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“Ben-Judah was ridiculed for his beliefs, for his contentions that scriptural prophecy could be taken literally. He said an earthquake would come. It came. He said hail and blood and fire would scorch the plants. They did. He said things would fall from the sky, poisoning water, killing people, sinking ships. They fell. “He said the sun and the moon and the stars would be stricken and that the world would be one-third darker. Well, I am finished. I don’t know what to make of it except that I feel a bigger fool every day. And let me just add, I want to know what Dr. Tsion Ben-Judah says is
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Over the next several weeks, seasons were skewed. Major Midwest cities looked like Alaska in the dead of winter. Power reserves were exhausted. Hundreds of thousands all over the world died of exposure.
“It ain’t right, and it ain’t natural!”
While snow swirled and drifted and Israelis paid top dollar for protective clothing, stayed inside, and used building material for fuel, there stood Eli and Moishe in their same spot.
I considered dropping an Elsa quote here, but decided that’d be too tacky
Nicolae Carpathia himself was strangely silent and his visage scarce.
I mean, that basically describes him in this whole book. He made a single appearance at the conference and that’s it. Not that an ominous bad guy pulling strings unseen can’t be effective. But we’ve already been exposed to him so much, it doesn’t generate any mystery or tension. It’s just kind of nothing.
Hattie continuing to maintain, “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m only getting what I deserve.”
Hattie, cut it out and become the action hero we all know you deserve to be
In Mount Prospect, Rayford, Tsion, Chloe, Floyd, and Hattie watched as Carpathia came on TV
All of the news scenes that were refreshingly absent from the first 2/3 must have all been crammed into this last 1/3 of the book.
The plan proved his most foolhardy yet. His face was still tender in spots and numb in others since getting the stitches out several weeks before. He had not expected to have to deal with frostbite in Israel. He and his two compatriots found a stairway that led to an abandoned building with a sealed door, fewer than a hundred yards from the Wall. With Carpathia expected at noon, they built their shelter in the pitch-blackness of the morning. If others ventured out in the howling blizzard, Buck and his friends didn’t see them. They were raw and cold by the time they climbed into their
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This is one of the weirdest things anyone has done in this series, and that’s saying a lot
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As the world watched on television, Carpathia said, “I bring you cordial greetings from the Global Community. I assume, because of your obvious supernatural powers, that you knew I was coming.”
Carpathia marched in front of the main camera and stared into it from inches away. He spoke wearily, but with his usual precise enunciation. “Upon further review, the death of the Global Community guard at the Meeting of the Witnesses was not the responsibility of any of the witnesses or any member of Dr. Ben-Judah’s inner circle. The man killed by GC troops at the airport was not a terrorist. My good friend Dr. Chaim Rosenzweig was at no time and in no way holding Ben-Judah or his people at our behest. As of this moment, no one sympathetic to Dr. Ben-Judah and his teachings is considered a
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This makes Carpathia seem like the more reasonable party. Also, this basically works.
Still, none seemed able to turn their telescopes from it. Eventually the unidentified falling object was projected to land somewhere in an uninhabited region of the Fertile Crescent, near what many believed was the cradle of civilization.
I don’t know why, but this sounds very stupid to me. Like a dumb person’s idea of what science sounds like.
they reported that it appeared to slip past the earth’s surface into a deep crevice. Aerial studies of the area showed the impossibility of vehicular or foot traffic to more closely evaluate the object and its effect or lack thereof on the earth’s crust. As planes circled and shot still pictures and videotape, however, a geological eruption registered high on the Richter scale of seismology sensors all over the world. This thing that fell to earth, whatever it was, had somehow triggered volcanolike activity deep beneath the earth’s surface.
It’s like Jenkins and LaHaye don’t have the language to describe what they are imagining, and think that consulting geologists is for cowards
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the first evidence of what happened beneath the earth was a mushroom cloud a thousand times bigger and launched with that much more power and speed than any in history produced by bombs or natural phenomena. Also unique about this eruption was that it came from the crevice below sea level rather than from the typical volcanic mountain.
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The thick fumes that gushed from the ground were dense and black like the base of a gasoline fire.
Love it when writers use similes that are so specific they don’t actually clarify what’s happening. For example: “The pain was intense, like getting bubblegum stuck in a paper cut.” I guess I’ll just take your word from the first description, because I haven’t experienced your second.
Buck was devastated to learn that his flight to Athens and then on to the States had been cancelled.
You know he secretly likes it, because it means a whole ‘nother round of flight planning. What’s great is that immediately after this line, we get a paragraph describing his now-cancelled plans, including layovers, and the next paragraph just starts, “Instead…” in the most un-self-aware move I’ve seen from these guys in a while.
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“To be an atheist or an agnostic is one thing. Even they are welcome beneath our all-inclusive banner. But it is illegal to practice a form of religion that flies in the face of our mission. Such practitioners and their followers will suffer.
It was early morning in the Chicago area as Rayford pulled away from the safe house in Buck’s Range Rover. Despite the smoky skies, he felt he had to get to Palwaukee and check on the condition of Ken Ritz’s Suburban.
Sometimes even context doesn’t help. This stuff just comes at you, and you’re like, “Okay, sure. Sounds menial, but this might as well be a scene.”
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Buck heard the angel and mistook it for the TV until he saw the look on Chaim’s face. The old man was terrified. How could he, or anyone, doubt the existence of God now? This was no longer about ignorance. It was about choice.
There, his head under the hood of Ritz’s Suburban, was Ernie, the new believer.
The mark on his forehead stood out clearly as if he was proud of it, but he was also shivering.
“Where do you get off calling me sir? You don’t know me!” Caught off guard, Rayford’s old nature took over. “What, am I talking to an alien? How does polite society refer to strangers on your planet, Bo?” He hit the name with as much sarcasm as he could muster.
“Why don’t you just take your opportunistic tail out of here while it’s still part of your body?” Bo said. Rayford was boiling and repenting of his attitude even as he spewed venom.
Okay, I LOVE Jenkin’s insult dialogue, especially when he then compliments himself by calling it “spewing venom”
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Rayford felt his blood boil again. “Oh, that makes a lot of sense. He dies before your deal is consummated, so you take his estate in exchange for what? You’re going to change the name of the place to Ritz Memorial? You take his assets and he gets what, posthumous ownership while you run it for him and take the profits?”
We’ve escalated from car inspection to estate disputes. Might need to take a break if my heart rate gets any higher.
Rayford nearly laughed. Was he back on the playground in fourth grade?
He furrowed his brow. “What is that noise?” The rumble had become higher pitched and had developed a metallic sound. “It’s like chains clanging together,” Buck said.
YES!!! The locust are here! I’ve been dying to see how Jenkins and LaHaye handle the weird man-locust-scorpion hybrids — one of the most specific images in Revelation, and also one of the hardest to portray literally. Finally, five books in, we’ve arrived.
Buck stared out the window, and his heart thundered against his ribs. From out of the smoke came flying creatures—hideous, ugly, brown and black and yellow flying monsters. Swarming like locusts, they looked like miniature horses five or six inches long with tails like those of scorpions. Most horrifying, the creatures were attacking, trying to get in.
“Tsion teaches that they will not harm any foliage like locusts usually do, but only those who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.” Chaim paled, and Buck worried he might collapse.
“I won’t tell you they won’t torment you, but the Bible says the victims they attack will want to die and be unable to.” “Oh, no!” Buck turned a crank that swung open the window. Several creatures flew near the screen, and he quickly shut the window.
When your friends won’t convert, invite psychological and physical torture on them
Like a person perversely drawn to a train wreck, Buck wanted a close look at these things, with a glass barrier between him and them.
Buck knew that any unbeliever on the street had already suffered Jonas’s fate and that it couldn’t be long before the locusts would begin finding their way into homes and apartments. This was going to be the worst horror yet.
Been a while since a good DUN DUN DUUUN to end a chapter
Rayford grabbed Ernie by the collar and pulled him close, feeling the rage of a parent against a threat to his family. “So you’re an impostor, hey, Ernie?”
I’m honestly shocked it took so long to get to a Judas twist, but I definitely expected it to come from a character with a bit more presence or plot impact than this. I totally forgot who Ernie was right before he showed up in this scene.
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“You’d fake the mark, Ernie? The mark of the sealed of the Lord? That takes guts.”
The locusts swarmed Bo. He kicked and screamed and ran in circles, and when Ernie opened the door to taunt him and laugh at him, he too was attacked. The black man who had been in the car with Bo appeared in the doorway, staring in horror at the suffering man and boy.
This might be the first series I’ve seen deploy the “horror slapstick” approach
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“I understand they’re not going to die, but they’re going to wish they could?” Rayford nodded.
It’s pretty messed up the way our heroes shrug off a plague designed to inflict prolonged suffering, just because it won’t kill it’s victims. God is literally torturing people to get them to convert, and none of the Christians even have doubts about the ethics of this move. That’s not even ends-justify-the-means thinking; just “we approve of these means, period.”
“Oh, Dad! It’s horrible! Hattie’s already been attacked.” Rayford heard her screaming in the background. “Can Doc help?” “He’s trying, but she’s cursing God and already wants to die. Tsion says this is just the beginning. He believes she’ll be in torment for five months. By then we’re going to want to put her out of her misery ourselves.” “We can pray she’ll become a believer before that.”
Buck was surprised to learn he had more capacity for revulsion.
The magnifying glass lay on the floor a few feet from the unmoving locust. Keeping an eye on the creature, Buck held the glass over it, illuminated by the chandelier directly above. He nearly vomited at the magnified ugliness. It lay on its side, appearing to regroup. The four horselike legs supported a horse-shaped body consisting of a two-part abdomen. First was a preabdomen in the torso area made up of seven segments and draped by a metallic breastplate that accounted for the noise when it flew. The posterior consisted of five segments and led to the scorpionlike stinger tail, nearly
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They would want to kill believers, but they were under instructions from God to torment only unbelievers. What Satan meant for evil, God was using for good.
If God is only protecting some people when he could protect all of them, then he’s the one making the choice. How is Satan still at fault for this?
The face looked like that of a man, but as it writhed and grimaced and scowled at Buck, it displayed a set of teeth way out of proportion. They were the teeth of a lion with long canines, the upper pair extending over the lower lip. Most incongruous, the locust had long, flowing hair like a woman’s, spilling out from under what appeared to be a combination helmet and crown, gold in color.
I need an illustration, sir
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The creature called out in a mournful keen what sounded to Buck like “A bad one! A bad one!” “These things speak!” Buck told Chaim. “And I think it’s English!” Rosenzweig shook as if the temperature had dropped below freezing. “Hebrew,” he said. “It’s calling out for Abaddon.” “Of course!” Buck said. “Tsion told us about that! The king over these creatures is the chief demon of the bottomless pit, ruler over the fallen hordes of the abyss. In the Greek he has the name Apollyon.”
Hey, that’s the name of the book!
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I figured the mark, distinguishable only by another believer, was a foolproof test of who was with us and who wasn’t. What do we do now—try the smudge test on anybody who’s bearing the mark?” “Nope,” T said. “Don’t have to.” “Why’s that?” “You’re not testing my mark, are you? Why do you assume I’m legit?” “Because you weren’t attacked.” “Bingo. For the next ten months, that is our litmus test.”
“Why would God do this to me?” Chaim whined. “What did I ever do to him? You know me, Cameron! I am not a bad man!” “He did not do this, Dr. Rosenzweig. You did it to yourself.”
During the ensuing five months,
On the one hand, I’m glad we don’t have to put up with these five months of torture on a scene-by-scene basis. On the other, these time skips are super weird when you think about the construction of the series. Why don’t they happen between books? It’s like the authors are just flying by the seat of their pants (a bizarre idea, given that they obviously have an outline for the whole series), and when they reach the end of one idea, they hit the skip button, regardless of the pacing or where we are in the structure of a book. I’ve definitely written [insert ______ scene later] on first drafts. But usually I do end up going back and writing that scene or reworking that part of the plot, instead of throwing a “five months later” over it and turning in my final draft.
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The starkest picture of the interminable suffering came from Hattie’s ordeal at the Tribulation Force’s safe house in Mount Prospect, Illinois. Her torment was so great that everyone—Rayford, Tsion, Chloe, and Floyd—begged her to give in to Christ. Despite her anguished screams at all hours of the day and night, she stubbornly maintained that she was getting what she deserved and no less.
Hard to find a better example of the authors using Hattie as an example to be flogged and humiliated for her sin of promiscuity. She suffers for five months without relief, declaring that she deserves it. There are two kinds of people in the world: people who call these books misogynistic, those who have not read them.
It got to where Rayford had to visit Hattie with one of the others, and even then he didn’t sleep well afterward. Hattie was skeletal, her dark eyes sunk deep into her head. Her lips stretched thin and taut across teeth that now looked too big for her mouth. Eventually she could not speak, but communicated by a series of grunts and gestures.
