The Left Behind Complete Set, Series 1-12

by Tim LaHaye

Buck reached for her cookie sack. “What’re you doing?” she said. “We’re not hungry, remember?” “Just smell this,” he said. “Fragrance is such a memory enhancer.” He opened her cookie sack and held it up to his face. “Mmm,” he said. “Cookie dough, chocolate, nuts, butter, you name it.” He tilted it toward her, and she leaned to sniff it. “I do love that smell,” she said. Buck reached with his other hand and cupped her cheek in his palm. She didn’t pull away but held his look. “Remember this moment,” he said. “I’ll be thinking of you while I’m gone.” “Me too,” she said. “Now close that bag. That cookie has to stay fresh so the smell will remind me.”

This speaks for itself

Buck sat in first class

Aha! I knew we'd find out!

“Thank you, Caryn,” he said, as if to an old friend. Apparently she was. When she was gone he whispered, “The Litewski family, from my first parish.

"Caryn Litewski"

He was getting ready to head to the airport and she for work when CNN broadcast a press conference live from the meeting of international religious leaders in New York. “Watch this, Dad,” she said. “Buck is there.”

Red alert: incoming infodump detected!

And sure enough, as they watched, Buck quickly and quietly reached into his little sack, surreptitiously and almost invisibly slid out the cookie, put it to his mouth, and took a bite. Chloe matched him gesture for gesture, and Rayford noticed she was smiling and crying at the same time.

They were announcing not only an effort to cooperate and be more tolerant of each other but also the formation of an entirely new religion, one that would incorporate the tenets of all. “And lest that sound impossible to the devout members of each of our sects,” Mathews said, “we are all, every one of us, in total unanimity. Our religions themselves have caused as much division and bloodshed around the world as any government, army, or weapon. From this day forward we will unite under the banner of the Global Community Faith. Our logo will contain sacred symbols from religions that represent all, and from here on will encompass all. Whether we believe God is a real person or merely a concept, God is in all and above all and around all. God is in us. God is us. We are God.”

Tim LaHaye must shudder every time he sees one of those "Coexist" bumper stickers

“But what happens to the Islamic Dome of the Rock?” “I am so glad you asked that question,” Carpathia said, and Buck wondered if he hadn’t planted it. “Our Muslim brothers have agreed to move not only the shrine but also the sacred section of the rock to New Babylon, freeing the Jews to rebuild their temple on what they believe is the original site.

Tim LaHaye decides to have the Muslims move their sacred site to the Antichrist's new capital. Hmmmmmmmmmm………

“With the move of the United Nations headquarters to New Babylon will come a new name for our great organization. We will become known as the Global Community!”

Oof, you sure you don't want to focus test that name?

Nicolae saw Buck and broke stride, telling his bodyguards he wanted to talk with someone. They formed a human wall around him as Carpathia embraced Buck. It was all Buck could do to not recoil.

“So you’ll be the pope of popes.”

The Daddy of Daddies (loosely translating the Latin, of course)

“First, Rayford, only if you were encountering the Antichrist in the second half of the Tribulation would you actually be dealing with the person who was possessed by Satan himself.” “So what is Carpathia? Some second-rate demon?” “No, you need prayer support.

Don't side-step the question! I want answers.

Hattie was waiting when he stepped off the elevator. He had hoped to have a moment to get the lay of the land, to freshen up, to take a deep breath. But there she stood in all her youthful beauty, more stunning than ever because of a tan and expensively tailored clothes on a frame that needed no help. He did not expect what he saw, and he sensed evil in the place when a flash of longing for her briefly invaded his mind.

"Scene D'Amour," from Vertigo starts playing

And as soon as Hattie opened her mouth, he was brought back to reality. Her diction and articulation were more refined, but this was still a woman without a clue, and he could hear it in her tone. “Captain Steele,” she gushed. “How wonderful to see you again! How is everyone else?”

F#©¢ you too, Rayford. I'm so sick of Hattie getting berated like this by literally every other character AND the narrator. It's not fun; it just makes me angry.

She led him to her work area, which was disconcertingly open. No one was around to overhear them, but the ceilings were at least twenty feet high. Her desk and tables and file cabinets were set in a cavernous area, much like a railway station, with no confining walls. Footsteps echoed, and Rayford had the distinct impression that they were a long way from the offices of the secretary-general.

Like a railway station??

After years as Hattie Durham’s captain, Rayford now felt like her subordinate, sitting across from her impressive desk.

Not mah patriarchy!!! *p-twang!*

“He has a relationship.” “Anybody we know?” Rayford gave her a disgusted look.

"How dare you have a consenting sexual relationship, woman who used to work for me, and who I still kinda want to have sex with?!"

“Why would someone pursuing my daughter make me want to run? She’s almost twenty-one. It’s time she was pursued.”

Run, Chloe! You're as good as one of Lot's daughter's at this rate.

Hattie sounded like a parrot. Carpathia had taught her well, if not to understand, at least to believe.

“OK,” Rayford summarized, “Carpathia somehow gets Pan-Con and the White House to put me at the top of the list of pilots for Air Force One. He has you agitate me at home so I’ll want to move. I take the job, he gets the plane and never gives it back. I’m the pilot, but I’m paid by the U.S. government. And this all ties in with Carpathia eventually becoming the leader of the world.” Hattie rested her chin in her entwined fingers, elbows on the desk. She cocked her head. “That wasn’t so complicated, was it?”

When you phrase it like that, it's almost like we didn't need it to take half of the book.

At least he lives by Christian principles. He’s always concerned for the greater good. That’s one of his favorite phrases.

Chorus of cloaked figures: "THE GREATER GOOD."

but since it is for the greater good of the world,

"THE GREATER GOOD."

Buck was scribbling furiously.

Same

who was pulling a large trunk on wheels.

You mean a suitcase?

“Let me say this: Today I have become a bit of a politician. Do I believe God is a concept? No! I believe God is a person! Do I believe that all the religions of the world can work together and become one? No, probably not. My God is a jealous God and will share his glory with no other. However, can we tolerate each other? Certainly. “But, you may ask, why do I say I have become a politician? Because I will compromise for the sake of rebuilding the temple. As long as I do not have to sacrifice my belief in the one true God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, I will tolerate and cooperate with anyone with a good heart. I do not agree with them or with their methods, many of them, but if they want to get along, I want to get along. Above all, I want the temple rebuilt on its original site. This was virtually done as of today. I predict the temple will be constructed within the year.”

This guy sounds pretty reasonable

Rabbi Feinberg stepped and spun, watching the line of cabs, obviously worried about the time.

That is one crammed sentence

Feinberg seemed pleased when Buck finally got off the phone. “Back to the temple!” he shouted, and the driver pulled his foot off the gas. “Not you!” Feinberg said. “Us!”

Hey, a joke that made me chuckle! Good one, Tim.

Buck wondered what a man with such unbounded energy and enthusiasm might do in another profession. “You’d have been a killer racquetball player,” he said.

Of all the sports to think of

“Never too busy for physical exercise,” the rabbi said, smacking himself on his flat, hard stomach.

This ripped rabbi is legitimately the best character so far, with the possible exception of that UFO-believing pilot in book 1. Can he be a new POV character please?

Carpathia flashed a thumbs-up sign, and the workers in the hangar applauded.

“We would like to board,” Carpathia whispered, and within minutes a lift had been jury-rigged that allowed them to enter from the rear of the sparkling new plane.

I like to imagine that all the painters formed a human ladder up to the door, like some sort of amatuer gymnastics team

“What makes a good pilot?” Buck asked. “A smooth takeoff and landing. Lots of communication with the passengers. And treating the crew like peers rather than slaves.”

My ideal pilot provides as little communication as possible. Sure, tell me if we're about to crash, but more importantly, stop interrupting my audiobook! Can't you see I'm in the middle of another LaHaye masterpiece?

When Rayford arrived home that evening, he knew Chloe would be able to tell he was pensive.

Lol, what?

“Hardly. He doesn’t even know we ate our cookies at the same time. I wouldn’t miss telling him that for anything.”

Proper procedure and protocol come next. We do everything by the book, and we keep our logs and checklists as we go. We look sharp, we stay in the background, we serve our hosts and passengers. While we are deferential to the dignitaries and serve them, their safety is our primary concern. The best airplane crew is an invisible one. People feel comfort and security when they see uniforms and service, not individuals.”

I would not mind having Rayford as my pilot

If I take this job I imagine I’ll be seeing a lot of the Middle East over the next few years.”

TAKE THE JOB

“Ees dis Chamerown Weeleeums?” came the thick Hebrew accent. “Yes, sir.” “Dees ist Dochtor Tsion Ben-Judah.”

Oh great, we’re doing accents now

He didn’t take the time to find the electrical adapter for his hair dryer but just yanked a towel off the rack and attacked his long hair, feeling as if he were pulling half of it out of his scalp.

I don’t think I’ve heard of someone using a towel wrong, but they don’t call him Buck for nothing. How does a towel make you feel like your hair will be pulled out?

He had forgotten his cell and had no idea what the rabbi looked like. Would he look like Rosenzweig, or Feinberg, or neither?

This is way too close to racial profiling. Imagine if Buck thought this about a set of African men. Or Asian or Hispanic or American Indian—take your pick.

“Precisely. As for personal information, I am forty-four years old. I grew up in Haifa, the son of an Orthodox rabbi. I have two doctorates, one in Jewish history and one in ancient languages. I have studied and taught my whole life and consider myself more of a scholar and historian than an educator, though my students have been most kind in their evaluations. I think and pray and read mostly in Hebrew, and I am embarrassed to speak English so poorly, especially in an egalitarian country like this. I know English grammar and syntax better than most Englishmen and certainly most Americans, present company excepted I’m sure, but I have never had the time to practice, let alone perfect, my diction. I married only six years ago and have two teenage stepchildren, a boy and a girl.

Aaaand the author immediately drops the accent for this character once he realizes it will be hard to write these giant paragraphs of backstory.

“Do the two ever take a break?” “Yes, they do. Occasionally one will move around the side of that little building there and lie on the ground near the fence. They will often trade off resting and speaking.

Do they use the bathroom?

“I have no reason to doubt my friend, though he was several hundred feet away.”

I have no reason to doubt them, but I do have this reason to doubt them.

The rabbi looked shaken. “Buck,” he whispered ominously, “he is speaking in Hebrew.”

How does one whisper ominously? Is that where you add spoopy ghost sounds between words?

He found a Norwegian and spoke to him in his native tongue, then some Asians.

“. . . then some Asians.” Made me crack up.

“Ayeee!” A young man wearing boots, khaki slacks, and a white T-shirt came screaming through the crowd. People fell to the ground when they saw his automatic weapon. He wore a gold necklace, and his black hair and beard were unkempt. His dark eyes were ablaze as he rattled off a few rounds into the air, which cleared a path for him directly to the preachers. He shouted something in an Eastern dialect Buck did not understand, but as he lay on the pavement peeking out from under his arms, Rabbi Ben-Judah whispered, “He says he’s on a mission from Allah.”

Oh my God, LaHaye went full “Allahu akbar.” My jaw dropped to the floor when this appeared. On second thought, maybe it’s a good thing we didn’t have a POV character in the Middle East until now.

Suddenly one of the preachers shouted, “You are forbidden to come nigh to the servants of the Most High God! We are under his protection until the due time, and woe to anyone who approaches without the covering of Yahweh himself.” And as he finished, the other breathed from his mouth a column of fire that incinerated the man’s clothes, consumed his flesh and organs, and in seconds left a charred skeleton smoking on the ground. The weapon melted and was fused to the cement, and the man’s molten necklace dripped gold through the cavity in his chest.

Dope! More of this, please. This is straight out of Game of Thrones.

shuddered uncontrollably.

It wasn’t like her to say something was urgent unless it really was.

“What chance would those two have against a sniper with a high-powered weapon? You close the place down, clear out the innocent bystanders, and shoot those two dead. Use a grenade or even a missile if you have to.” “That’s Carpathia’s idea?” “Straight from the horse’s mouth,” Plank said. “Spoken like a true pacifist.”

Meh, I’ll give this one points for at least ending the chapter on a zinger.

Rayford watched the news and was certain Chloe had been correct. It had indeed been Buck Williams, not more than thirty feet from the witnesses and even closer to the gunman, who was now little more than charred bones on the pavement.

We literally just saw this scene, and we’re *still* getting a cable news recap about it

Chloe sounded emotional.

And I sound like a person who just face-palmed