[roddglenn]

Welcome aboard, Anthony.

Publishers do shy away from first time writers who exceed the 100,000 word mark by too much, so be careful. As has already been said 80-120k is a decent guideline.

As has been said, your villain does need to have at least some motivations that the reader can understand - this helps to humanise him/her a little and thus makes his/her evil acts all the more horrifying. It's even better if you can add a little trait that the reader can actually like or relate to - really screw with the reader's mind.

I'm with the others on religion - have it or don't. There is plenty of good and evil in the world that has nothing to do with religion. A lot of it is just about money, power or sex.

Totally agree with Iansales re the infodumps - try to drip feed them to your reader - little snipbits of info at a time.

Good luck!

Rod