Customer Reviews

The Blood of the Lamb

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Here is a book which had all the makings for a truly great novel. It has a great plot, with a very believable storyline, i.e. the origins of the Anti-Christ. I think in many respects this view of the Anti-Christ's origins is highly plausible, and I give much kudos to the author for developing it.

However, the ending was very anticlimatic. Maybe the author ran out of steam towards the end. Nevertheless an interesting book to read for many individuals (Christians and non-Christians alike) who may also be students of Eschatology (the study of end-times theology).

"Blood of the Lamb" contains an extremely creative idea: to clone Christ. Of course, such a premise is fairly hard for anyone to take seriously, and this book doesn't achieve that. But it's a good, readable book which I felt had many unusual plot twists which occasionally made one feel a bit queasy on the inside. It's easy to find all the biblical references in it; Satan's temptation, virgin birth, calling of the first disciples, Judas' betrayal, and the idea of Jesus having a lover (Marion in the book, Mary Magdalene in legends). After reading it and finding the "surprise" ending (which isn't really a surprise; you can probably guess who Peter REALLY is halfway through the book) it's hard to resist the temptation to get out your Bible and turn to Revelations, 'cause the similarities are definitely there. I disagree with Kirkus Reviews that this book calls for a sequel. It's one of the books that sound like there would be one, but would definitely be ruined by it. Probably my biggest problem with the book is that Peter Carenza is such a likeable character that it is much too hard to accept the truth. But I guess that that's what the author wanted. In short, it's really a good book. Get it.

While cloning Jesus might seem like a great thing to be doing, on the surface, we find out that it might not be the best thing to be doing. Thomas F. Monteleone comes out with a great premise. Suppose the Vatican cloned Jesus to bring about the Second Coming. As with most any book of a religious basing, the Vatican once again becomes the bad guy. But, in truth, as the book progresses, the idea of any villian or hero beomes mixed and confused. Monteleone has done something that I absolutely love to hate. He has made the true villian of the book a most interesting and lovable character. All of the clues are put before us in this wonderful thriller, but we choose to either ignore them or interpret them in a totally different light as the story progresses. It makes for excellent storytelling when a plot that twists as much as this one does turns the characters the reader abhors into the actual "white hat good guys." It is seldom that a writer can do this in a satisfactory way, but Monteleone has pulled it off with stunning success. The book has quite a few well-developed characters, though, in truth, I would have liked to have seen about 200 more pages dedicated to the "prequel" of this story wherein we could better get to know the main character's mother, the old scientist, etc. However, as it stands, the book is quite excellent. One thing that has always bothered me about books such as this is that if the Vatican has all these wonderfully naughty people working for them, why must they constantly attack a main character head-on. Would it not be simpler to place a guy on a tower with a high-powered rifle? Of course, the story might be quite a bit shorter if such were to happen, so I will live with these delicious little thrillers as they are. An excellent book. Well-written, intricately plotted, and most certainly thoroughlt entertaining. A must-read!

It's nice to read a book by an author who has some guts. Monteleone's story is astounding. It fills you with hope, doubt, fear, joy and anger. This book really takes you on an emotional and spiritual journey with Vatican henchmen constantly on your tail. Think Robert Ludlum meets Dan Brown, although I think this book is by far better than anything the aforementioned scribes have penned. The ending is haunting and just plain out awesome. This is a book you wish never ended. I hated having to close the backcover. Luckily, there is a sequel called "The Reckoning". That's in my shopping cart!

The novel is darkish but has a very compelling story line. I read both the English and the German version and found the latter one full of blunders and translation mistakes. However, in English it is really fun to read. The concept of cloning things past -- aptly coming up two years after Michael Crichton's "Jurassic Park" -- does not leave the impression that Monteleone simply rehashed Crichton's idea: It has entirely different consequences when applied to the blood of Jesus. Light fiction or not: This book gets my recommendation -- and I ask the admonitory question to Amazon: Why the hell is this book not available for Kindle?

After meeting the author Tom Monteleone in NY on my honeymoon, I felt compelled to read some of his work. I must say I thoroughly enjoyed the book and read it cover to cover in about two days. I love the story line - cloning Jesus Christ from the blood of the Shroud of Turin. Fascinating stuff!! The story unwinds slowly and builds to what I thought would be some cataclysmic ending - with the end of civilization as we know it or something equally shocking. But the book goes out with more of a whimper than a scream. But overall, it is a great read. I am currently reading "The Night of Broken Souls" - another great read.

This novel takes the Jurassic Park idea and puts a disturbing religious twist on it. Imagine using DNA cloning on the blood taken from the Shroud of Turin (It's late.. I hope I spelled this right) This is a very well written novel, well deserving of the Bram Stoker award, which it won. Read it! (Great ending as well)

This is a prototypical high concept thriller. When thirty year old Father Peter Carenza seemingly wields lightning in fending off a mugger in Brooklyn, he is summoned to the Vatican. There we discover that, three decades ago, forces within the Vatican secured a DNA sample from the Shroud of Turin and decided to try to clone Christ. Now their dream is approaching fruition but they quickly discover that they can not control their own creation. And when Peter's behavior starts to become somewhat odd, there's little anyone can do to stop him, not even the Vatican's own ruthless assassin.

It's all exactly as contrived as it sounds, but Mr. Monteleone has fun with his premise. My main objection is that he's entirely too cynical and the portraits of religion and the religious border on bigotry. But taken on its own terms, its fairly entertaining.

GRADE: C

So it started off as a 4 star book (since I'm more of a horror/dark fantasy guy, it would have been 5 stars if the book's direction was more along those lines and not action/thriller), and i was really into Father Carenza and the sexy reporter...but somewhere along the lines Carenza became a minor character and Mr. Monteleone stopped writing about him and started focusing more on the TV evangelist and other supporting characters. Towards the end of the novel, it would have been great to get more insights from Carenza. And I'm not really sure what the point of Sister Etienne was. Was that ever resolved? The big problem is that Mr. Monteleone sets up far too many questions for the sequel, rather than making this more of a stand alone book. At some point i'll track down the sequel and give it a read. OVERALL TAKE on the book - very enjoyable, quick read, raises lots of interesting questions...but too many questions and not enough focus on the main character towards the end.

This is an interesting book with a controversal subject. It does contain many errors in facts that it uses as part of the story line, so the author should do better research ie: southern Indiana is as flat as a pool ( it actually is rolling hills, Northern Indiana is flat). May be controversal to those who are religious for it does show some of the not so pleasant sides of many types of Christian religions. Borders on medical science fiction for a basis to the story. Easy reading, not really scary, but controversal subject.