To be fair, the re-post of the first portion of the book here didn't include anything significant that was new (until now). So I wasn't expecting it to have a huge readership, after all many people had already read it on Sapphires and even some who hadn't read it there, went there to read the rest so they didn't have to wait for me to post later chapters here. Most of those didn't count towards 'reads' and didn't get votes here.

Another big factor in readership here at BC seems to be a preference for natural/hormone driven transitions or quirks of body chemistry/DNA that end up leading to the protagonist going through puberty in an unexpected fashion, rather than magical transformations by someone already past that age. Though I recall a couple comments from people who said that they enjoyed Glass despite it not being their normal cup of tea and that is always gratifying to hear.

Ray, I have to say that some of the things you say in your post ring very true to me. I cannot remember the extent phrasing, but something along the lines of... "When you do good works, no matter whose name you invoke; you do them in service to me. When you do acts of evil, even if you claim to do them in my name; you do not do my will."

I had a conversation about that topic once, many many years ago. A very close friend from high school shut me out of their life (several years after we graduated) because our religious choices went down roads similar to those of David and Nicole. I talked until I was blue in the face and then some, but no matter how hard I tried to show that I hadn't actually changed and just put a name on what I'd believed all along... because I believed in magic and served the Lord and Lady, I was evil... that I had betrayed our friendship.

The saddest part of all was that this friend was the one who had shared one of the most supernatural experiences I had had with me... the one event that led me to study the occult in the depth that I did. One night, after spending the whole Summer day together as we often did, we were getting ready to sleep and started talking as kids do (you know, staying up all night trying to figure out life). We started with our favorite topic to gripe about, stepfathers... we both had one, we both hated them for much the same reasons. The topic evolved through a variety of things, eventually reaching that big subject, religion and God. Finally, settling into a sense that we'd better get to sleep; after all, it must be getting close to morning; one of us reached over to set the alarm. But it was only 4 minutes past the time when we had started talking. We checked all the other clocks in the house. We ran through the list of things we'd talked about... it took us 20 minutes just to list all the topics... and came eventually to the uneasy and unsettling truth that we'd had this conversation telepathically. There was no way to prove it... and we were never able to reproduce it... but it was one of those moments, for me at least, that redefines the direction of your life.

My friend and I have not spoken since that disagreement in religious choices, 15 years ago.

So... it's actually far more than simply trying to tell a pagan story without offending Christians. Both pagans and Christians can be close minded, and often are, about other beliefs. How many wars would have been averted over the millenia if both sides realized just how similar their beliefs are... some of the worst of them by religions that are divided only by the most narrow differences in interpretation. Are the fundamental pieces of wisdom that contradictory that we should kill people over them? The answer is obviously no, to anyone with even the slightest inclination to read about religions... and yet churches and governments still use these things as a reason to fight.