You never know what you'll get until you ask. I was in a used bookstore looking for some religious nuttiness to read (and possibly review) and I found the audiobook of The Indwelling, which is Left Behind book 7. I asked at the counter if they had any more of that kind of stuff - I'm dying to get my hands on a cheap copy of Glorious Appearing, where Jesus returns to Earth and starts disintegrating sinners - and was told they had one of the books in the discount bin. Then they went to that bin, pulled it out and handed it to me free of charge!Sadly, it wasn't Glorious Appearing. It was Desecration (book 9), and it luckily proved to be a fun read.
Desecration, by authors Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye, begins the way a good sequel should not - it leaps straight into the action without any regard for readers who haven't been following this thing from the beginning. Fortunately I've seen all three movies (and read the original novel so I had something to go on. I soon got the gist, which is as follows:
The Tribulation Force, led by plucky Buck Williams and Rayford Steele, are trying to help fellow believers stay alive during the reign of the Antichrist. They are also trying to Save as many non-believers as possible before they take the Mark of the Beast and become forever damned to Hell.
The Antichrist, Nicolae Carpathia, has been having an interesting time. Going from UN representative to the ruler of the world in three and a half years (and eight books), he's now risen to the level of deity. And he was assassinated. And rose from the dead three days later, now possessed by Satan. A global dictator, religious leader and divine being all in one, he remains blissfully unaware that his entire life (and death) have been prophesied in the Book of Revelations. You'd think he'd give that a look-see.
The Trib Force dudes certainly have. So much so, in fact, that they know what Nicky's going to do before he does. This time out, they know he's going to desecrate the Temple Mount (hence the title). At the same time the Tribbies are hoping to convince and convert the Remnant (the title of the next book), all the people of Israel who are not loyal to Nick. If they can get them all to Petra, they will be safe all through Armageddon (Book 11), according to the Bible. And in this universe, the Bible is infallibly true. Even the contradictory bits.
Anyway, the story. Buck and his buddies want to make sure the Prophesied events unfold the way they should, even though their source of prophecy is infallible... oh, never mind. Buck and Chaim Rosenwitz (a recent convert to the cause, and the dude who assassinated Carpathia, among other things) are in Jerusalem to help get the Remnant out. God has 'called' Chaim to assume the identity of Micah (which apparently means something) and confront Nicolae to negotiate the terms of his not shooting the Remnant while they are high-tailing it to Petra. God sends a plague of boils onto all who have taken the Mark, putting them all out of action. Chaim, or Micah, says God will lift the boils if the Antichrist lets his people go.
Nicky's not happy about it, but he agrees. Besides, he's got a temple to desecrate, which he does by slaughtering a pig. The same pig he rode into the temple upon. Don't ask. This makes a lot of non-boiled people mad at him; it seems killing a pig in a holy site and then messing around in its blood strikes more than a few as a little nutso. For some reason, their reaction takes Nicky by surprise. For a world-dominating demigod possessed by Satan, he's kind of a dum-dum.
He's not much of a bad guy, either. Nicolae Carpathia never rises above the level of Saturday morning cartoon villain. I mean, he's frickin' Satan, for gosh sakes, and yet he has to ask his staff for a gun every time he wants to kill someone! Dr. Evil has more style.
But I digress. Rayford Steele is just dying to be part of the plot, so Jenkins/LaHaye give him his own mission in Petra. The GC (Global Community) soldiers have arrived at this supposedly safe haven ready to tear it down, but they're all covered in boils and aren't up to destroying and killing anything. Rayford shares half that sentiment - he is not prepared to kill - but blowing stuff up is fair game. He and his buddies fire these high-powered superguns at the GC vehicles and armaments, destroying them but leaving the itchy soldiers alive. This sequence is one of the best in the book, going into detail about how the big guns work, how loud they are, what the recoil is like, and the damage they do. You really get a sense of what firing one would be like for the first time.
Most other parts of the book aren't nearly as interesting. For example, when Chaim makes the transition from scared old man into the authoritative Micah, the reader doesn't even get a peek into his mind. What is it like to be filled with the Holy Spirit, to the point where you have no fear, complete moral certainty, and the ability to paralyze people with your mind? And take a bullet from point blank range and remain completely unharmed? We experience none of it, and are meant to simply witness it the way Buck Williams does.
Back to Rayford. He's in charge of getting the Remnant air-lifted from spots around Jerusalem to Petra using a fleet of helicopters the Tribbies have acquired over the last three years. Before he can do that, however, he has to deal with two GC soldiers who didn't up and run when their vehicles blew up. Those guys kill David, a really important Trib guy I knew nothing about (I haven't read the book where he was introduced, and Desecration assumes I already know him). Those GC soldiers might potentially kill more important but underdeveloped characters, so Rayford shoots them with his supergun. This violates his own no killing rule, and the bang leaves him deaf. More attention is given to his deafness than to his moral anguish. This is the man who, three books earlier, tried to assassinate Nicky Carpathia and felt really bad about said attempt afterwards. Maybe that was even the reason for his thou-shalt-not-kill rule to the other Tribbies. Or maybe it was some line from the Bible. Either way, any moral agonizing over the deaths of those men is glossed over in favour of his ears.
And then, no less an authority than the Archangel Michael appears before him and heals his ears, which pretty much rules out any further moralizing right there. If the Angel of the Lord heals the injury you sustained killing some guys, then it must be okay.
Over to Carpathia. Even though he said he wouldn't attack the Remnant on their way to Petra, he does anyway. You can't even trust the Antichrist these days! And, even though leaving the Remnant alone was a condition of Chaim/Michah/God's for the lifting of the plague of boils, God lifts the plague anyway, leaving the GC troops fully healed and able to carry out the attack! But God's no dum-dum - he has it covered. The bullets from the GC's weapons pass harmlessly through the bodies and vehicles of the Remnants and Tribs, and end up destroying more GC stuff (and people). Oh, and random miraculous earthquakes swallow up the landbound GC, and in one scene an entire squad is gobbled up by the ground just seconds before they could run all the good guys down. With all this divine supernatural intervention, one wonders why the Tribulation Force even bothers to show up.
God also turns every ocean into blood, killing all marine life. I guess the fish were sinners.
The plot is basically over by this point, but Jenkins & LaHaye still have another 150 or so pages left to fill. Chloe, Rayford's daughter & Buck's wife (and Kenny's mom) ventures out of the Tribulation Force's safehouse in Chicago to investigate a flickering light in a distant building. The city's been abandoned and is supposedly irradiated (a cunning ruse to keep the GC away from the safehouse), so Chloe wants to know if there are more people out there. Nobody knows where she's going, so if those people are bad Chloe could be in some real trouble. Luckily they turn out to be Christians eager to join the Tribulation Force. Good for Chloe, bad for the reader. A potential source of suspense is diffused just like that.
Fortunately in Greece some actual bad stuff happens. This Greek character tries to get a couple of teenagers into the hands of the Tributaries, but what was supposed to be a routine operation turns into a trap. Everyone gets killed except for George, the guy who was supposed to get the kids through the airport to safety. Rather than relying on Jesus, George turns to his military training to get through his capture and torture, and his inner dialogue provides for some good reading. No doubt his rescue will become a major plot point in book 10.
Desecration ends on a cliffhanger, the way most books in this series seem to do. Tsion Ben Judah, the Trib Force's rabbi turned evangelist, travels to Petra to address the Remnant, only for Nicky to drop a billion bombs on their heads. Has the Tribulation Force finally met their doom? Or will God, Jesus or Archangel Michael save their butts at the last second, yet again? Book 10 is called The Remnant, so what do you think?
Not all of the Trib's last-second escapes and/or victories rely on supernatural help. They have a few friends in the enemy camp, one of whom (Chang) is a teenage computer wizard. Not only can this kid use the GC network against them while simultaneously covering all of his tracks, he's also managed to bug all of the Antichrist's 'secure' locations. Any time the bad guys get together for a secret talk, Chang and the Tribbles are listening in. How lucky Buck, Rayford et al are to have such a useful person so conveniently placed! There is nothing Chang can't do with a computer, and no way he can be traced. Even when Nicky realizes there is a mole in his organization and takes steps to smoke him out, there is no danger at all that Chang will be caught. Quite the tension killer, is Chang. The only interesting thing about him is that he's got the Mark of the Beast on his noggin. He chose Jesus, but his parents knocked him out cold and had him branded, leading him to wonder if he's damned like the rest of the baddies. It's a legitimate concern, one which even Ben Judah can't figure out. This would have provided some great tension, but Jenkins & LaHaye diffuse it quickly. No good guys go to Hell. At least, not on the page.
And yet, for all of its flaws in plot, storytelling and character development, Desecration was an entertaining read. I wanted to know what would happen next, and never felt bored. Jenkins has a decent style, too; the book isn't hard to read. It's such a shame that Jerry B. Jenkins hasn't used his talent for evil. Imagine what he could accomplish without Tim LaHaye holding his leash.
Morally, this book has a few issues that bother me. Ben-Judah points out that, once a person has taken the Mark (or rejected Christ's advances one time too many), God will harden their hearts to him. In plain English, that means that people who have taken the Mark (some out of loyalty, most to avoid death by guillotine) will never be convinced to accept Jesus. Even if they turn against the AntiChrist, they will not be able to turn to God.
What kind of a whacked up God is that? Well, the same kind of God who would put the whole end-times Tribulation nonsense into effect, I suppose.
Desecration, and indeed the entire Left Behind series, gives a revealing look into the born again/evangelical mindset. And that's about it, really, if you're not a believer. There are better thrillers out there, and they don't rely on divine intervention to stop bullets or swallow army vehicles in miraculous earthquakes. This book is so lame, I feel like going to the Temple Mount to kill a pig.
Likely to Convert - 0
Cover Art - 4
Ability to Hold Interest - 5
Unintentional Hilarity - 6
Level of Disturbing or Offensive Content - 4
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