This book, is at minimum, in my estimation and opinion, ten years too late. That is not surprising seeing as the fact that it is nearly twenty years old, regardless of beginning either at its inception, or when the very first word was ever put onto its very first page.

This book, this story, and I, have been through a lot together. I could (and may someday perhaps) write a book telling the story of my writing this book's story. At that, I do want to “warn” (if that is the right word) you of one thing, and that would be that the first story was written by me, again, nearly twenty years ago. Then, I believe that the last part of this book was written about 7 years later. So there is a very clear progression in writing development that eventually levels out at some point that I will let others enjoy debating about.

While I did at times consider going back and rewriting the prior material, I always ended my thoughts in the belief that there was something of value to leaving them in their original state. In no small part it is to be “honest” for lack of a better word at the moment.

(“Warn”, “Honest”, not doing too well with words here for an author, am I? I'm really trying to write this candidly, in one sitting without too much in the way of perfecting it, because otherwise, writing this could end up taking me another twenty years with my standards and methods for achieving them. I came across a phrase once I fully admit applies to me; I expect perfection from everyone - and I demand it from myself.

I digress…)

What I mean by “honest”, is how I wrote the first things I wrote, was sincerely me at that time. A younger, headstrong, passionate, idealistic “I’m going to write stories and be an author!” me. So to me now, wiping out all that guy's work, as if he did not invest a genuine portion of himself into it, and covering it over or rewriting it to make it appear as though I was never he, and did not live and grow in experiences, and as a writer, would be inauthentic. Because you see, I've grown, and changed, so that now I am an older, headstrong, passionate, idealistic, “I wrote a story and I'm an author!” me. The me I am now has been Adam, and Eve, Jacob, and Esau, Sampson, David, Peter, Paul, and nearly every other broken human found in scripture, that has too often chosen to ignore, defy, or wrestle with God, rather than to submit, obey, and be loved by Him instead - and while perhaps I do not have a dislocated hip, I do have my own kind of scars to prove it.

I have not forgotten my original point - that this book is at least ten years too late. The world seems to have gone through two-hundred years of changes in just the last twenty, and the only thing that has matched the exponential advancement of technology is the equivalent decay of society. Or is it not late at all? What if God had me writing a book twenty years in advance to fit the time it would finally have the chance to reach the people who may read it? Perhaps. I don't really know.

What I do know, what I can say with utmost honesty, is I do not know the number of times my editor and I would be going over a story, a section, a chapter, and just… stop - - - and one of us would say something like, “....and this was written almost ten years ago, but, it fits so well with what is going on in America, and, even in the whole world today, it's almost exact…”

It's the many moments like that where the phrase “This book is ten years too late.” came from.

So that is where we are now. Late, or, on time… I don't really know, but either way…

… here it is.

~ 777ark V †