I can't wait for this review.

Your waiting is over. I hope I haven't disappointed.

I knew you would add a fresh perspective on things (fresh for me at any rate). You didn't come right out and say it, but you reminded me that this was a piece of fiction with at least a partial purpose of entertaining the audience. Thanks for the suggestion for further reading too.

Have you read Piers Antony's Incarnations of Immorality series?

Yes, I read them all, and I liked them for the most part. My favorite was the first one - On a Pale Horse.

Your review almost makes me want to read this book that I've avoided like the plague.

Chris, why did you ask about the Incarnations of Immortality series? I haven't read it, so I'm a bit puzzled at how it's related?

@Sandi Piers Anthony takes a stab at a similar theme in that series. Originally, he conceived only five novels, centering around the Immortal Incarnations of Death, War, Time, Nature and Fate. If I remember correctly, he decided to add two more, but had to switch publishers. The last two were Satan and God.

Even though Piers is a professed atheist (or agnostic - can't remember which), these novels were good reading and dealt with some of the same themes present in Left Behind. At least Piers didn't take himself too seriously. :)

I'll have to check those out. I've liked most of the Piers Anthony books I've read, but haven't wanted to get caught up in the Xanth series because there are to darned many of them.

The earlier Xanth books are the better ones. I use to be a huge Anthony fan. Then it seemed like he wasn't getting enjoyment out of it. For instance, if you read Discworld, you can tell that Pratchett enjoys it. The later Xanth books felt Anthony was writing them because he had too.

My sentiments exactly Chris. I like the first half dozen Xanth novels. Then they started to pale and become shadows of themselves.

Jon, Anthony states, in his preface to Through the Ice, that he's an agnostic (the death of a beloved teenage cousin made him question the existence of a God who could allow such a thing). In that book, though, and in his Xanth series, he writes profoundly moral fiction.

My situation is the opposite of Sandi's; my reading of Anthony has been almost entirely in his Xanth series -- I've read nearly a dozen of those books, and liked them all. (My wife is a fan of that series, too.) Of course, that said, many series do lose something of their freshness and vital quality over time, and I think the later Xanth books do show some of that phenomenon. But Anthony does a fairly good job of introducing new characters and situations to help counteract that, IMO.

Werner, have you tried Terry Pratchett?

Yes; I love his Bromeliad trilogy, which also deals, in a humorous way, with philosophical/ theological issues --and not necessarily in a fashion that's incompatible with a Christian perspective, either. (It's only incompatible with theological ethnocentrism and a limited vision of the universe. :-)) I wasn't as impressed with the first Discworld novel --which isn't nearly as deep-- but I did like it. (So did my wife, but she also liked the Bromeliad books better.)

The later Disc novels are better. You might try Small Gods or Wyrd Sisters

Yes, I've been told that the series gets better. My wife and I definitely want to read at least the second book, so I have my eye out for a copy. (We usually like to read a series in order, if possible --though we haven't always done that with the Xanth books.)

I enjoyed the first Xanth book I read (don't remember which), but the next one just seemed variations on a theme. Haven't tried more.

Same with Pratchett. Maybe I need to try another.

Am struggling through Connie Willis's Doomsday Book even though I wasn't that impressed with To Say Nothing of the Dog. The concept is cute, but the execution spotty.

Speaking of Jerry Jenkins' series, if you like sports books you might find his better than the Left Behind tales, where he was tied to LeHayes theology. Also Jenkins's Though None Go With Me was good.

For those who like apocalypses, Joel Rosenberg currently has a political thriller series with End Times implications. Conservative techno-action stories. Rosenberg's a good storytellers, but his stories were not convincing.

You're right about those conversion scenes. They were fear based and creepy. These books are not very biblical at all (the Rapture itself is not in the Bible) and they rely too much on arcane and unlikely interpretations of scattered books in the Bible. I think that an Apocalyptic book based on the idea of the Rapture (from a Christian perspective even if the Rapture isn't orthodox Christian) could be a very powerful read but this isn't that book.