Glorious Appearing: The End of Days (Left Behind) by Jerry B. Jenkins, Tim LaHaye
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Book Reviews of Glorious Appearing: The End of Days (Left Behind)
Book Review: Strange and a bit upsetting.
Summary: 2 Stars
I tried to like the LB series. I really did. I'm not a religious guy, and I don't expect my opinion to be taken any more or less seriously because of that. From a reader's standpoint, the LB series is a great premise. God picks his fans out of the masses, and leaves the rest to fend for themselves while giving them a great taste of how awful life is without him, complete with an evil dictator trying to make Hitler look like a toddler in his fury and absolute hatred of all things good. The problem lies in that the two writing this series...are very religious guys. While it might seem a good idea to give the religious reign over their own mythology, it makes for bad reading, as we see Nicolae Carpathia and his subordinates demonized at every opportunity, with the Tribulation Force, aka The Good Guys, seen as helpless, dimwitted sheep following what little knowledge they can find of Revelations and its prophecies, while trying not to end up as the next ones in line for the grinder. The line between good and evil is so strict, and absolutely without any doubt, and that makes it hard to stomach at times. I get that this is by the religious, for the religious, but this is a bad way to get people interested in religion, if someone happens to buy this series, and thus this book, for them. Focusing on this specific book, it's standard post-apocalyptic fight-the-evil justice-for-all fare, and then Jesus comes and good wins, despite the past seven YEARS of this book series showing Carpathia and his Legion of Doom stamping out any resistance like a bunch of ants, and even coming back from being stabbed to death. Jesus is shown to have superpowers, basically, and literally tears the bad guys a new one before bringing back all of the saints, along with everyone that didn't get left behind in the original book. Everyone lives happily ever-after, until the sequel, despite this being set up as the ultimate end to the series. Twelve books, numerous character deaths, and a noticeable drop in quality after the second book or so, and it almost got away with being the end. Then the authors decided to use a throwaway line from the very end of Revelations as the basis for an entirely new book. Wait, didn't we just see the credits roll? Didn't Jesus himself just drop down and lay the smackdown on the bad guys, despite their considerable power? This is the literal embodiment of a deus ex machina, and it's still somehow not over? I try to give all books a fair chance, but honestly, if you're not already ensnared into reading this by a relative or friend, put this back on the shelf, return it, give it away, do anything but read it. You'll just end up disappointed with the god-is-supreme, religion-rocks ideals that the authors are practically shoving down your throat at this point.Book Review: Enough to make you go to the Dark Side
Summary: 2 Stars
I read most of this series and so I picked the last one up to see how LaHaye saw it all ending. I thought the series was very
poorly written,in general, but I was fascinated by the way the author saw this all happening; it's a different kind of premise, for sure, and interesting to see how he sees the Final Days actually playing out in our time.
The problem with it all is that it's so superhero-ish; the characters are flat and the dialogue is often painful to read. After reading about God punishing sinners with horrible diseases,etc.,and then the Antichrist or his minions doing similarly awful things to people, I found myself wondering who was actually the good guy here, which I'm sure was not what the author intended, but how else can you see it with both God and Satan being equally cruel and destructive? Additionally, the bad guys are incredibly cartoonish instead of evil--what are we talking about here, Satan, or Boris and Natasha? Then after all the waiting, Jesus turns out to be more a holograph than a real being, just repeating canned Bible phrases instead of actually speaking to the people who had been waiting so anxiously for him.
I have to agree with some of the other responders that this was not my vision of good and evil, but LaHaye and Jenkins sure have a right to picture it the way they want to. It just reminds one that human beings have a very simplistic and probably wrongheaded idea of what God is all about, from Biblical times to now. I just hope that my own kinder, gentler vision of God prevails.
Book Review: Shouldn't have ended like this
Summary: 2 Stars
This is an overblown and long-winded description of the final days. Even when Jesus finally appears, it's an exciting chapter of the book, but you still have over a hundred pages to go before it's done. There's not much to read after that. You would think with the final book of the series, there would be more bang for your buck, but not here. Antichrist and the false prophet - Carpathia and Fortunato - who we've trudged along with for twelve books, are put away within a matter of paragraphs. I'm surprised the series went 12 books (12 tribes of Israel, I know, but still).
Jesus rarely speaks out of context, all He says are quotes from the Bible. I found myself skipping whole pages because that's all it was - quotes within quotes. It's not a good read when you're skipping pages. Don't look for anymore character exploration. The same old "biggest army ever" and "most converts ever" stuff is still in the book - old stuff if you've read all 12. The ending is very sparse without even a try of describing heaven. Clearly this book should have been written better, and it seems to me Jenkins wrote it to get the series over with. It's unfortunate that a book so hyped has to be so bad.
Book Review: Impossible
Summary: 2 Stars
The eschatology of the writers blinds them to the truth. This is because they believe the resurrection is before the tribulation. Jesus said the resurrection is after the tribulation on the last day. All of the parables of Christ teach we must be doing the will of God to be worthy to escape the tribulation. He that speaks lies will not escape regardless of intentions. The greatest deceptions always came through the church.Book Review: potentially faith-shattering
Summary: 1 Stars
I felt my life being stolen away as I plowed through this volume. 200 pages in, I looked back and realized that literally nothing had happened yet. So much of this story has been characters saying and thinking the same things, same predictions about what's going to happen, regurgitating the same memories. Glacial plotting. A volume's what a chapter would be in any other book.
I became a Christian through C.S. Lewis, ravenously devouring everything he'd ever written. 25 years later, because of this series, I'm going through a serious crisis of faith. This CANNOT be what Christians want to read by the millions. This guy CANNOT be hocking his ads for how to help others write. 11 volumes ago, I thought we Christians were the most intelligent people, but I'm mistaken if this is what they're interested in reading. This volume in particular's literally stealing my faith. It's the popularity, not existence, of these books that depresses me. This's what Christians want - no plot or characterization, just mindless runaround? I started this series after seeing the movies, whose scriptwriters worked miracles.
Jesus's mind-blowingly disappointing here, quoting Himself randomly. It broke my heart to find myself skimming His words. I never want to read another Bible verse again after these writers get done with them. The plot elements consist of increasingly-contrived ways to get a Christian into a critical scene as witness to Revelation unfolding. The idea of writing a neutral perspective, or of getting into the heads of bad or neutral characters, seems to be forbidden. And that too is as very uncharitable as the rest of this monstrosity; one comes away thinking that only Christians are people and that these writers simply have never been exposed to any non-Christians. (In early volumes everyone kind of stood around waiting to be converted; but even then the writing seemed to consist of "Let me tell you about Jes-... oh, sorry, phone call.") A secretary in the darkness who'd taken the mark wanted to convert but couldn't because, well, that's what a literal reading of Revelation says; heart-wrenching, disappointing because it reads like how people who've lived in a bubble-world of Christians their whole life view outsiders.
Looking back on this series, I chiefly remember people pointlessly running around with guns, in airplanes and/or on cellphones. The Living Son of God quotes random Bible verses and inserts what everybody hears as their own name, an immensely personal experience, we're TOLD; we're SHOWN Jesus using a form-letter and inserting names from the Book of Life. Jesus (ONE good scene) calls up Rayford and discusses his life; almost a similar scene with Chang, but it's another example of the ridiculous pacing in this series. Skim over stuff like that, and give us 50 pages of Ray being dragged along on a motorcycle.
Countless missed opportunities. A huge asteroid fell into the sea, obliterating coastlines, and one sentence later we're back to our usual games of people with no money flitting about the world on their private planes to get places that they didn't have to be except that the plot called for a Christian character to witness something going on in that particular country at that particular moment. Devastating earthquakes; stores still open. (Or were people scrounging for food; it's hard to tell. The jet fuel refineries kept up at full capacity. For a novel about daily life in the Tribulation, there was very little detail about its logistics.) The earth's flattened on a page and everyone gets on with business ("Oh, look, no more mountains, isn't that - oh, sorry, phone call."). To say that these writers have absolutely no idea what to do with this material is an understatement of Biblical proportions. There's so much going on around the borders of this novel, off-screen, and all we see are the usual runarounds.
Toward the very end, there are actually a few touching snippets showing Jesus interacting with people personally. But THESE're what we've waded through 11.5 volumes of runarounds to reach? There's no concept of what's worthy of detailing, as if the writers are afraid to take chances by doing anything with Jesus, Whom we've suffered through so many airplane rides to see and hear. Jesus switches from Protestant Latin (nth Bible quotes) to splitting His infinitives (original sentence or two). They're less interested in character resolution (none of what you waited to see in this volume is actually done in detail) than they are in showing off their degrees in Biblical Engineering. I thought I was a literalist for believing in Adam & Eve, but these guys take it to a whole new level. Random passages from Isaiah, Daniel, and all the rest are used to show us in far too much detail the exacting detail of prophetic minutiae. I can't speak for anyone else, but this stuff really tested my faith: "Is this really what it means to be a Christian? Do I really have to believe every contradictory account of the endtimes in full literalness?" The more OT prophecy they spout, the more convinced I become that Isaiah etc weren't talking about the endtimes at all. I find myself praying that, faithwise, the baby doesn't go out with the bathwater, if you know what I mean.
C.S. Lewis is dead. Now you have to be a friend of these guys to get a novel published. I wash my hands of the ghetto of Christian literature. Sorry to vent, but I'm really not kidding about the faith thing. My pastor says you can't really call yourself a Christian if you don't like to be around Jesus' people. If the people praising this series are who he's talking about, I've got some serious thinking to do. Lewis made me think that Christians were intelligent; Jenkins makes me think you have to check your brain at the door.