[.ca] The Indwelling (ISBN 0842339663)

From Amazon.com:
The Antichrist is dead... or is he? The city of Chicago lies in ruins, the safe house is blown, and the Global Community police are hot on the heels of the Tribulation Force. And who assassinated Nicolae Carpathia? It's a formidable challenge to keep the attention of an audience midway through a projected 12-volume series, but with their trademark blend of humor and gripping suspense, authors Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye continue to captivate readers with The Indwelling, the seventh installment of the Left Behind series. Carpathia's funeral takes a hair-raising turn for the 4 million people who attend. Over the crowd looms the centerpiece of a new world religion, a 24-foot bronze statue of Carpathia, belching black smoke and demanding obedience. Woven through the fast-paced drama are the ongoing stories of people struggling amid the end-times mayhem: Chloe Williams wrestles with the moral implications of killing her toddler Kenny to avoid having him fall into enemy hands; her father Rayford Steele is brought face-to-face with the consequences of his pride. Dr. Chaim Rosenzweig, a prominent Jewish Israeli statesman, ponders a conversion to Christianity. The strength of the series comes from Jenkins's ability to keep the action moving and readers caring about the characters. And there's a hook: The end of The Indwelling promises, "If the last three and a half years are your idea of tribulation, wait until you endure the Great Tribulation." The bad news is just beginning. But, the Tribulation Force believes, good news is also on the way. --Cindy Crosby

A failure:
I am an ardent believer in Christ, but that does not mean that anything written about Christianity should be endorsed and embraced regardless of its quality. I have read all 12 of these novels and they simply aren't very good. The writing is poor, the plot unimaginative, and there certainly isn't anything in these books that will cause a Christian to re-examine and thus more fully embrace our beliefs. Look, I don't doubt that the authors had the best intentions with these books, but quality has to count for something. There are better alternatives out there. Try We All Fall Down by Caldwell. It's well-written and extreimly intelligent. If you're going to read about Christianity, read something that is worth your time.

Woulda coulda shoulda...:
I know about eight hundred other people have said this, but there is no reason whatsoever that this book couldn't have been combined with Assassins. There were no more than four events that absolutely needed to be said---everything else was literally filler. The writing is at its most pedestrian; the beginning has an extremely ham-handed reference to abortion (and I'm as pro-life as they get). Such an interesting part of the Revelation prophecy; the book could've been so much better than it was.

Series as a whole has too much filler time:
I started with the movie and decided to see what all the hype was about. But I'm kind of insulted to see that these books have taken something spiritual and made it commercial. These books have an obvious formula. Keep you waiting for the next big climax by having Tsion predict it through out the book only to have it come at the end and kinda leave you hanging. Then recap during the next book and go through a bunch of stupid stuff till the next climax at the end of that book. The religious moments would be much better if these guys put more effort into character development. But since they don't I'm at the 8th book and I still don't feel connected to the characters or care too much about their salvation. A lot of stuff is implausible and since I don't want to ruin someone else's reading I won't explain. I have given the story 3 stars just because I am at the 8th book and I guess there's something that keeps me reading. Hopefully the ending will be worth it.

Revelation:
All the "Left Behind" books are clumsy attempts to transpose the Book of Revelation of John into our times. Revelation was ridiculouss at the time it was written, and it is much more so today. The dragon, the first beast and the second beast, the 4 riders of the Apocalypse etc. were creatures invented by the author of Revelation to cow a superstitious and credulous audience into submission. The goal hasn't changed, only the audience. Common people today know much less about religion than they did in the 2nd C AD, and are therefore easier to manipulate.

Better than people give it credit for:
A lot of the reviews I have read of these books tend to put it down by comparing it to other end of the world books. And while I will admit that these are not as smart or engaging as some of the the better books that cover the same topic like Fire of Heaven or We All Fall Down, I still really enjoyed them. A friend introduced me to the first book and I cut through all 12 books over the past two months. In a way, it's not really fair to compare them to some of the other books because they are trying to do different things. Left Behind seems to me to try to simply tell a great story about the end of the world. It's light, but what's wrong with that? I really felt like I NEEDED to know what was going to happen next when I finished a book and the very next day would order the next one. I call that a success. A book like We All Fall Down is obviously much more intense and thoughtful, the characters seem much more like real people, and it gives you more to think about, but why does that make Left Behind bad? Can't The Ten Commandments and The Passion both be good movies?