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The 12th Coming of Less-Than-Glorious Fiction
The latest “Left Behind” book.

After nine years, twelve volumes, forty million total copies, two movies, and an endless flood of apocalyptic merchandise, readers of the "Left Behind" series have reached the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately for them, episode #12, titled Glorious Appearing, is underwhelming and pedestrian, poor qualities for a novel about a Big Event.

Fans of Glorious Appearing: The End of Days, which hit stores on March 30, may be inclined to label my criticisms as the rude sniping of a former Rapture-believing Fundamentalist-turned-Papist. After all, I've written more than a few articles and one book about the many problems I see in premillennial dispensationalism, the "left-behind" theology propagated in the fictional series created by Fundamentalist pastor Tim LaHaye and authored by book-a-month manufacturer Jerry B. Jenkins. Having read many of the other "Left Behind" books, I readily admit that I expected Glorious Appearing to be bloated, stilted, and corny. As it turns out, that combination would have been a welcome relief from the 400 pages of repetitive, numbing bombast that assaulted my weary eyes. Nevertheless, I fully expect this latest episode (of what once was going to be just a trilogy) to top the charts and sell a quadrillion copies. ...