Local author releases first apocalyptic thriller

At 4 a.m., Stephen Duncan gets up, makes a pot of coffee and writes until his two-year-old son wakes up at 6:30. Sometimes he sneaks in some writing time late at night. 

Despite his busy schedule, Duncan released The Revelation of Gabriel Adam, the first of a trilogy of young adult (YA) books published by Medallion Press in August.

Some of Duncan’s first writing experiences were with screenplays, which he would try to sell at Sundance Film Festival.

While he was working with Rocky director John Avildsen, who was teaching a class at UAB, Avildsen suggested that Duncan go to law school. 

Duncan graduated from Cumberland School of Law at Samford University and began practicing. Law, however, lacked the creative experience that Duncan desired. That’s where the novel came into play.

“The story popped into my head after studying hours and hours of boring case law,” he said. 

Duncan wrote about 50 pages, which he sent to a friend in Scotland. 

“He told me in a very Scottish way that it was terrible, and it was,” said Duncan. 

About a year later, the story reignited in Duncan’s head. The Revelation of Gabriel Adam took about six months of writing and another six months of editing before it was ready for publication.

In the book, a boy is born as the archangel Gabriel. As Armageddon draws near, an assassin sent from another realm attempts to destroy him. Gabe must let go of his dream of attending NYU in order to protect humanity. 

“This apocalyptic adventure delves deep into biblical lore without being dogmatically religious, delivering a fairly satisfying battle between good and evil,” said Kirkus Reviews of the upcoming book.

Duncan’s agent described the book as “Harry Potter meets Indiana Jones,” while Duncan himself explained it as “more of a thriller-esque type book with paranormal tones to it.”

Duncan, who graduated Mountain Brook High School in 1994, found inspiration for the story in his travels as well as in non-canonical religious texts such as the Dead Sea Scrolls. 

“They read like ancient bestsellers,” he said. 

Many of the texts he read were apocalyptic in nature, telling of the births of angels and demons and their interactions with the world. 

“The idea came to me that what if it was a cyclical thing,” he said, “and that the war between the realms is going to happen again at some point.”

Duncan acknowledged that while the religious aspects of his book could cause controversy, at its core the book is simply about a kid trying to believe in himself. 

Young adult (YA) books themselves have generated a lot of controversy with the soaring popularity of series such as Harry Potter, Twilight and The Hunger Games. Duncan addressed a recent article by Ruth Graham for the Slate Book Review that claimed that adults should feel embarrassed if they read YA literature.

“That’s ridiculous because there are so many profoundly brilliant YA books,” said Duncan, naming The Book Thief by Markus Zusak and anything by John Green as examples. “If YA had existed 50 or 100 years ago, some of the classics would be considered YA.” 

Duncan said since YA refers to an age group and not a genre, readers can look for a sci-fi book on the YA shelf and possibly discover something completely different next to it that they might not otherwise have found.

To find out more about S.L. Duncan and his writing, visit his blog, Ink Rock, at slduncan.blogspot.com or find his profile at medallionmediagroup.com.