Customer Reviews

Glorious Appearing: The End of Days (Left Behind #12)

5 star:		(87)
4 star:		(38)
3 star:		(39)
2 star:		(47)
1 star:		(108)

 

 

Just as a preface, I found the previous books in the Left Behind series flawed but engaging enough to warrant reading. For a lengthy and relatively faithful rendition of how Revelation might play out in our world, I thought the books were suitable--though I would love to see this story retold more realistically and not in a preaching-to-the-choir sort of way.

All that said, Glorious Appearing was a large disappointment for a variety of reasons, most of which are problems in the writing rather than the content of the source material. The first major problem is that there is zero dramatic tension once Jesus shows up. You know the good guys won't get touched and you know all the bad guys will get what's coming to them. You also know exactly what's going to happen, because all the characters have been studying the Scriptures and talking about the prophecies which will be fulfilled. I know that the fulfillment of prophecy is very important for eschatological writing, but novels need dramatic tension to keep the reader's interest. I think it would have been much more interesting to have the focal point characters NOT always in the know, and have them struggle through these experiences without knowing all the answers before hand.

The second major problem is how Jesus and the angels speak: almost entirely in passages lifted straight from the Bible. I'd imagine Lahaye and Jenkins wanted to err on the side of caution here, not wanting to ascribe to Jesus anything that he might not say. That was a mistake for two reasons. From a dramatic standpoint, it made Jesus and the angels dull, their dialogue stale and tedious because we've heard it before (and in this very book series, too). From a theological standpoint, it's troubling because it feels like it's limiting Jesus. A better solution would be to have Jesus speak original, modern dialogue that fits with who he is (as presented in the Bible) and is tied closer to the context of the book.

The third problem is that individual perspective is all but obliterated. Very often there will be a six-page section during which the focal character's name is mentioned once... and then somehow he or she is able to witness things such as mountains splitting in two and entire cities raised hundreds of feet. This book is written like a summary rather than a personal experience. If I wanted the broad picture from a distant point of view I would read Revelation or one of the hundreds of commentaries written on that book. When I'm reading a book--particularly one labeled as FICTION--I want to know and feel what the characters are going through. To this extent, I would rather the characters and myself know less about what's going to happen, so I can experience a much richer and less predictable drama.

There are other problems with this book but those are the primary ones. If you've read most of the previous books in the Left Behind series, then you should definitely read through this one just to complete the story. If you haven't read any of the series or you've only read a book or two, you might want to reconsider before you invest your time in 12 books with a disappointing payoff.

The books are based on worthwhile material (Revelation--which I'd recommend over these books any day) and the authors seem to have good intentions (though I question why they had to stretch this out over so many books if not for money-making reasons), but the execution really falls short in the end. Hopefully the financial success of this series will pave the way for another, better fictional rendering of Revelation.

I was looking forward to the release of this book for almost a year. I was at the bookstore on the day it came out. Unfortunately, Glorious Appearing left much to be desired. It is full of filler, quotes from The Bible, and nothingness. I wanted so badly to enjoy reading it, as I have read the previous books and loved them. But this is not impressive.

The wars are fought. Of course, we win, since nothing can harm the children of God. The Lord returns. And that is it! THE END!

I am a born-again Christian who believes that the order of events in the books are correct. I know much about the Bible, and have done my homework when it comes to The Gospel. I am thankful that the series has led people to Christ, but I am sorry to say that this book has failed to entertain me.

Whoo boy, what can I say about this one? I am a Christian and it's nice that Christian themes are getting a lot of attention these days. But this book committed a cardinal sin in fiction - it bored me nearly to death. The writing is so poor that during the reading of the book on a CD version my daughter and I listened to on a cross-country car trip, we ended up fast-forwarding lots of it, and even skipping whole CD's, just so we could finally hear what happened at the end.
I read several of the early books in this series, and they seemed to get more padded with each installment. I gave up in frustration some time around book 7, but decided to try this one to see how the whole thing ended. That turned out to be a mistake.
As far as what exactly is wrong with this book, it's hard to know where to begin. The characters are all two-dimensional for starters. They talk in speeches and platitudes for pages at a time. When they are brief they sound like comic book characters, and poorly-written ones at that.
In stories like this, the villain is very important. He provides the sense of menace that gives the story its tension. One wonders how the heroes are going to defeat such an awesome adversary. In this story the villain, Satan himself, comes off as a buffoon. He is mostly comic relief, thus depriving the reader of any sense of foreboding.
Any other possible drama is diffused by the characters in this book telling us ahead of time exactly what is going to happen. And they're usually right. So where's the drama? It's like watching a football game where the good guys are ahead 1 million to zero in the 4th quarter. And we're supposed to be holding our breath.
Read your Bible instead. It's written a whole lot better.

Somehow the authors have managed to make the climactic event of history into a yawner. Their endless sermonizing and stringing together of Biblical texts has created one of the most anticlimatic climaxes I've yet to experience. The logical conclusion to a series that began well and then was stretched way beyond reason for what could only be marketing purposes.

I had read the first five books of the series in hardback, but since my local library carried all the books on audio cassette or cd, I decided to listen to them all while driving or working around the house.

Each book held my interest for the most part, but Richard Ferrone's reading of the books was atrocious. The two books read by Frank Muller were much more enjoyable as he had a wonderful knack for accents and actually modulates his voice to depict emotions.

I was very much looking forward to the last book in the series when Jesus returned. But LaHaye's and Jenkins's Jesus? Is dull. They put nary an original word in Jesus' mouth. It was as if they took a bible with "Jesus' words in red" and just copied it verbatim. Perhaps they felt unworthly of giving Jesus original speach. If so, they should never have written this book. I've read the gospels and Paul's letter. I own several bibles. I didn't need to reread the entire new testament in this book. By the time the Saints returned from heaven, I could have hardly cared less. I just wanted the torture of listening to this book to be over!

These guys sure know how to write a pacy thriller! But that is all this book is, folks. For what they say will happen in the End Times and what God's Word, the Scriptures, say will happen, are two totally different things. Get your kicks out of reading a racy, pacy thriller! But read what the Bible says to get your theology.

Now let me see if I got this right: Jesus returns to earth on a bloody rampage in which He lifts His left hand, a chasm opens in the earth, and every non-born-again Christian tumbles howling into Hell. Supposedly this not only includes Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Baha'is, animists and every other non-Christian, it also throws in most Catholics, Unitarians, Episcopalians and mainline Protestants. The world is left cleansed of sin and sinners. Hallelujah!

Such is the conclusion of "Glorious Appearing", the twelfth (and thank heavens the last) of the phenomenally successful "Left Behind" series. Jesus defeats His foes (every non-born-again Christian is counted in this category) and ushers in a whole new millenium of peace on earth. The only problem is, the new millenium is riding in on a tide of blood and gore. What kind of Jesus is this?

The biggest problem with "Glorious Appearing" is that the Appearing isn't glorious at all; it's a holocaust of blood. "Jesus merely raised one hand a few inches," say Jenkins and LaHaye in the sophomoric prose that is typical throughout this book, "and... they tumbled in, howling and screeching." Hoo-boy! Yay for our side! But better is to come: humans and horses are, in Jenkins/LaHaye's deathless words, "splayed and filleted" (it rhymes!) like so much meat on a rack. Question: why kill off the horses? Who did the horses sin against? Or were they at fault for carrying sinners? Should they have known they were sinners and bucked them off?

You've got the general idea by this time: I loathe this book. Imagine if it had been written by a Muslim fundamentalist, preferably from Saudi Arabia, who has Allah causing a ghastly holocaust that killed off every non-Muslim on the planet. Christians everywhere would be outraged. As they should also be by this book. Whatever Jesus Jenkins and LaHaye portray on these pages, it isn't the Jesus of the New Testament. The Jesus of the New Testament is the God of Love. The Jesus of "Glorious Appearing" is some kind of murdering Moloch. This is not the Jesus I learned about in Sunday school, nor is it one I'd ever acknowledge as the Saviour of mankind.

Would Jesus have condemned the Good Samaritan to Hell because he wasn't a Christian? Or Buddha? Or Socrates? Instead of promoting tolerance and understanding, the book preaches hate and intolerance. Bow down and worship Jesus the right way, or by God, you'll end up "splayed and filleted". Just like the book says.

One can only imagine that if Jesus read this intolerant bigoted rant that culminates the "Left Behind" series, He might come storming back down to earth yelling "I said WHAT?!!?"

Judy Lind

To all of you who are non-Christians and have read this series because you've become involved in the characters and their epic struggle, let me save you some time if you're considering reading this book. In a few lines here is the entire book for you.

1. Guy says "Look, it's Jesus!"
2. Jesus says "Yes, I am Jesus!"
3. Guy says "Jesus, you're awesome!"
4. Jesus says "Yes, I am awesome!"
5. Guy says "no really dude, you're AWESOME!"
6. Jesus says "Yes, I AM awesome!"
7. Jesus expounds with pages of "I am, I did, I will, I have, I etc., etc., etc." amidst echoing choruses.
8. Repeat items 1-7 for every major, minor, peripheral, oblique and once heard of character in the entire series that still draws breath.

Oh, and somewhere in the book the bad guys lose and are sent to the fiery pit the end.

This is not a criticism of Christianity or the Bible, it is a criticism of authors who took their standard 80% story/20% proselytizing fluff and completely reversed it for this book. Two chapters of story do not a book make.

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.

First, I won't use my review to editorialize, as many others have done. Second, it's difficult to relay to an anonymous person how they will enjoy this book. If you are a fundamentalist Christian who believes in a literal Rapture, you'll either love it for it's religious plot or hate it because you find something wrong with the authors' interpretation of biblical prophecy. If your something else, you'll probably find the violence and self-righteousness of the book sickening. The author's repeatedly belittle the beliefs of others in the most hateful way. For example, Satan claims that he evolved and wasn't created, and then is promptly tossed into Hell. This the author's spiteful revenge on modern science's concept of evolution, which calls into question the fundamentalist's belief in a literal interpretation of the world's creation in Genesis. A far as style goes, the books are not in any way great literature. Many times the plot is simple minded and the prose is inferior to most popular fiction novels. For such a controversial book and series, this is the best information I know to give.