Cover Designs III

Hi All - not had much time to write lately as I've been doing so many covers. Here's what I've been working on.

Bird of Prey by Griffin Hayes

The Next Stop is Croy and Other Stories by Andrew McCallum Crawford

Night Sighs by Emma Meade

The Owl's Mirror by Wilfried Wlochal

Cover Designs II

Hi All,

As I said in a previous post, I've recently been doing some cover design work for authors. Below are some of the fruits of my labour. Please let me know what you think!

To build my portfolio with a view to building a design business, I will be offering to do a free cover (back and front) for any author until 30th September (2011) - so if anyone wants to take me up on this, then please get in contact at: theterrapinempire@gmail.com.

Also, If anyone wants any more info about any of the novels listed below, please get in touch.

'Saving The World' By R. Eric Swanepoel

'Apocalyps' By Mark Ronald Robinson (Draft Version)

'Apocalyps' By Mark Ronald Robinson (Alternate Draft Version)

'Persephone's Library' by Kathryn Anthony

'Don Coyote De La Merika' by Kathryn Anthony (Unused Draft Version)

'The Owl's Mirror' By Wilfried Wlochal (Draft Version)

Novel Cover Design Tips

You can’t judge a book by its cover.

Sure – but we all do, anyway. We don’t have a choice. Aside from the hundred-or-so words on the back and the occasional review (if you’re lucky enough be reviewed), the front cover of a book is pretty much all a perspective buyer has to go on. So as the main tool that you use to market your magnum opus – the work into which you have poured your heart and soul, and countless lonely hours hunched over a keyboard – you had better make sure that it is the very best it can be.

So what makes a great cover? Hmmm… that’s a hard one to answer, as there is no one thing that makes any work of art great. And that’s just what your cover needs to be – art. It needs to be good enough to represent the potential Pulitzer prize winner it contains. Why spend all that time slaving over sentence structure and character arc, only to shoot yourself in the foot at the last hurdle by settling for anything less than a brilliant cover?

I’d like to share with you a few tips that I find useful when creating covers, and a few pitfalls to try to avoid, too.

• Don’t settle. I mentioned it above, but it’s such an important rule that so many self published authors over look, I felt that it needed to be reiterated. Never settle for any thing less than the perfect cover for your magnum opus.
• This one is really a personal thing – don’t put a clear image of your main character’s face on the front cover. I feel that this encroaches on the reader’s imagination and doesn’t permit them to build an image of the character through descriptions woven into the prose. If you feel you have to put a character on the front cover, I find that simply the suggestion of a character is much more effective. Think shadows and silhouettes, or even just a view where the face is obscured. From the back, perhaps?

• Perhaps the most important one of all, keep it SIMPLE. Bold, striking designs tend to catch the eye better than over complicated pieces. Many amateur-looking book covers fall into the trap of being overcrowded to the point of being undecipherable. In many cases, if it’s done right, you don’t even need to use an image at all. If the text is bold and impressive enough, it alone can make for a great cover. For good examples of this, see the covers of ‘The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ’ by Phillip Pullman, or ‘The Road’ by Cormac McCarthy.

• Make your title clear. It sounds obvious, I know, but all too often I see covers, and not just by self-published authors, where the title is crammed in to the very top of the cover in a tiny font, or placed haphazardly on top of a busy image that obscures it. Stay away from unreadable fonts, too. Within a split second of picking up your book, the customer shout know the title.
• For most self published authors, and indeed most traditionally published authors too; their main source of customers will be on the internet, though sites like Amazon and Barnes and Noble, so it is incredibly important that your cover looks good at a smaller size, as nine times out of ten on these sites it will be displayed as a thumbnail. This is where making it bold and simple becomes really important, as it will still stand out when reduced in size.

One of my favorite book covers of all time illustrates all of the above beautifully – the original Penguin cover for Anthony Burgess’ ‘A Clockwork Orange’, designed by David Pelham. It is Bold and eye-catching; it uses a character, but it is only the suggestion of a character, and with out a face to distract, and the title is clear and bold. I also love the way that the bright, almost comic-like effect contrasts so much with the dark themes of the book. But above all, this design works so well because it is simple and memorable. Follow these tips and you should be a lot closer to designing that perfect cover!

If you have any tips etc to add, I'd love to hear them!

- Kit

Cover Designs

Hi all,

I know it's not strictly speaking fiction, but I thought I'd share these with you anyway. I've recently been doing a lot of work designing covers for self published authors, and below are the finished results for a few soon-to-be-published novels, plus some of my own works. Let me know what you think!

Also, if anyone is looking for design work done for their novel, let me know and I'll be happy to knock something up for you!

Kit

After the Revolution

King Kong By Callum J. Stewart

Welcome to Nowhere

You Can't Say Dallas Doesn't Love You

The Second Coming By Griffin Hayes

This City Never Sleeps

Persephone's Library by Kathryn Anthony

The Known Experiment by Mr. X

'New Raine' by Sass Cadeaux

'The True Tale of Snow White' by Eduardo R. Chavez

Sex, Drugs and Romeo By Robert Chazz Chute (Draft Version)

The Unopened Casebook of Sherlock Holmes Vol. 1

By Callum J. Stewart

See my latest collection of my covers here, and here.

Welcome To Nowhere

Howdy all - I'm afraid the updates have been a little thin on the ground of late - this is because I've been spending my hours editing my first full length novel, a mystery/thriller called 'Welcome to Nowhere.' The novel follows the story of FBI agents Jack Burton and Celia Washington, who are sent to a remote town in the Arizona desert to investigate a series of strange murders. The townspeople have begun killing each other, apparently without motive or even any memory of their crimes and the two agents are in a race against time to solve the mystery before the body-count grows any more. As Burton and Washington immerse themselves in the small backwater town and begin their investigation, they come to realise that these murders are only the beginning, and that the case is much closer to their own hearts that they could ever have guessed.

I'm hoping to have this finished and available for sale in a couple of months (I'll keep you posted on that), but in the meantime I thought I would share a little taster of it with you. Please feel free to offer any constructive criticism; It would be very gratefully received. Enjoy!

Welcome To Nowhere

Prologue

It had been one of those nights; the instant he opened his eyes, he wished he hadn’t.

Frank Zuckerman finally awoke to the sound of heavy knocking at his front door, and as he rubbed his pounding head, which felt as though it had spent most of the night in the tight clutches of a vice, he struggled to remember even one vague detail about the previous night’s events. It had been a wild one; of that much he was sure. Past the third tequila shot there was nothing; no memories at all. He hadn’t been that out of it in a long time.

The knocking began again, this time louder and more impatient. Okay, I’m coming.

He stumbled out of bed, hardly opening his eyes; hardly able to open his eyes. Using only his memory, and the blurred strip of colours that occasionally flashed between his eyelids, he scrambled his way towards the staircase and began to feel his way around. With each clumsy, pained step he took, his head swam, begging him for caffeine.

Out of the fuzzy, incoherent world that lay beyond his heavy eyelids, he suddenly became aware of another noise; a different, more piercing noise occasionally making its presence known behind the wall of knocking. As he descended the stairs, the noise drew closer and as he slowly focused, he recognised it.

Pip… pip… pip…

The fire alarm in the kitchen. This wouldn’t be the first time he had come in late at night with a post-alcohol appetite and accidentally left the oven on.

Slowly he became more accustomed to the waking world, and his eyes gradually began to focus as he descended the staircase. He looked down at his wrist and checked his watch, which had been left on from the night before and had left small indentations in his skin where it had dug in during the night. Seven fifteen? Who the hell’s knocking my door down at this time on a Saturday morning?

As he reached the bottom of the stairs and began to cross the long hallway towards the front door, he noticed a dark stain on the tips of his fingers. Stopping to take a closer look, a wave of adrenaline ran through him as he recognised the maroon stain instantly. Blood.

He’d had bleeding noses a lot as a child, but he hadn’t had one for years. He figured it must have happened whenever he got home last night and was either too drunk to do anything about it, or too drunk to care. Knowing he couldn’t answer the door with blood all over his nose, he turned around towards the full length mirror at the side of the room to assess the damage.

Suddenly, the banging stopped and there was silence. As Frank Zuckerman’s eyes swam in to focus on the reflection of himself, he froze. In a split second, his stomach turned to lead, and he was instantaneously wide awake.

His nose was clean; not a drop of blood.

As he looked down, he saw that the stains ran all the way up his arms. His denim jeans and his pale blue shit were covered in long maroon-brown patches. This is no nose bleed. Frantically he began searching for a wound that could have caused this amount of blood… but he found none; it was not his blood.

The welcome silence that the hallway had only just reclaimed was instantly cracked in two as the front door burst open, broken down with brute force. Frank Zuckerman turned around with his blood stained arms stretched out in front of him and saw the dark, towering silhouettes of two large men standing the doorway.

Part One

~ The Man with the Brown Leather Gloves ~

One

Twenty miles south of Wikieup pass on highway ninety three, somewhere between Here and There, lies the town of Nowhere, Arizona. Nestled into a deep valley which had been cut into the earth thousands of years ago by the wide river that flowed past the outskirts of the town, and hidden behind long stretches of thick woods, Nowhere lived up to it’s name.

The long, dusty stretch of highway that joins Nowhere to the rest of the world simmered in the afternoon sun as FBI special agent Jack Burton pulled in to a small gas station at the side of the road. An old wooden sign, painted in crumbling, heat blasted paint towered above the one solitary gas Pump. The cracked letters read ‘The Middle of Nowhere.’

As Jack Burton slammed the door of his SUV, leaving his partner, Celia Washington, waiting in the passenger seat, he looked up at the sign and smiled as he rattled coins between his fingers deep in his pocket. Cute.

The gas station was crumbling in front of him and Burton realised that he was probably entering a place largely forgotten by the rest of America. Old car tyres of various sizes leaned against the grubby corrugated tin walls of the main building appearing to almost be holding them in place.

Standing outside the small building next to the lone gas pump was an old man, and a young girl of around six or seven pulling at his trouser leg. The old man stroked his white beard, which occasionally wisped in to nicotine stained peaks, and his toothless mouth gripped a wooden pipe that shot clouds of smoke in to the air.

‘Can I help you, friend?’ his pipe bobbed up and down as the words croaked from his yellow lips.

Jack Burton walked towards the man, using his hand as a sun visor. ‘I’m lookin’ for some gas…’

‘Well,’ replied the old man, ‘you’re in the right place.’ He shot Burton a toothless grin as the young girl pulled again at the man’s trouser leg. ‘Hush, Sally…’ he said to her, shooing her gently with his left hand, ‘you run along inside. Grandpa will be through in a minute.’

The young girl frowned as she stepped back into the shade and walked in to the gas station building.

‘Where you headed?’ asked the man, limping towards to Burton’s SUV.

‘Nowhere,’ replied Burton, a tiny smile crossing his lips.

‘Yup,’ the old man laughed as he began to fill the SUV with gas, ‘most folks on this stretch of highway are heading to nowhere. You’re not from around here, are you?’

‘Phoenix,’ replied Burton, pulling a coin from his pocket and rolling it between his knuckles. ‘Do I stand out that much?’ The sickly taste of gasoline caught the back of Burton’s throat, making him feel suddenly very queasy. The car ride out here had been bad enough without the stale reek of gasoline adding insult to injury.

The old man pointed down the badge hanging from Burton’s belt. ‘You CIA or something?’

Burton smiled. ‘Something like that… FBI.’ Trying his best to keep conversation to minimum, he stared intently at the numbers spinning incoherently on the gas pump.

‘You’ll be in town about what happened to Tom Douglas’ kid… terrible thing, that.’ The man looked towards the ground and shook his head.

‘You knew Jerry Douglas?’ asked Burton.

‘Place like this;’ replied the old man, squinting as he looked up towards the sun, ‘it’s so small if you stay here a while you get to know pretty much every one. I knew Douglas, and his folks; good kid. It's a damn shame, what happened to him... damn shame… god knows what was going on in that Zuckerman kid's head.’

'You knew Frank Zuckerman as well?'

'Sure,' replied the old man, 'his old man buys his kindling here... has done for years. Frank and Jerry used to ride along with him in the car. Thick as thieves they were, ever since they were just young ’uns. But,' he continued, 'I guess buddies sometimes fall out.' The old man rattled the nozzle of the pump against the outside of Burton's gas tank. 'That everything, friend?'

'Thanks.' replied Burton. 'How much?'

'Forty bucks.'

Burton handed the man two twenties and smiled as he tucked his wallet into his jacket pocket. ‘They fell out? And that’s why he killed him? Do you believe that?’

‘No,’ replied the man without hesitation, ‘But I guess it don’t matter much what I think…’

‘Please…’ Burton held out his palm, urging the man to continue.

‘Well…’ he said, looking up towards the crystal blue sky. ‘It was this place; this town. That’s what killed Jerry Douglas… not Zuckerman.’ The old man tucked the two twenty dollar bills into his trouser pocket. ‘This place got kinda’ a… history. I don’t know if it’s being way out here, cut of from the rest of the world or what, but this town does things to people. Back in eighty eight, two little girls…’

Burton interrupted. ‘The Peterman case, yeah…’

‘I guess you already know about that… you are the federal bureau of investigation. I guess it’s your business to know. Well… what happened in eighty eight and what happened to Jerry Douglas last night t‘aint no coincidence, agent, I can tell you that much. Being in the middle of nowhere does strange things to folks…’

Burton smiled at the man uneasily. ‘Strange things like what?’

‘Like what happened to Jerry Douglas.’ The man smiled, fully exposing his pink gums. ‘Can I get you anything else, agent?’

‘No, thank you,’ replied Burton, climbing into the driver’s side of his SUV. Burton smiled appreciatively once more at the man, before pulling off on to the dusty highway and heading in to Nowhere.

Two

The dust on the road danced in the slipstream behind Jack Burton’s SUV as he tore down the desolate stretch of highway. Sitting in the passenger seat, checking her reflection in the rear view mirror, was Burton’s partner, Celia Washington. Beautiful brunette locks flowed over her olive skin, occasionally obscuring her deep green eyes. She straightened the collar on her power suit and gazed out in to the road ahead. ‘How far now?’

‘Not far,’ replied Burton. ‘A sign at the gas station said three miles.’

‘Good,’ replied Celia, yawning, ‘I need to stretch my legs.’ She looked on to the horizon as the town began to creep up from behind the trees. ‘These hick towns give me the creeps… Why the hell are we even out here, anyway? It doesn’t sound much like a federal case from the brief.’

‘You know why we’re here…’ grumbled Burton. ‘Paulsen’s still mad at me, so he found the shittiest assignment he could and placed me on it.’

‘Of course,’ replied Celia, half smiling, ‘…your little… encounter. Well, think yourself lucky, for what you did you could have got a lot worse than just a dull assignment. I think it’s quite reasonable of Paulsen…’

‘You would say that, Celia; you don’t know what he’s like. The guy’s an asshole…’

‘You punched him in the face! He would have had grounds to kick you out if he wanted… I’ve worked with him just as long as you have, Jack, I know exactly what kind of man Simon Paulsen is.’ She sighed and checked her hair in the mirror again. ‘And don’t get ratty with me – I’m the one that’s stuck on a dead end case in a dead end town in the middle of the desert because of your stupidity, remember. Sometimes I despair at being your partner…. Punching the boss…’ she muttered. Celia smiled, and looked out of the window. ‘But… I’m sure he deserved it.’

As she stared out she saw a dark figure appearing in the distance at the side of the road. Burton pulled down his sunglasses and looked out at the simmering silhouette. ‘It’s a hitch hiker; Jesus, he’ll fry out here. Do you want to give him a ride?’

‘Are you kidding?’ replied Celia. ‘Picking up some hitch hiker in literally the middle of nowhere? Haven’t you ever seen the Texas Chainsaw Massacre? He’s probably some axe wielding maniac.’ As the car drew closer to the man his form began to become clearer. He was in uniform and carried a kit bag on his shoulder. ‘Technically…’ said Burton, grinning to himself, ‘we’re on the outskirts of Nowhere. Look, he’s a soldier for God’s sake!’ As Burton pulled over to the side of the road to pick the man up, Celia looked at his face. Great; a trained killer.

Burton wound down Celia’s window and called out to the man. ‘You want a ride, friend?’

The man smiled and pulled the back door open before climbing in to the back seat and wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. He wore a kind smile and spoke softly. ‘Thanks, I was sweating something awful out there.’

‘We’re only going as far as town; that okay?’

‘That’s great. I managed to catch a ride as far as the gas station a mile or so up the road, I just walked from there.’ He pulled his kitbag from his shoulder and rested it on the seat beside him.

‘What brings you to Nowhere?’ asked Celia.

‘Me? I’m going home. I’m stationed at the army base just outside town. I’ve lived here all my days, but I’ve just been up in Phoenix for a few months looking after my aunt. Man, does it feel good to be back. I missed the country air.’ He looked wistfully out of the window. ‘What brings you guys so far out?’

Burton looked the soldier in the eyes through the rear view mirror. ‘We’re performing an investigation…’

‘Are you guys cops?’

‘FBI,’ replied Celia, nodding towards a badge that swung from the rear view mirror ‘I’m Agent Washington and this is Agent Burton.’

‘What’s happened?’

‘There’s been a murder in town. A kid named Jerry Douglas?’

‘Jerry?’

‘You knew him?’ asked Burton.

‘Sure,’ replied the soldier ‘I went to school with Jerry, I’ve known him forever. What the hell happened?’

‘Well…’ said Burton tentatively ‘I guess you’re going to find out soon enough. He was killed by a supposed friend. A guy named Frank Zuckerman?’

‘Frank? Jesus Christ, that’s huge… Those guys were inseparable. I can’t believe my mother never said anything on the phone.’

Celia turned around in her seat ‘I guess some things have to be said in person.’

‘Wh… why did he do it?’

‘That’s what we’re here to find out,’ said Burton, staring straight ahead at the road.

The soldier smiled sombrely, and then pointed out of the window to his right. ‘This is me; my mom’s house is just up that hill. Anywhere here’s just great.’

Burton pulled the SUV to the side of the road and with a smile and a half salute, the soldier jumped out. ‘Thanks for the lift, folks… I hope you find whatever you’re looking for.’ Burton smiled at the young man as he slammed the door and walked away from the car.

‘See,’ said Burton as he pulled off again, ‘he wasn’t an axe wielding maniac after all.’

‘Hmmm…’ replied Celia ‘…going to see his mother in a big house on top of a hill? That doesn’t remind you of anybody?’

Burton smiled as they headed towards the town. About half a mile up the road, they were greeted by a large green sign that read, in chipped paint:

‘Welcome to Nowhere’

It looked like a land caught in a time warp; it felt like the nineteen fifties with a hint of cowboy.

Celia looked out of her window at a large poster hanging in the window of the general store. A shiny, sleazy looking man dressed in a suit was staring out from it and underneath, the caption read:

‘Vote for Change. Vote for Caine.’

‘Look at him,’ she said to Burton, turning round. ‘Staring out with those sleaze ball eyes. Can you think of anyone you’d want less as the President of the United States? Another four years of him? No thanks.’

‘Well,’ replied Burton, ‘the election’s in a week and this is where he gets all his voters. Small towns like this; they probably love him here… look, there’s posters all around.’ Warmongering asshole.

President Charles Caine had been voted in to power nearly four years ago and his entire term had been a colossal historical disgrace. And yet, thought Burton, he does have a knack for rallying hillbillies. It was long thought that he had cheated his way in to power during the last election. He was well known, not only in the US, but across the world, as an odious, repulsive cheat… but still they flocked to go and vote for him in small towns like this. He was a face, thought Burton, to put on that horrible twenty first century idea of American patriotism; blind faith; that we should trust our leader, because he is in power… regardless or how he gained that power.

‘Not a single poster for Gable, either. At least we’ve never had him as president, so we don’t know for sure he’s crooked,’ said Celia, sighing as they pulled in to a parking spot outside a small café.

Burton smiled as the engine coughed to a stop. ‘He’s a politician, Celia. They’re all crooked. The very fact he wanted to become a politician makes him crooked.’ He climbed out of the SUV and slammed the door shut, feeling the warm sunlight beat down on his face. Taking a deep breath of the fresh country air, he turned to Celia. ’Well… welcome to Nowhere.’

After the Revolution - Now Available at Amazon!

After The Revolution at Amazon.co.uk

After The Revolution is now available from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com for the very reasonable prices of £4.49 and $7.20 respectively. Please stop by and check it out. My novella is also available from lulu.com at a discounted price (20% off!).

Thanks for all your support!

-Kit

When Alex gets a terrifying glimpse of the future, he sees what will become of his country. After the Revolution, Britain is a dictatorship at war. It is the year 2060 - London has been ripped apart by war, and the country is in the grip of Wilson, a dictator who bullied his way into power during the British revolution in the 2030's. As Alex, (a present day tourist to this time) investigates this strange landscape he is picked up by Wilson's secret police and detained as a potential enemy of the state. How will He cope when he returns? Can he cange the future? Will he?

Our Father - Part II

Good evening all,

Thanks for stopping by to visit my humble blog! The time has come for part II of my novella 'Our Father.' In case you missed it, part I can be found here. 'Our Father', follows the story of Yahweh, a God who lives within a community of Gods in the kingdom of Heaven, who is young and reckless, jealous and petty, and considered an upstart and a liability by all the other Gods. This tale follows him through the creation of a brand new world called Earth, and all the mistakes he makes along the way. And boy, are there a lot of them...

As ever, thanks for reading!

Eden

For the fist time in his existence, Yahweh felt worthy of his title, and his place amongst the Gods in the Kingdom. He looked down upon Eden, and all the creatures he had created with beaming pride and warmth in his heart.

The first man, whom Yahweh had crated from clay and named Adam, toiled away, tending to the garden, but Yahweh could see great loneliness in his eyes. So he commanded: ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make a companion fit for him.’

So once more, Yahweh descended into Eden, and upon his arrival caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam. He leaned over the sleeping man, and from his chest he pulled a rib, out of which he created a mate for Adam. When Adam awoke he looked upon his new mate with joy, exclaiming: ‘This at last is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh! She will be called woman, because she was taken out of man.'

The man and his new mate, who was named Eve, were happy in this paradise and Yahweh said unto them: ‘This is your home. Love it, tend to it – care for all the plants animals in it, for they are my gift to you. Be fruitful, go forth and multiply! Fill this land with your children! Work the land and nourish yourself with the fruits of your labour. From every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, you may not eat. For the day that you eat from it you will surely die.’

So happy were the new pair, they agreed to their Lord’s commands and went of to enjoy the spoils of the Garden of Eden.

On the other side of the garden, from within the branches of a fig tree, the yellow eyes of a serpent watched as Adam and Eve toiled. But this was not one of God’s creations – this was an imitator. Venus had done as Jupiter had asked him and infiltrated Eden, hiding in the trees under the guise of a snake. He was ready to perform his test on Yahweh’s new creation.

In a shady corner of the garden, Eve, naked, though not ashamed of it, picked fruit from the fig trees when she heard a voice from between the leaves.

‘Eve,’ hissed the voice.

She turned and saw the serpent looking down at her from the branches. She wasn’t afraid. She knew no fear for she had no knowledge of good and evil.

‘Eve,’ the wheezing voice repeated. ‘Has God really said, "You shall not eat from any tree of the garden”?’

Eve replied: ‘We may eat from the trees of the garden, but of the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, "Do not eat from it, and do not even touch it, or that day you will surely die."'

The snake smiled. Venus was getting into character. ‘Surely you will not die! For your God knows that on the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil.'

Eve looked at the tree and trusted the snake. She pulled from its branches the most perfect apple ever to have existed and held it in front of her mouth.

‘Go on,’ hissed Venus. Though his words begged her to go on, Venus’s mind secretly hoped beyond hope that Eve would drop the apple and not give in to temptation. He hoped that his master’s creation was sound. He hoped Jupiter was wrong.

Alas, Eve bit into the apple and offered some to Adam. He too ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge.

Venus shed a tear and slithered off into the branches. His work was done.

Suddenly both Adam and Eve became aware aware that they were naked and they felt shame. Their eyes had been opened. They hurried to find fig leaves which they sewed together to cover themselves.

High above Eden, in the kingdom of heaven, Yahweh looked down with burning fury at his new creations covering themselves with fig leaves. In a crash of lightning and a blaze of fire, he cast himself back towards Eden, roaring: ‘They are my creation! They may not disobey me! I am their Lord! I am their Lord!’

When he came to Eden, the voice of God rang around the garden. ‘Where are you?’ he called out to the man and his mate. Yahweh was furious.

When they heard the angry voice of their God appearing from on high, Adam and Eve hid themselves in the bushes, but Yahweh soon found them and saw the fig leaves about their bodies. ‘What are these, about your person?’ he asked, seething.

Eve replied: ‘We are naked – we have sown together fig leaves to hide our shame.’

‘Who told you that you were naked?’ commanded Yahweh.

Neither Adam nor Eve replied.

‘Have you eaten from the tree of knowledge? The tree from which I told you not to eat?’

Eve told Yahweh all about the serpent, and how it had tricked them into eating the fruit.

Yahweh could not contain his fury. ‘What have you done?’ he bellowed. ‘As punishment for your actions – for your disobedience – I will cause you great trouble during pregnancy, and when you bear children, you will have great pain. You will desire your husband, and he will rule over you.!’

Around them the sky over Eden turned blood red with Yahweh’s anger.

‘And you,’ he said to Adam, ‘You listened to your wife, and ate the fruit which I commanded you not to eat. I hence forth put a curse on the ground! You will have to work very hard for food. The ground will produce weeds and thorns to stand in your way. You will toil, sweat and work hard for food, and eventually you will return to the ground. You once were dust, and so shall ye be again!’

And so Yahweh made Adam and Eve clothes from animal skins and cast them out of the paradise he had created for them and sent them out into the wilderness east of Eden.

The Fallen Angel

Yahweh came thundering back to Heaven in a blaze of fire and lightning and burst into the Great Hall where his mother and father and the rest of the heavenly committee sat, paying no attention to the angelic guards posted outside.

‘Yahweh,’ said his mother, barely startled by her son’s sudden appearance, ‘what brings you to the Great Hall? Should you not be tending to your new flock?’

‘I am betrayed!’ thundered Yahweh in response. ‘I have been tricked and used! Somebody wants my creation to fail, and they have planted the seeds of destruction in my work!’

Jupiter rose to his feet, towering above his son and turned the flames that were coming from Yahweh into wisping, lifeless smoke. ‘If your creation is bound for destruction, then it is the fruit of seeds you yourself have sown – nobody else. The creation is only as strong the creator.’

‘But,’ said Yahweh, ‘an impostor has snuck himself into my Garden of Eden and tricked mankind into disobeying me!’

‘Your creation has been tested. Your people are not as controlled as you had hoped.’

‘What can be expected for a creation that only took seven days?’ The mocking voice of one of the elders echoed from the other side of the hall. ‘Some things cannot be rushed.’

The fury within Yahweh was visibly rising again, and he turned with his mouth open towards the elder preparing to respond, when a nod from his father told him to tread carefully. He turned again towards his father. ‘But who has tested my world? Who has dared to test the almighty Yahweh?’

‘I did, Yahweh.’

Yahweh took a step back. ‘You, Father? But why? Have you no faith in me?’

Jupiter sat back down next to his wife and turned to his son. ‘You have not yet proven yourself worthy of the power of creation, and it was certainly not my idea to allow you it. You have shown yourself to be short sighted, cruel, jealous and work-shy in the past - far too immature in many of our eyes. When you created this world in seven days – a short stretch by anyone’s standards, we wanted to be sure it was worthy.’

‘And you, father,’ replied Yahweh, ‘you snuck into Eden and tricked my Adam and my Eve?’

‘I did not.’

The rage began to boil as Yahweh hissed his words through curled lips. ‘Then who? Who has dared to test me? Let them feel my wrath!’

Thoah entered the Great Hall and bowed before Jupiter. ‘My Lord,’ he said, ‘the Angel Venus is here at your request.’

Yahweh looked into his father’s eyes and knew the truth.

‘Send him in,’ said Jupiter.

‘Venus? My own angel? My own servant?’ He heard Venus’s footsteps behind him. ‘He will pay dearly for this.’

Yahweh turned around and lit up in a blaze of fire and lightning. ‘Venus! How dare you test your master? What have you done? You have destroyed my creation! And you will pay! You will be sent to a lake of fire for eternity! There you will suffer in the darkness and brimstone with all your Angels for your disobedience!’

‘My Lord…’ stuttered Venus, ‘…this is hardly fair-’

‘Fair is not a factor in this, Venus, you have betrayed me! It is MY world! MY creation! I am your master and you will do as I command of you! Now be gone!’

And a pit as black as night opened underneath Venus and his angels, and they were swallowed into the hellfire.