire fear.Other pantheons such as the Aesir and Greco-Roman panthoen exist but were pushed off by Yahweh
-Earth is interesting and valuable due to sapient life forms being so rare
-'Intelligent design' of some sort is implied behind the Minos Gate
-Memnon hears voices in his mind.Either possible mental dysfunction or a being of the same species as Yahwah and the rest are intent on manipulating him
-Julius Caesar is protected by some form of Elder God/Outsider/Pantheon entity.

Is this information correct?We really need to set up an index for this story.

Manthor wrote:Recap:
are thus implied to come from beyond the Minos Gate from Universe A or are more powerful entities native to Universe B.

I don't think this is correct (although Stuart obviously knows best). Yahweh, Satan, and Uriel seem to be just exceptionally large and powerful members of the "winged humanoids" group that both Angels and Demons belong to, and they live in Universe-Two bubbles. Nobody in-universe knows what lies on the other side of the Minos Gate.

Manthor wrote: -The Minos Gate is key to understanding everything as humans come from beyond it from Universe C but no known entities of human,angel or demon design can penetrate it nor interact in a meaningful way with the environment beyond it.

Human reincarnations seem to come out of the Minos Gate from Universe C. Universe-C can't interact with Universe-A, but apparently it can interact, to some degree, with Universe-B (one of the demons had voices whispering in his head from unknown entities, if I remember right).

I might be wrong, though, since no demons who went through the Minos Gate ever came back.

Manthor wrote: -Devils are a separate species from demons and inspire fear.Other pantheons such as the Aesir and Greco-Roman panthoen exist but were pushed off by Yahweh

Sounds about right. I'm not sure if "Devils" are the other gods like the Aesir and Greco-Roman gods, or if they are Universe-C beings (Stuart mentioned that the Demons who were called "devils" tended to be rather wary and scared of what they thought of as the real "devils", whereas Luga was pretty contemptuous of the other gods).

Manthor wrote: -'Intelligent design' of some sort is implied behind the Minos Gate

Manthor wrote: -Julius Caesar is protected by some form of Elder God/Outsider/Pantheon entity.

He was protected because he was in the cult of Cybele, one of the other gods that were eventually driven off.

CaptainChewbacca wrote:Well... sorta. If you get a minister saying 'This book shows mankind slaughtering angels and demons by the thousands, its an abomination against god's word' to a room full of 1000 parishoners, at least 20 or 30 are going to buy the book cuz it sounds awesome.

I'll be mobilizing the evangellicals here, you can be sure we won't lightly suffer Stuart's blasphemous book... which I helped write...

Maybe they won't check the acknoweldgements.

And remember, a copy of the book bought for the purpose of burning the book is still a copy of the book bought!

I'm "Catholic" but I love Salvation War. Of course I identify Catholicism as being a part of my cultural makeup.I verge more to deism and freethinking which would be the closest I identify to my religion,if any.I'd definitely buy this book once it's out.

But seriously, empiricism is the future.That is how you advance human progress.Any Christians who have a problem with it have a stick up their ass.The Catholic religions basic tenet of love,respect and compassion for fellow human beings is good enough but I am extremely unhappy with the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church.They are too outdated and conservative for my likings and have been instrumental in the human misery found in the Philippines due to their stance against birth control.Oh,and their protection of pedophile priests whose victims have been denied justice.

This book in many ways attracts me due to its promotion of the scientific method,rational pragmatism and military porn.God I love the military porn.But as a non-American I would say...eh,a bit too America-centric at times.But when you have an American author...so yeah.

I can acknowledge as Catholic that we in a sense can be considered a cult of zombie worshippers who drink the blood and cannibalise the flesh of our zombie god going by the doctrine,if one chooses to view it that way.Oh,and Hitler was Catholic so our fault there too.

I could totally go from Church to Church screaming 'hey everyone! This book has armies killing demons and destroying Hell!'
The 'and God' part would be hidden behind a nice cool face.

Manthor wrote:But seriously, empiricism is the future.That is how you advance human progress.Any Christians who have a problem with it have a stick up their ass.

From personal experience, they are trolls. There are a couple of isolated stories where they took that too far, but other than that they say ridiculous stuff and then laugh at whoever tries to show the the stupidity of their statements.
But I shouldn't talk about that. I myself laughed a couple of times to the stuff that appears in Fundies Say the Darndest Things...

This is a few pages late, but I will never forgive Jamie and Adam if they don't weasel their way into sticking around long enough to film the gate coming down.

Manthor wrote:This book in many ways attracts me due to its promotion of the scientific method,rational pragmatism and military porn.God I love the military porn.But as a non-American I would say...eh,a bit too America-centric at times.But when you have an American author...so yeah.

Let's put it this way... how exactly would the Philippines have been the lead force for invading Hell, had the Hellmouth sprung up on Filipino soil? This isn't to imply anything wrong with the Filipino military on defense... except that, well, merely defending would have been ultimately futile.

Replace "the Philippines" with most countries that aren't the US, Russia, China, and possibly the UK, and I think you've got an objectively reasonable answer to the "too America-centric" concern... at least instead of simply "America in the lead for America's sake," there's favorable circumstances in-universe (the need to project power).

Edward Yee wrote:

Manthor wrote:This book in many ways attracts me due to its promotion of the scientific method,rational pragmatism and military porn.God I love the military porn.But as a non-American I would say...eh,a bit too America-centric at times.But when you have an American author...so yeah.

Let's put it this way... how exactly would the Philippines have been the lead force for invading Hell, had the Hellmouth sprung up on Filipino soil? This isn't to imply anything wrong with the Filipino military on defense... except that, well, merely defending would have been ultimately futile.

Replace "the Philippines" with most countries that aren't the US, Russia, China, and possibly the UK, and I think you've got an objectively reasonable answer to the "too America-centric" concern... at least instead of simply "America in the lead for America's sake," there's favorable circumstances in-universe (the need to project power).

True.But just to correct any perceptions,I am from Singapore.When I mentioned the Philippines it is in the context of the Roman Catholic Church having great political influence and cultural influence,with their stance on birth control resulting in families having more children than they can cope with and perpetuating a vicious cycle which creates human misery.

Rational pragmatism and empiricism are responsible for advancing ideas that have had a beneficial impact on humanity as a whole,divorced from the idea of deities and religion.I would say that a true Christian would embrace science as it allows one to look at the intricate structures underlying the universe and feel respect for their fellow human beings.It allows for the advancement of human capital,greater material comfort,right and equality and therefore greater happiness and improved welfare for human beings,which is in line with the message that old Jewish carpenter turned social activist/sage was trying to promote anyway.

So that's what I can get from the book.An affirmation on human rationality promoting a greater good.For me,this story whether ir not it had the intention actually promotes greater spirituality within me than a lot of stories due to its stance on rationality being a force for good.

And thats something the world really needs a good dose of in this day and age.

Fair enough, I just wanted to reply regarding that one point -- the story's coverage I can understand as American-focused (assuming mainly American readers perhaps), or the depth of detail being based on the author's experience and familiarity -- which does apply for the UK and Thailand too though at least -- but within the setting there's a legitimate reason for much of "the situation" to center on the US military. (It's also why General Petraeus was appointed Commander, HEA as opposed to General Dorokhov for example, although Petraeus was actually supporting Dorokhov at the Phlegehon, the institutional experience.)

I'm sorry to say Stuart, but I agree with alot of the others that the cover in its present form is absolutely terrible, completely failing to deliver the message as to what the book's actually going to be about... As others have said, it also took me entirely too long to realise that those were bullet holes on that pentagram. Actually, it was only two or three seconds, but even the first half-second is vital when trying to "catch the eye" of someone picking up the book.

I personally think having tanks driving amongst dead deamons, a deamon as seen from behind a HUD as someone else suggested, or some similar image that features easily recognisable pieces of modern military equipment and deamons who are either "in crosshairs" (as with the HUD idea) or else clearly defeated or in the process of being defeated. I had a couple of ideas, but they're both terrible and I'm not an artist anyway...