The Doomsday Prophecy

off, and she pulled up on the grassy verge.

She said nothing as he climbed out of the car. He slung his jacket over his shoulder and watched as she drove away.

The car grew smaller and smaller until it was just a dust cloud in the distance.

The sun was setting. He turned and started walking towards the town.

Author’s Note

Although The Doomsday Prophecy is a work of fiction, it is a fact that many millions of people across the world, the majority of them evangelical American Christians, fervently believe that we may at any moment be plunged into the apocalyptic End Time events that they claim to be forecast in the Bible. None of the biblical references in this book have been invented; it’s all there in the Good Book for those who wish to study it. As far as these millions of people are concerned, the prophesied horror scenario is for real, it’s coming, it’s unstoppable and those of us who aren’t ready for it are doomed to a hideous fate.

Bible study being such an enormous and complex subject, in the writing of The Doomsday Prophecy some liberties have inevitably been taken in the interests of drama, and to some extent it was necessary to simplify. Real-life End Time prophecy believers tend to borrow here and there from various parts of the Bible, piecing it all together across the board, rather than simply lifting ready-made ideas from one single source as the characters appear to do in the novel. This is the reason why, in real life, End Time prophecies can differ slightly in their interpretation: some believe that the Rapture will take place before the Tribulation (known as pre-Tribulation belief), and others believe it will take place some time after the Tribulation has already started, meaning that all of us, faithful and unbelievers alike, would have to endure quite a long period of unspeakable nastiness together before the more fortunate are whisked away to Salvation. It is this ‘mid-Tribulationist’ stance that I have attributed to Clayton Cleaver and the End Time conspirators in this story.

The Book of Revelation, which in the story forms the basis of the End Timers’ belief, is in real life only one of many prophetic texts of the Bible – others include the Old Testament’s Book of Ezekiel – but is by far the most intriguing, with elements such as the classic ‘666’ reference now embedded in popular culture. Bible buffs will spot that I lifted certain quotations from Ezekiel, Daniel, and elsewhere. In this respect I am guilty of some scriptural sleight of hand. Apologies to the purists: The Doomsday Prophecy is fiction, after all…

… Then again, is it completely fiction? While researching this book I was struck by the number of strange events and apparent ‘signs’ becoming visible to me as I delved deeper into the subject. Halfway through writing the book, I was woken up in the middle of the night by what turned out to be an earthquake, an extremely rare and bizarre event in my part of the world. Further research showed up all kinds of weird global events that, in a certain light, could be interpreted as signs that the End Time dice are about to roll: weather anomalies, plagues of African locusts in France, outbreaks of rare illnesses, growing social chaos, increasing tensions in the Middle East. On a larger scale, astronomers are now finding evidence of collisions between entire galaxies – unsettling echoes of the forecasts in The Book of Revelation that ‘heavenly bodies will collide’. The more I read, the more I began to find Clayton Cleaver’s dire warnings eerily persuasive.

Is it really going to happen? We’ll just have to wait and see.

Finally, I would like to stress that the negative portrayal of certain fictitious End Time believers in this book is in no way a reflection on real-life Christians, whatever their interpretation of Bible prophecy may be. Ben Hope is a fiction hero, and heroes cannot exist without villains!

Readers are invited to spot the hidden ‘Doomsday clue’ within this Author’s Note. A free signed copy of the book to the first five readers who contact me via my website with the correct answer.

I hope you enjoyed reading The Doomsday Prophecy as much as I enjoyed writing it. Ben Hope will be back.

Scott Mariani

Acknowledgements

Another round of thanks to my brilliant editorial and production team – the unsung heroes who bridge that gap between the solitary phase in a writer's work and the magic moment when the book becomes a tangible reality in your hands.

Thanks to my agent Broo Doherty – you are a star. Also to Diana Davey, Tim and Dawn Boswell, and everyone else directly or indirectly involved with the development of this book.

About the Author

Scott Mariani grew up in St Andrews, Scotland. He studied Modern Languages at Oxford and went on to work as a translator, a professional musician, a pistol shooting instructor and a freelance journalist before becoming a full-time writer. After spending several years in Italy and France, Scott discovered his secluded writer’s haven in the wilds of west Wales, a 1830s country house complete with rambling woodland and a secret passage. When he isn’t writing, Scott enjoys jazz, movies, classic motorcycles and astronomy. His last novel, The Mozart Conspiracy, has sold across the world.

To find out more about Scott Mariani go to www.scottmariani.com

Visit www.BookArmy.co. uk for exclusive updates on Scott Mariani.

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