Doomsday Chronicles: Prelude to Darkness An Apocalyptic Novel by Gerald Lee Gibson Gerald Lee Gibson, author of several novels and numerous short stories and poems, lives with his wife and cats in Fort Worth, Texas. As a father of three children and a grandfather of seven, he has retired from technical writing and government work, and now balances his time between his family and freelance writing. |
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Synopsis Prelude
to Darkness, redefines the devil and its mission on earth. After leaving its
throne in the care of the Serpent, Abbadon, the Gate Master of Hell, the
devil surfaces unobtrusively and seeks out the Reverend Adam Leeds, its chosen
vessel on Earth. The reverend’s wife, Cora Vale, has been spiritually
corrupted by Satan into becoming the millstone around the reverend’s neck.
Already, however, the reverend’s liberal, New Age, ‘feel good’ approach to
religion has conditioned his mind for the interpretations of what will become
the Universal Church. The frightful Apocalyptic visions of the
fundamentalists could not convince him. Three portentous dreams and the
prophecy of a televangelist fail to warn him. Even, as he wanders lost in Skid
Row, the warnings of an itinerate preacher fail to detour him. Failed
ambition and the reverend’s feelings of spiritual inadequacy have been, over
the years, exacerbated by his wife. Through such spiritual distraction and
his own muddled theology, the devil enters and dominates the course of his
life. After a period of temptation and soul searching, the reverend is
driven, after being drugged by a mysterious stranger, into finally murdering
his troublesome spouse. Satan’s blackmail, after the apparent crime, are but
the finishing touches to his downfall from spiritual grace. Not
only is Satan amorphous in this interpretation, it is without gender, until
it materializes once and for all in the flesh for its anointed. As a
beautiful woman, who resembles in Adam's opinion, Mary, the mother of Jesus,
she seduces him and consummates their bond, but she must still earn his
trust. In stead of using the play script written by the prophets and apostles
of Christ, it appears to Adam as if Satan appears to be making it all up as
she goes along. There is little similarity between the events surrounding the
new prophet and his followers and the False Prophet of the Bible, and yet a
few wary souls suspect that this exactly who he is. The conventional
stereotype fiend of Hell is literally turned on its head as Marie Roget (a.
k. a Satan, Lucifer and Beelzebub) parades her parody of Christ and his
Apostles on the streets of Skid Row. |