Left Behind: Chapter Twenty-two

On a plane, en route to O'Hare from New York.

Buck, pondering the events from the "Russian Pearl Harbor" to the present and reflecting on his faith muses it "seemed as if he were living in a science fiction thriller." Believes he might be ready to be born again. Plans to talk to Pastor Barnes for "personal" reasons when he arrives in Chicago.

Chloe, prays for a miracle and gets it. Talks about her conversion with Buck. Tells her father she's come to Jesus.

Ray, prays with Chloe in the first class section of the plane. The authors leaven this moment with a joke which centers on father daughter incest.

The score: One soul for Jesus (Chloe), one en route (Buck).

Left Behind: Chapter Twenty-one

Buck's new job. Duties as managing editor of Global Weekly will send him to Chicago to find a replacement for Raptured local editor Lucinda (finally, a minor character who reappears -- in a manner of speaking). This will place Buck on Ray's flight to O'Hare and in the seat next to Chloe.

Buck's Interview with Ray, Chloe & Hattie at the Carlisle. Rayford Steele uses the opportunity to spread his message of the real meaning of the "disappearances" and the second chance that has been given believers to save their souls. Tension builds as Buck struggles to overcome his secular prejudices. Blah blah blah blah.

Final takeaway, wherein your correspondent gives an aesthetic critique of the above. The entire "action" of the "Left Behind" series is the theological struggle of non believers to grapple with belief. This is done through 400 pages of agonizingly bad death porn seasoned with evangelical Christian triumphalism. Those who are truly interested in these matters would be far better served to read this. Magnitudes of order better, 10% the length, and free on the Kindle App.

Left Behind: Chapter Twenty

At the Pan-Con Club: Chloe and Rayford, waiting for Hattie. Hattie shows up. Buck shows up, following Hattie and hoping to interview the pilot of his flight during the Rapture. Buck takes a shine to Chloe. Chloe takes a shine to Buck. Ray talks Rapture and Jesus and conversion to Hattie, while also talking adultery, immaturity, and other shortcomings. Hattie's torch for Ray is extinguished. She does not seem to take a shine to Jesus. Buck arranges an interview with Ray. Ray will share with Buck his Rapture theory of the disappearances and his conversion story.

Left Behind: Chapter Nineteen

An Office Conference Brings Everything Together. Global Weekly owner Bailey brings Steve and Buck into his office. Demands to know what’s going on. We learn: Nicolae has a plan. Todd-Cothran to become a U.N. figure. Botswanan Secretary-General to step down and head home with secret Israeli formula. United Nations to be relocated to Babylon. Jonathan Stonagal is the financier behind the multi-billion dollar renovation of Babylon.

Carpathia’s plan as Secretary-General

“He’s asking for resolutions supporting … the seven year peace treaty with Israel … the [United Nations headquarters] move to Babylon. The establishment of one religion for the world, probably headquartered in Italy … is going to help [the Jews] rebuild their temple during the years of the peace treaty …. Militarily, he wants a commitment to disarmement of member nations, the destruction of ninety percent of their weapons, and the donation of the other ten percent to the U.N.”

What about Eric Miller, the guy who fell off the Staten Island Ferry and drowned? Buck was “stunned to find he had written about the rebuilding and improvement in Babylon. The title of Miller’s series was ‘New Babylon, Stonagal’s Latest Dream.’”

What does Buck make of all of this? “If the rest of the U.N. went along with Nicolae’s conditions, he would become the most powerful leader in the world overnight.”

Eli & Moishe Live on CNN. Rayford watches their preaching knowing that he is witness to “the first of the 144,000 Jewish evangelists being converted to Christ before his eyes.”

Takeaway: Global religion, probably based in Italy? These people?

Left Behind: Chapter Eighteen

Moishe & Eli in the news: Sinister hooded assassins, armed with Israeli military equipment wend their way through the crowd to the prophets. Broadcast of assassins being slain on approach, live from the Wailing Wall. M & E still proselytize immenent return of Christ the Messiah.

Hattie in New York: Despite initial misgivings, Buck agrees to introduce her to Carpathia. Carpathia gives Hattie his card, which Buck examines. The card gives Carpathia’s address as the Plaza! Has a handwritten number – a secret/private line at the Secretary General’s office in the U.N.! Buck realizes he has an inside scoop on Carpathia’s plan.

The guy briefly introduced in Chapter Sixteen, who dies in a ferry accident in Chapter Seventeen: Widow suspects unnatural causes. Reaches out to Buck & Steve for answers.
Ray and Chloe: still talking about Hattie and the adultery that didn’t happen. Waiting to meet Ms. Durham in the Pan Con club at the New York airport.

Steve Planck: spills to Buck about the Botswanan Secretary-General’s plan to step down and return to his country with the Israeli secret formula for desert florafication.

Left Behind: Chapter Seventeen

Items in the News. President Fitz: "At this difficult hour in world history, it's crucial that lovers of peace and unity step forward ... any friend of peace is a friend of the United States, and Mr. Carpathia is a friend of peace." Moishe & Eli: "Have stood before the Wailing Wall ... preaching in a style frankly reminiscent of the old American evangelists .... Orthodox Jews charge [them] with desecrating [the] holy place by proclaiming that Jesus Christ of the New Testament is the fulfillment of the Torah's prophecy of a messiah."

Items behind the News. "Buck Williams had returned to his apartment after midnight, assured by Nicolae Carpathia that his worries were over. Carpathia had phoned Jonathan Stonagal, put him on speakerphone, and Stonagal had ... made a phone call to London that cleared Williams. Buck heard Todd-Cothran's husky-voiced agreement to call off the Yard and Interpol. Buck realizes that "this proves Dirk was right! Stonagal is conspiring with Todd-Cothran, and you [Carpathia] know it!" Carpathia mentions that he needs a press secretary. Buck demurs, suggests Eric Miller of the elevator tussle in Chapter Sixteen.

The News, biblically interpreted. Pastor Barnes convenes an emergency meeting to discuss Revelations. "If I'm reading it right, the Antichrist will soon come to power, promising peace and trying to unite the world."

"What's wrong with uniting the world?" Barnes: "There might be nothing wrong with that, except that the Antichrist will be a great deceiver ... this will result in a great war, probably World War III."

"What about the young man from Europe who is so popular with the United Nations?" Barnes: "I'm impressed with him ... [but] we need to keep an eye on him."

Calendar of Events, Seven-Sealed Scroll from Revelation 5 version: a white horse, a red horse, a black horse and a pale horse"

1. White horseman "three months of diplomacy while getting organized and promising peace."

2. Red horse "War. Antichrist will be opposed by three rulers from the south, and millions will be killed."

3. Black horse "inflation and famine. As the rich get richer, the poor starve to death. More millions will die that way."

4. Pale horse "the symbol of death. Besides the post-war famine, a plague will sweep the entire world. Before the fifth Seal Judgment, a quarter of the world's population will be dead."

5. fifth Seal Judgment "Remember the 144,000 Jewish witness who try to evangelize the world for Christ? Many of their converts ... will be martyred by the world leader and the harlot, which is the name for the one world religion that denies Christ."

6. sixth Seal Judgment "God pouring out his wrath against the killing of his saints. This will come in the form of a worldwide earthquake so devastating ... so bad that PEOPLE WILL CRY OUT FOR ROCKS TO FALL ON THEM AND PUT THEM OUT OF THEIR MISERY."

7. The Seventh Seal "introduces the seven Trumpet Judgments .... I don't want to get into those ... but I warn you they are progressively worse."

What about Moishe & Eli? "Revelation 11:3-14 makes it clear that God's two special witnesses, with supernatural power to work miracles, will prophesy one thousand two hundred and sixty days ... anyone who tries to harm them will be devoured. No rain will fall during the time that they prophesy. The will be able to turn water to blood and to strike the earth with plagues whenever they want. Satan will kill them at the end of three and a half years ... people they have tormented will celebrate their deaths ... but after three and a half days, they will rise from the dead and ascend to heaven in a cloud while their enemies watch."

Pastor Barnes puts it all together. "It has not rained in Jerusalem since the disappearances ... they have miraculous powers .... We're on their side. We have to do our parts."

Meanwhile, back in New York. Buck is asked to become editor of Global Weekly. Steve has accepted the job of Carpathia's press secretary. Eric Miller has washed up dead on Staten Island. Hattie is flying to New York. Ray & Chloe are flying to New York. Hattie calls Buck, arranges to meet him, with an eye to getting an introduction to Carpathia.

Left Behind: Chapter Sixteen

@ The Plaza: Steve gets arrested as Oreskovich/Buck. Steve jostles with fellow newsman Eric Miller en route to Carpathia's suite. Steve gets his exclusive with Carpathia.

Great things are in the works: Carpathia and BFF Rosenzweig are prepared to broker a peace between the U.N. and Israel, guaranteeing Israeli security for seven years in exchange for Rosenzweig's formula for desert florification. Stonegal may become the next Secretary General of the United Nations. U.S. president Gerald Fitzhugh, aka "Fitz," calls on Nicolae and invites him to the White House.

What about Buck's problems with the authorities? Carpathia assures him that he "will arrange to have the London tragedies revisited and reevaluated, exonerating you."

Left Behind: Chapter Fifteen

Hattie & Rayford: On the outs, for real. Hattie calls Ray, seeking a sympathetic ear for her spill on her sister's failing abortion practice. Ray has a complete commiseration fail, pointing out that problem of "no babies" points to larger problems. Hattie confesses onetime ardor for Ray, Ray attempts to lure Hattie into conversion conversation. Hattie hangs up on Ray.

Buck & Steve: More nonsense over the assumed identity, pub bombing incident. Buck is wanted for murder! Buck has an exclusive interview with Carpathia at the Plaza! Steve agrees to pose as Oreskovich, Buck will pose as Steve, the police (NYPD! Scotland Yard! Interpol!) will be deluded just long enough to arrest Steve and for Buck to get in to see Carpathia. This will probably work. But first, off to Steve's secretary Marge's apartment to watch the Nightline interview!

Chloe & Jesus: Slowly coming together. Replacing the stolen tape is her idea! Chloe is still playing coy, but has toned down on hard-to-get.

Carpathia, accolades accruing thereto: Nightline interview breaks the news that "People magazine [has broken] tradition by ... unseating their current sexiest man and installing you in his place." Carpathia uses this opportunity to propose universal disarmament, arming of the United Nations, and expanding the Security Council to ten members.

"Does this guy look like the Antichrist to you?" Chloe says it best: "He looks like a breath of fresh air to me .... if he's a deceiver, maybe he's a good one." Clearly, Chloe, Ray, Steve & Buck (watching from Marge's apartment before heading to the Plaza) & Hattie think this man is a force for good. Hattie wants to meet him in person and believes Buck may be the man to make this happen.

Left Behind: Chapter Fourteen

Details unwasted: At the U.N. press conference Carpathia calls on a Mr. Oreskovitch, "or I should say, 'Mr. Cameron Williams of Global Weekly." Carpathia, or, "St. Nick," details the history of the U.N. and talks nuclear weapons from "Japan in 1945" to when "the Soviet Union first detonated its own devices September 23, 1949."

Reagan as John the Baptist? "Reagan escalated the East-West controversies, and the U.N. seemed a thing of the past .... this organization was in trouble financially, with few members willing to pay their share." But but, wait: "However, your next president, Mr. Bush, recognized what he called the 'new world order,' which resonated deep within my young heart.

The Disappearances, addressed: "Dr. Rosenzweig believes that some confluence of electromagnetism in the atmosphere, combined with ... atomic ionization from the nuclear power and weaponry throughout the world, could have been ignited or triggered ... perhaps by an intelligent life-form ... and caused this instant action throughout the world."

Disappearances, domestic front: Ray and Chloe head home from the airport, in separate cars. Chloe is first to arrive, an event set up by a 1/2 page discussion of the relative fuel levels of the separate cars they take home. When she gets home the house has been burglarized. Several pages of panic, discussion of post-Rapture lawlessness, necessity of getting saved. Least likely stolen item: Pastor's Rapture tape. Fortunately, this enables Chloe to request another copy, of her own accord.

What does it all mean? Perhaps a global pacifist organization such as the U.N., almost but not quite done in by Ronald Reagan, can restrain the impulse toward nuclear destruction that brought about the global catastrophe of mass disappearance and usher in a new era of peace.

Or? Perhaps a charismatic Eastern European politician and his Israeli scientist henchman will use the impulse toward disarmament and global solidarity as a stalking horse to ensure global subjugation to the Powers of Darkness and usher in a seven year reign of Evil.

If there's a gun on the wall in the First Act: Kudos to LaHaye and Jenkins for carefully setting up the scenario wherein the Steele home is burglarized, and Buck Williams is addressed by his undercover identity.

But: doubtless a minor quibble, but this reader picked a nit over the omission of the attempted nuclear annihilation of Israel during the discussion of the world's history of nuclear weapons. Of course, Chekov was a notorious russkie and probable protocommie, anyway.

Left Behind: Chapter Thirteen

Buck Williams, dead. "after a mysterious car bombing outside of a London pub ... that took the life of a Scotland Yard investigator."

Rayford Steele, father of bad ideas. "Steele had a plan. He had decided to be honest with Chloe about his attraction to Hattie Durham and how guilty he felt about it. He intended to talk [with Chloe] about about his new desire to share his faith with Hattie."

Buck Williams, undead. Arrives in New York, meets with editor Steve Planck, prepares to attend Nicolae Carpathia address to the United Nations. Buck's credentials are in the name of George Oreskovich.

Carpathia; rollout thereof. "[E]ntourage of nobodies, with one exception ... Rosenzweig." Speaks the "six languages of the United Nations, plus the three languages of his own country."

Bringing your daughter to work day with Rayford & Chloe. A first post-Rapture flight to Atlanta is made. Awaiting the return leg to O'Hare, Ray reaches out to Chloe and brings her up to speed on work place dynamics. "Over lunch, he told Chloe of his history with Hattie, such as it was ... 'I'm going to invite Hattie to dinner with us this week ... I'm going to make it clear what my intentions are, and they are totally honorable, more honorable than they ever could have been before ....'" Perceptively, Chloe intimates that "you're going to switch from hitting on her to preaching at her."

When you dance with the Devil, it isn't the Devil that's going to change. Carpathia oohs and aahs to universal media acclaim. Praises, in order: International Monetary Fund, World Bank, US, UK, USSR & the Dumbarton Oaks Conference. It "was an amazing display, and suddenly it was no wonder this man had risen so quickly ... no wonder New York had already embraced him ... Buck knew, Nicolae Carpathia would be embraced by all of America. And then the world."

Chernobyl: Post Apocalyptic Wonderland

We meander along the sleepy brown river. The main sounds are the different shades of hissing of wind in the trees: high nearby, deeper and steadier farther away. Occasionally the wind picks up, flicks a ripple along the surface. This must be what life was like 1,000 years ago, when the entire human population of the globe was roughly 250 million. There's space for everyone, time for everything....

Outside Magazine offers us a very fun tour of Ukraine's Irradiated Nature Preserve of Chernobyl and its environs.

Left Behind: Chapter Twelve

The good son:

Buck Cameron, having survived an attempted assassination in London, calls his father to let him know he's alive. From a payphone. In the lobby of his hotel. In Frankfurt. Where he has checked in under the assumed identity under which he intends to return to New York. Also calls Global editor Steve Plank. Uses voice disguising precaution (complimentary washcloth?).

The rebellious daughter:

Chloe, still resistant, abjures her father's exhortation to watch the Rapture video.

The good father:

Ray watches the tape. Learns that Paul's letter to the Corinthians predicted the Rapture, the ensuing chaos, probable martial law, and the coming of a "deceiver [who] will promise strength and peace and security, but ... will speak out against the Most High .... [and try] to take over the world during this terrible time of chaos and confusion. This person is known in the Bible as the Antichrist." The tape concludes with "Nearly eight hundred years before Jesus came to earth the first time, Isaiah in the Old Testament prophesied that the kingdoms of nations will be in great conflict and their faces shall be as flames. To me, this portends World War III, a thermonuclear war that will wipe out millions. Bible prophecy is history written in advance .... You'll find that government and religion will change, war and inflation will erupt, there will be widespread death and destruction, martyrdom of saints, and even a devastating earthquake. Be prepared."

At New Hope Church:

Interim Pastor Barnes tends to his flock. Mass scenes of conversion. Bible sessions implemented. Ray is recruited to join "a core of people."

Aftermath:

"Chloe was eager to hear all about it .... and was embarrassed to say she had not watched the tape yet. 'But I will now, Dad .... You're really into this, aren't you? It sounds like something I want to check out, even if I don't do anything about it.'" Also, "Hattie Durham called for you several times. She sounded pretty agitated."

What to do?

Ray talks with Bruce Barnes, accepts his first assignment for that evening: "meeting with the disenchanted and skeptics." Then handles second assignment, calling Hattie Durham. Hattie informs him of Cameron William's death in England. Ray invites her to dinner with himself and Chloe.

Men at work:

"Buck arrived at JFK and immediately called Steve Plank. 'Stay right where you are Buck, you renegade. Do you know who wants to talk with you? .... Nicolae Carpathia himself .... and he's got your old friend Chaim Rosenzweig with him .... So I'll come get you ... we'll get you undead, and you can have that great interview you've been looking for.'" Buck, utilizing the superior skills of mind that have seen him through this far thinks "[i]f there's one guy who's above these international terrorists and bullies ... it will be this Carpathia. If Rosenzweig likes him, he's got to be all right."

Pondering aloud

I've heard of the bible prophesying all manner of death and destruction. This is the first time I've heard of a biblical prophecy of inflation.

Previous posts: Introduction, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11
Next post: [Coming soon]

Alexis Rockman: A Fable For Tomorrow @ American Art Museum

Big thanks to John Murder for telling me about this exhibit, which is filled with post-apocalyptic tableaus that include the drowned Brooklyn Bridge, pigs raping geese, and wild pigs making sweet love to nutria in Disneyworld. This one, pictured above, Manifest Destiny, is 24 feet long and 8 feet high.

I can't remember an art exhibit I've enjoyed more in the last ten years. Big thanks to Alexis Rockman for creating it. Big thanks to the Smithsonian for being in Washington, DC, and for being Free. The exhibition will be up through May 8. You should go. You should see these in person. If you want more info/slides/lectures/whatever, there's plenty more info here.

Left Behind: Chapter Eleven

The action

Ray leaves the house! Ray and Chloe drive to New Hope church and meet with acting pastor Bruce Barnes.

Dramatis Personae, novum:

Loretta: As per the enlightened tradition of the Left Behind Series, Loretta needs no surname. It is enough to know she's "an older woman" who looks "sunken eyed and disheveled, as if she'd come through a war .... She's the only person in her whole clan who is still here .... They're all gone, every one of them."

The chivalrous impulse

Pastor Barnes, making small talk with Ray and Chloe, tells them "[f]olks, Loretta there looks like I feel."

The litany of complaint

Bruce Barnes relates his tale of sub par Christianity, replete with confessions of having "read things I shouldn't have read, looked at magazines that fed my lusts."

Bruce lays it all out

"There is no doubt in my mind that we have witnessed the Rapture .... I had heard people say that when the church was raptured, [g]od's [s]pirit would be gone from the earth. The logic was that when Jesus went to heaven after his resurrection, the holy spirit that god gave to the church was embodied in believers. So when they were taken, the spirit would be gone, and there would be no more hope for anyone left."

But Bruce, is there hope? Is there any reason for this series to continue for 16 more volumes?

"[S]omebody remembered Pastor's Rapture tape .... You can't know [my] relief when Pastor's tape showed me otherwise .... Our senior pastor loved to preach about the coming of Christ to rapture his church, to take believers, dead and alive, to heaven before a period of tribulation on the earth .... the pastor used that sermon and ... videotaped [himself] ... speaking directly to people who were left behind [and] put it in the church library with instructions to get it out and play it if most everyone seemed to have disappeared."

Will Ray and Chloe make the leap of faith?

"'No?' Bruce was clearly surprised. 'Need more time?' .... '[L]et me leave you with one little reminder of urgency ... people die every day in ... plane crashes -- oh, sorry, I'm sure you're a good pilot.'"

Ray "appreciate[s] your time and ... will watch the tape."

The takeaway

I am pretty disappointed in the quality of salvation denying sinning thus far. End of times riots of passion shouldn't be about pudgy pastors sweatily thumbing through dirty magazines. My imagination wants this.

Previous posts: Introduction, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10
Next post: [Coming soon]

Hadestown

The Post-Apocalyptic Book club was fortunate to catch a performance of this original bluegrass opera at the historic Sixth & I Synagogue last night. Wittily written and fetchingly sung it transports the story of Eurydice & Orpheus from the Hades of ancient Greece to a "post apocalyptic Depression era company town hell." Shows will be performed in VT & CO, a CD featuring Ani DiFranco as Persephone and Anais Mitchell as Eurydice (pictured) is available.

Question 2: What Must We Know?

The second (and much more concerning) question that arose as I read A Canticle for Leibowitz: If I woke up tomorrow and the World had lost its Modernity, would I be able to re-create any part(s) of it on my own?

[Alexis Rockman, The Conversation,]

  

The Answer is, basically, NO. John Murder pointed out that we WOULD retain our knowledge of the existence of Viruses and Bacteria, which would give us a few millenia's headstart in the Hygeine and Health Departments. But machinery, industry, technology, electronics, thermodynamics? Clueless. This is Unacceptable. I plan to compile a short list of books and/or pamphlets that I will make certain that I both Own and Know. Please add any suggestions as Comments below. 

For starters: 

1) SIMPLE MACHINES: one of the first things I thought of was that in grade school i learned the "Seven" Simple Machines, of which I could only remember Lever and Pulley. Seven is in quotes because today I looked it up and learned that it was/is actually only Six. These are: Lever, Wheel and Axle, Pulley, Inclined Plane, Wedge, and Screw. We can get lots of things done if we know how to employ these machines, and combinations thereof, properly. Me, right now, I can't figure out what the difference is between a Lever and a Wedge. Hence, a book on this topic, written for children and fools, with pictures, would be helpful. I'm going to research this.

2) BASIC STUFF: Knot-tying, fire-building, first aid, all that stuff. Boy Scouts' Handbook. Seems like this should cover plenty of those basics.

Question 1: Abbey Living

 

I enjoyed A Canticle for Leibowitz, and have had two questions running through my head since I finished it a couple of weeks ago. 

Question 1: Do I belong in a Monastery? And would it be an Ideal Place to live out one's post-apocalyptic life?

  

I have visited Abbey of Gethsemani in New Haven, Kentucky.

It's America's oldest Trappist monastery, and has been there since the 1800's. Thomas Merton was One of Them from 1941 until his death in 1968. He's buried there. They farm, they garden, they carve wood, they pray, they bake brownies, they sing their vespers, they do not have a mandatory dress code.

They do have a website--apparently they got their Interwebs act together early (or I'd imagine paid some good money later), because they are in fact the owners of http://www.monks.org.

I think I might be cut out for this kind of living. Routines and Rituals have a calming effect on my brain. I might have trouble with the Religion part, but it's possible that the benefits of this kind of life would outweigh that. As for its location in the beautiful hills of Kentucky, it'd probably be low on the list of nuclear warfare targets, and its agriculture, skilled residents, and solid buildings would make it an excellent place to stage one's post-apocalyptic life.

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller, Jr.

 

The only novel written by Mr. Miller and published (1959) during his lifetime--a sequel was posthumously written/published, supposedly based on his own writings and outlines...I will not be reading it.  It won the Hugo in 1961, and is a three-part story that spans a couple of thousand years, beginning in a post-nuclear-holocaust world circa 2600, wherein most of Earth's inhabitants are illiterate stone age types. Although plenty of educated and technoliterate folks had survived the holocaust of 2000-something, over the next hundred years or so they were hunted down and killed by less literate survivors, the logic being that Smart People and Their Machines got us into this mess, hence, kill 'em all so we don't end up with Electricity and Engines and, eventually, Atom Bombs ever again. 


When Literacy equals Witchcraft, it becomes Unfashionable and a Liability To One's Survival...hence, it gradually faded out of Humanity's toolbox. The exception to this rule was one ex-engineer named Leibowitz, who set about saving books when and where he could, and founded a society of Bookleggers, whose purpose was the finding and hiding/burying of literature. Leibowitz ended up being burnt at the stake by an Illiterate Horde. 600 years later, the book opens in southwest Arizona, in a monastery whose monks live out the tradition of Leibowitz, preserving whatever books and manuscripts they've managed to hang onto, and petitioning the new world church for Leibowitz's canonization. It's a New Stone Age, essentially...the book moves on from there, through a New Dark Ages growth period and all the way up to a New Modern Day period (aroundabouts 4600 A.D. or so). The monks and their literate monastery are the focal point of all three sections. The book is fun and, more important, made me think about a couple of practical concerns/issues, both of which I'll detail in a separate post.

Left Behind: Chapter Ten

Dramatis Personae, novae

Bruce Barnes the "visitation pastor" at New Hope Village Church in Mount Prospect, Illinois. Former parish of Irene, location of the post-Rapture explanation video tape. Barnes promises a discussion of the tape. Rayford "[tells] him he and perhaps Chloe would come by that afternoon."

Alan Tompkins "a midlevel operative at Scotland Yard. Puts to lie my theory that characters with first and last names are important to the story, unless there's a need for a resurrected and thoroughly inept "midlevel operative" in the army of the saved in Volume 16.

What passes for action

Buck, "phony passport" in hand, flies from LaGuardia to Heathrow. Meets Tompkins at Scotland Yard. They "[drive] quickly to a dark pub a few miles away." Tompkins proceeds to tell Buck that Dirk's death has to be a suicide (right handed self inflicted gun shot wound on a left handed man), then further relates a harrowing encounter in the offices of Brit puppet-master and Dirk Burton conspiracy fixation Todd-Cothran, wherein: Tompkins is permitted to eavesdrop on a conversation between Todd-Cothran and Tompkins's Scotland Yard supervisor (Sullivan), wherein: he learns that his supervisor will have him killed if he pursues the matter of Dirk Burton's death any further.

Naturally, when a waitress at the pub informs Tompkins (in the midst of relating the foregoing to internationally renowned journalist Cameron "Buck" Williams) that he appears to have left the dome light on in his car, he assumes that he must be "[g]ettin' daft in my old age" and leaves the pub to turn it off. The ensuing explosion draws Buck's attention. Despite having quickly downed his pint, and, noticing that Alan hadn't touched his pint "switched his empty mug for Alan's full one and downed it too," Buck "[knew] his limit" and had ordered a soda. Which doubtless gave him the presence of mind to chuck his real passport into the flaming wreckage in the hopes of faking his death. I'm not an apologist for Scotland Yard but I reckon they should be able to suss out that: (1) that there's only one corpse in the wreckage; and (2) it's one of their employees. Buck manages to escape to Heathrow airport and flies back to the U.S. (via Germany) under the assumed identity of a Polish businessman. And leaves behind all of his notes. Which may be an important plot element that makes him a target of gathering dark forces, or may be a pointlessly wasted detail.

Thinking about events thus far

Time moves either freakishly fast or freakishly slow in this novel. In the amount of time it's taken for Buck to fly to New York, fly to Heathrow, fake his death, fly to Frankfurt, and fly back to New York, Ray has merely managed to think about the Rapture, and make a call to his wife's church. Without leaving his house. I'm starting to think the bottle disposal episode was a dream sequence, and Ray is gripped by a Faulknerian fit of alcohol driven reverie.

Previous posts: Introduction, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9
Next post: Chapter 11

Left Behind: Chapter Nine

The state of the world, 2 days after the event

"[A]mazing progress [had] been made at clearing the roadways ... [b]ut the landscape would appear tacky for months."

What about the Jews?

Back at the offices of the Global Weekly, we learn that "Jewish Nationalists ... are warming to one world government .... [This] idea is so revolutionary. Most Israeli Nationalists think the Holy Land has gone too far with its bounty already." Jonathan "Diamond John" Stonegal also is involved.

What about Chloe?

Returns home. Father and Daughter have heart-to-heart about the Rapture. Chloe mentions that "in California they're actually buying into the space invasion theory." Ray remembers that as a teenager, "Chloe had come home from more than one party drunk enough to spend the night vomiting."

Thoughts turn to missing Wife/Mother Son/Brother

Ray: "You want to know where I think they are? I believe they are in heaven ... if the Christians are gone and everyone else is left, I don't think anyone is a Christian."
Chloe: "Daddy, what does that make [g]od? Some sick, sadistic dictator?" "Who wants to go to heaven with a [g]od like that?"

End times A/V Club to the rescue

Fortunately Irene's Church has a tape. "Dad! A tape for those left behind? Please!" Ray and Chloe make plans to pick up the tape the next day.

What about Dirk?

Still unable to get through, Buck tries Dirk's office. Speaks with Dirk's supervisor, Nigel Leonard, who informs Buck that "Mr. Burton .... suffered a bullet wound to the head .... suicide has been determined." Convinced that it was not a suicide, Buck books a flight to Heathrow out of LaGuardia.

Coincidentally?

Carpathia will be flying into LaGuardia that same day.

The wrap

Diamond John and the Jews are meeting in New York and may have plans for a new world order. Carpathia is flying to New York to address the United Nations. Buck is flying to England to uncover the truth about Dirk's putative suicide. Ray is turning to true Christianity, and is determined to take his skeptical daughter with him. The landscape will appear tacky for months.

Clearest sign yet that the end times have arrived

LaGuardia has international service

Previous posts: Introduction, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8
Next post: Chapter 10

Left Behind: Chapter Eight

Romanian dirtnaps. Buck's cup runneth over with Jews.

Forward Motion: Planck discusses assignments with Buck

Buck, desperate to go to England and follow up on Dirk Burton's leads. Planck, desperate to have Buck cover the events fomenting in New York. "International monetarists setting the stage for one world currency .... Orthodox Jews from all over the world looking at rebuilding the temple ... Jewish Nationalist leaders interested in one world government ...." Buck notes "I'm being overrun by Jews." "Diamond John" sobriquet introduced for power behind the throne financier Jonathan Stonegal. We learn that Carpathia "was ruthless with his business competition .... [p]eople took dirt naps." Marge, unable to reach Dirk Burton, leaves him messages.

Spinning wheels

White knuckle drunk Rayford Steele reminisces on his alcohol fueled attempts at adultery 10 years prior to the events of the novel. Ruminates on his Hattie fixation. Totally disses Hattie when she calls, seeking comfort and support. (Ray to Hattie: "I really have to get off!") Dissed Hattie calls Buck, who provides distracted reassurances whilst, "rolling his eyes ... [pondering] how did he get into this lonely hearts club?"

Where were we?

Ray, still awaiting daughter Chloe's return. Buck, desperate to get some sleep before attending story assignment meeting. Marge, unable to reach Dirk in London. Buck, unable to reach Dirk in London. Hattie, unable to reach out to anyone who cares.

The takeaway:

Please, please take me away from these people. O sweet sweet Romanian dirtnap, envelop me in your musty embrace!

Previous posts: Introduction, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7
Next post: Chapter 9

Left Behind: Chapter Seven

Dramatis Personae, novae

Ken Ritz: charter pilot who picks up Buck to fly him to New York City. Has first and last name, characterized as a no-nonsense type who gets things done. Doubtless will appear again, as he has a first and last name.

The action

Ken & Buck while away the flight speculating on a UFO theory behind the abductions. "[O]ur ideas of what space people would look like is [sic] way too simple .... if ... they're sophisticated and advanced enough ... they can do things to us we've never dreamed of .... They disappeared in an instant, so they had to be dematerialized. The question is ... could [they] be reassembled?"

Ray Steele, still at home, starts leafing through the Bible, hoping to figure out how he and Chloe can be saved. Sad ruminations by Ray on all the opportunities for salvation at the hands of Raymie & Irene that had been passed by. Determination to save self and Chloe if possible. Discovers Chloe has managed to fly out of Palo Alto, and should be in Springfield, Ill. soon. Buck makes it to the office, where he has a tearful reunion with Marge Potter (secretary) & Steve Plank (editor).

More descriptions of carnage emphasizing how horrible it all is

New York City: "Six trains were involved in head-ons with lots of deaths. Several trains ran up the back of other ones."
Flight center operator to Ray, regarding Chloe's eastward journey: "be grateful your daughter didn't get on [a flight] directly out of Palo Alto. The last one out of there went down last night. No survivors." "And this was after the disappearances?" "Just last night. Totally unrelated."

What next?

Tauran cosmonauts will appear at Rockefeller Plaza in anthropomorphized form, their haloed countenances exuding a radiant calm as they assure those left behind that they will soon be joining the missing in an extra-terran paradise where pain is but a rumor and death forgotten.

A thought on the preceding

I understand it's important to keep the readers guessing, but no one is buying the alien abduction angle.

Previous posts: Introduction, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6
Next post: Chapter 8

Left Behind: Chapter Six

The Settings

Rayford Steele, evidencing a latent alcohol problem, wanders through his empty home reflecting on his children Ray Jr. (aka Raymie), Chloe, and his wife Irene
Buck Williams, in a flea bag motel outside Waukegan, awaiting a charter flight to New York, contacting his father

Internal monologues occur. Didactic points are made

"It had been ages since Rayford Steele had been drunk .... Irene ... had become a teetotaler during the last few years ....[and] insisted he hide any hard stuff if he had to have it in the house at all ... 'I'm just saying you don't have to make it obvious to your preteen son [Raymie] that you drink hard liquor.' .... He reached behind the empty cake cover in the highest cabinet over the sink and pulled down a half-finished fifth of whiskey .... He was already getting a buzz when he replaced the bottle, then thought better of it. He slipped it into the garbage under the sink. Would this be a nice memorial to Irene, giving up even the occasional hard drink?"

More thoughts on the raptured Raymie

"It was Raymie's age and innocence ... his spirit .... [h]e wasn't effeminate, but [he] had worried he might be a mama's boy -- too compassionate, too sensitive, too caring."

Chloe the Un-raptured, on the other hand "was competitive, a driver .... She took care of herself."

Ray comes to believe

Rayford decides "if there was still a way to find the truth and believe or accept what ... Irene said one was supposed to do, Rayford was going to find it."

Buck calls his Dad. Family issues made plain. "He had been resented by the family ever since he'd gone on to college, following his academic prowess to the Ivy League." On religious matters: "It was the lack of any connection between his family's church attendance and their daily lives that made him quite going to church."

Dirk calls on Buck

The American and English Puppet Masters have plans, "apparently something on a huge scale" for "a third party ... from Europe, probably Eastern Europe"

Moving along

Ray finds a copy of the preceding day's pre-Rapture newspaper. The "surprise move in Romania" item captures his attention

"Democratic elections became passe when ... a popular young businessman/politician assumed the role of president of the country. Nicolae Carpathia ... had ... taken the nation by storm with his popular, persuasive speaking ... sweep[ing] [him] to prominence and power."

Buck secures a charter flight that will get him "near" JFK

The action in brief

Ray, no longer drunk, determined to be born again. Buck, predictably complicated backstory, en route to en route to New York

A random thought on the preceding

You're throwing the bottle out with out having emptied it first Ray? Good luck with that.

Brief note on Raymie

Ray's son is described as his and Irene's "tagalong child" in Chapter 1. If Ray is 42, and Ray is 13, by my reckoning Irene was no older than 28 at the time of this pregnancy. Using the "surprise" pregnancy of a woman in her late 20s as part of a character's back story has got to be one of the strongest indictments of faith based sex ed this reader has ever seen. Also good to know Raymie/Ray Jr. is "compassionate," not "effeminate." Because we all know where those people go ...

Previous posts: Introduction, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5
Next post: Chapter 7

Left Behind: Chapter Five

Buck: At the Pan-Continental Lounge. Hattie and Ray: at their respective homes

Introduced via the ruminations of Buck, as the authors explain his presence in Chicago and his flight to London

Dramatis Personae, novae:

Lucinda Washington: "a fifty-ish black woman," Global Weekly's Chicago Bureau chief. Angry at Cameron (who she refuses to call Buck) for scooping the Chicago office on a local football story. Lucinda: "Sports isn't even your gig, Cameron .... You Ivy League types aren't supposed to like anything but lacrosse and rugby, are you?" Proselytizes to Buck, telling him "[you] know you got your mind right when you saw what God did for Israel" and to "come to my church, and God'll getcha."
Buck admits to being a Deist, but rejoinds with the incontrovertibly reasonable observation that "[God has] already got me ... but Jesus is another thing. The Israelis hate Jesus, but look what God did for them." [Emphasis mine]
Calls Lucinda's home number when stranded at the airport and is told by her teenage son "Mama, Daddy, everybody else is gone .... you know where she is, too. She's in heaven."
Dirk Burton: the man Buck is going to see in England, "a former Princeton classmate, a Welshman who had been working in the London financial district since graduate school." "[A] reliable source in the past, tipping off Buck about secret high-level meetings among international financiers." Informs Buck of the machinations of a secret cabal of financiers who set the world's agenda behind the scenes. None of whom wear long coats to conceal their tails or have last names that end in -stein (yet).

Introduced via Buck's flashback conversation with Dirk
Jonathan Stonagal: "one of the richest men in the world and long known as an American power broker," integral to the U.N.'s integration of the global economy into the three currencies (dollar, mark & yen). "[N]ot only own[s] the biggest banks and financial institutions in the United States, but also owned or had huge interests in the same throughout the world .... the power behind the power .... The mightiest of the secret group of international money men."
Joshua Todd-Cothran: runs the London Exchange, was an eloquent exponent of the three currency reform. Apparently has a secretary who has a subordinate who is related to a friend of Burton's, and the source of Burton's secret knowledge about "the power behind the power."

The takeaway

Buck knows people who know things. And they know the world is converting to one global currency. Buck has also had a conversation with a black woman. Who speaks in awkwardly written dialect and mocks Buck's degree, despite being a major city bureau chief for a prestigious news weekly. And who may re-appear, because she has both a first and a last name, unlike "young woman" at the Pan-Continental Lounge counter, "middle aged" woman who gives Ray a ride home after the helicopter trip, and "older woman" who gives in to hysterics when her husband "Harold" disappears from the 747 en route to Heathrow. [note -- 2nd two women were omitted in the digests for those chapters, Harold was the owner of the glasses and hearing aid in Chapter 2. Disappeared husband, name. Grieving survivor wife, not so much].

What about Hattie & Ray?

Hattie calls Ray to make sure he's o.k., and to catch up on the head count of those left behind in each family. Ray has a spiritual awakening, realizing that "he certainly didn't much care what happened to her family any more than he cared when he heard about a remote tragedy on the news."

What to make of it all?

Buck, clearly not racist. "[S]ecret puppeteers," making decisions about the global economy, steering the world to "one [currency] inside a decade." Jonathan Stonagal and Joshua Todd-Cothran, powers behind the throne, but not necessarily Jewish.
Rayford Steele, clearly over Hattie.
Hattie Durham, pointlessly seeking solace in Steele (who must reject her on potential hussy Jezebel grounds), but has reassuring conversation with Buck who calls to tell her her mother and sisters are o.k.

Afterthought

Dirk Burton, Welshman?

Previous posts: Introduction, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4
Next post: Chapter 6

Left Behind: Chapter Four

The state of things

Buck is on his laptop, in the Continental Lounge, bleeding from his head

Captain Steele and flight attendant Hattie have been dropped off in suburban Chicago and head to their respective homes

Awareness dawns

A doctor in the lounge who dresses Buck's head wound assures him "[he's] workin' free today. Call it a Rapture Special."

Ray Steele discovers that his wife Irene and son Ray Jr. (aka "Raymie) "had vanished from the face of the earth."

Dramatis Personae novae

Marge Potter, Steve Planck's "matronly" secretary
E-mails Buck with information regarding Hattie's family (Mom & sisters are o.k.!) Several staffers are gone, but "[e]verybody from the senior staff is accounted for .... Have you noticed it seems to have struck the innocents? Everyone we know who's gone is either a child or a very nice person."

Buck ponders theory

"Marge had referred to the innocents. The doctor had assumed it was the Rapture. Steve had pooh-poohed space aliens. But how could you rule out anything at this point? His mind was already whirring with ideas for the story behind the disappearances. Talk about the assignment of a lifetime!"

A thought gnaws at Buck whilst on line trying to line up a flight to New York

"[H]e tried to remember what it was Chaim Rosenzweig, the Newsmaker of the Year, had told him about the young Nicolae Carpathia of Romania .... Rosenzweig had been impressed with Carpathia, that was true. But why?"

From Buck's archived transcript of his interview with Rosenzweig, circa the "Russian Pearl Harbor" on the topic of Mr. Carpathia

"I found him most charming and humble .... a peacemaker and leading a movement toward disarmament .... Blonde and blue-eyed, like the original Romanians, who came from Rome, before the Mongols affected their race."

Foreshadowing?

"This man is about your age, by the way .... One day you must meet Carpathia. You would like each other ... he is a man of high ideals. If he should emerge, you will hear of him. And as you are emerging in your own orbit, he will likely hear of you."

Next steps

The Global Weekly's unlimited resources are primed to send Buck to New York. Per Buck's conversation with the "young woman" at Pan-Con's Lounge counter "I have to get to New York ... I know it's the worst place to try to get to right now. But you know people ... pilots who fly on the side, charter stuff .... Let's say I had unlimited resources and could pay whatever I needed to. Who would you send me to?"

The wrap

Some chapters have to happen so other stuff can happen. Carpathia seems like a nice guy. Chaim seems like a nice guy. Could things not be as they seem?

Thought of the day

Why are minor male characters given names in this novel, but minor female characters consigned to a gender and age description?

Afterthought of the day

The Mongols invaded Rome?

Previous posts: Introduction, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3
Next post: Chapter 5

Left Behind: Chapter Three

On the tarmac at O'Hare

Evacuation via emergency chute. Buck is the first off the plane, injures his head, then runs off to the Pan Continental lounge to hook up his computer's modem and receive instructions from Steve Plank. Buses are provided for elderly, infirm and flight crews. Captain Steele and Hattie decline on principle. Flight Officer Chris has no such compunctions, displaying a terminal lack of character.

The action

Buck gives Hattie his card, "just in case I get through to your people before you do." Televised mayhem in the terminal, including a christian youth league soccer match suicide and a disturbing delivery room video (involves point of birth rapturing, and that's probably more information than good taste should permit). Rayford phones home -- no news of son Ray Jr., Wife Irene -- but hears voice mail message from daughter Chloe. Who is an undergrad at Stanford. Helicopter ride to the Chicago suburbs for Hattie and Rayford which provides Ray with an opportunity for multipoint full contact Hattie touching as space restrictions compel her to sit on his lap. "He wrapped his arms around her waist and clasped his wrists together. He thought how ironic it was that he had been dreaming of this for weeks, and now there was no joy, no excitement in it, nothing sensual whatever. He was miserable. Glad to be able to help her out, but miserable."

The one flight crew suicide is gossiped about on the helicopter ride. "Chris Smith, you know him? .... the rumor is he found out his boys had disappeared and his wife was killed in a wreck!" (Important to note that had he walked to the terminal, he probably would have had the composure to handle this news with dignity and grace.)

Buck manages to retrieve emails from Global Weekly in the Pan Continental Lounge. Instructed by Steve Plank to "[g]et to New York as soon as you can at any expense."

Dramatis Personae, novae:

Chloe: Captain Rayford Steele's unraptured daughter, student at Stanford. Presumably steeped in secular humanism and teetering on the brink of rug munching adventurism when the Rapture intervenes.
Nicolae Carpathia: (as per Steve Plank, Executive Editor with the Global Weekly) "guy from Romania who so impressed your friend Rosenzweig ... his international popularity reminds me a lot of Walesa or even Gorbachev."

These things are probably not coincidental

Big things for Buck to report on in New York, as per Steve Plank's confidential email:

"Political editor wants to cover a Jewish Nationalist conference in Manhattan that has something to do with a new world order government."

"Religion editor has something ... about a conference of Orthodox Jews also coming for a meeting .... editor thinks they're looking for help in rebuilding the temple .... other religious conference in town ... among leaders of all the major religions, from the standard ones to the New Agers, also talking about a one-world religious order."

"[T]he United Nations has that international monetarist confab coming up, trying to gauge how we're all doing with the three-currency thing ... I'm a little skittish about going to one currency...."

"[T]his Carpathia guy from Romania .... [has] been invited to speak at the U.N. in a couple weeks."

This also is probably not coincidental

My copy of "Left Behind," purchased for the reasonable price of a $2 donation to Washington D.C.'s Martin Luther King Library has no bar code on it.

Previous posts: Introduction, Chapter 1, Chapter 2
Next post: Chapter 4

Left Behind: Chapter Two

On a 747, once en route to Heathrow, returning to Chicago's O'Hare.

Captain Steele is directed to return to Chicago. [Unsure we knew they were flying from Chicago.] Unknown event, not yet referred to as "Rapture" causing chaos and mayhem globally. "Where it's daylight there are car pileups, chaos everywhere. Planes down at every major airport." Unpiloted whatevers crashing into unraptured otherthings everyplaces. Much shrieking in the airplane, stoical attempts to preserve calm as passengers learn that seatmates are missing. Calm preserved through filling out of now completely beside the point foreign entry cards. First Officer Chris introduced as flight officer Smith, performing a head count and sealing his doom. All children and babies are missing.

Fearsome images of a 747 half strewn with clothes laid out as worn ("[his] clothes were in a neat pile on his seat, his glasses and hearing aid on top. The pant legs still hung over the edge and led to his shoes and socks.").

Buck contrives to use his in-flight phone to contact Global Weekly and receive his next assignment. Hattie tries to intervene, but is smooth talked with assurances that if he gets through to his editors, he'll have them look into her family for her. Could this be character development? Might Buck be a macher with a soft spot, a heart of gold beneath the slick exterior? Has a first petal of romance unfurled?

In Chicago:

"Every civil service agency [is] on full emergency status, trying to handle the unending tragedies." "[S]o many cabbies had disappeared from the cab corral at O'Hare that volunteers were being brought in to move the cars that had been left running with the former drivers' clothes still on the seats." "The expressways that led to the airport looked like they had during the great Chicago blizzards, only without the snow."

The recap:

Captain Steele safely navigates the perils of O'Hare and takes whats left of his manifest to ground in the Midwest. Buck has called Hattie "gorgeous" while hacking the in-flight phone system. Captain Steele ponders the meaning of it all.

The big question:

The cabbies get raptured?

Previous posts: Introduction, Chapter 1
Next post: Chapter 3

Left Behind: Chapter One

On a "fully loaded 747" crossing the Atlantic en route to Heathrow:

Dramatis Personae:

Captain Rayford Steele: Pilot who has "pushed from his mind thoughts of his family."
Hattie Durham: Senior Flight Attendant, "drop dead gorgeous" and "a toucher."
Irene: Rayford Steele's wife, who "has hooked up with a smaller congregation" and is into "weekly Bible studies and church every Sunday," making Rayford "uncomfortable." "Lately [has] been reading everything she could get her hands on about the Rapture of the Church."
Cameron "Buck" Williams: at thirty, the "youngest ever senior writer for the prestigious Global Weekly." "[They] called him Buck ... because he was always bucking tradition and authority."
First Officer Christopher: at one point "squint[s] and lick[s] his lips." Is not given a last name until he commits suicide in Chapter Three. Apparently exists so Rayford Steele can leave the flight deck to perhaps have an encounter with Hattie Durham which may involve hand touching. (If the mood permits and things escalate.)

Introduced via flashback during the ruminations of "Buck," reflecting on the greatest scoop of his career -- his live reportage from the Russo-Libyan-Ethiopian total nuclear assault on Israel:

Steve Plank, Executive Editor of Global Weekly: Appears briefly in an editorial meeting that sends Buck to Israel to interview Chaim Rosenzweig. Apparently exists so Buck can go places and have money to do stuff with.
Chaim Rosenzweig: "Chemist," Global Weekly (and Time's!) Man of the Year, transforms Israel into the most awesome greenhouse ever, with "zero unemployment," said transformation inspiring the Russians to throw their entire arsenal of ICBMS and "nuclear-equipped MIG fighter-bombers" at it, an assault that "became known as the Russian Pearl Harbor."

The action:

People disappear from the flight while it's in the air, crossing the Atlantic. "Their shoes, their socks, their clothes, everything was left behind. These people are gone!"

But what about Israel, after the Russo-Libyan-Ethiopian total nuclear assault?

Pretty o.k. "Miraculously, not one casualty was reported in all of Israel." "[T]he entire Russian air offensive seemed to destroy itself." As a bonus, "[a]mong the ruins, the Israelis found combustible material that would serve as fuel and preserve their natural resources for more than six years."

Recap:
Israel -- a verdant paradise, selling grain and flowers and heating its homes with leavings from spent nuclear munitions.
A fully loaded 747 -- hurtling toward the unknown, Capt. Steele realizing that "Irene had been right .... [h]e, and most of his passengers, had been left behind."

Previous posts: Introduction
Next post: Chapter 2

Post-Apocalyptic Book Club Reads it for You: "Left Behind"

As a public service to our readers the Post-Apocalyptic Book Club (PABC) is serializing "Left Behind" in a manageably sarcastic, digestable format.

Why digested? Because as written, the work is nigh impossible to consume.

If it's that bad for you, why read it at all? Because it's apocalyptic fiction written for and read by the Christian right conservatives who make policy & occasionally have their finger on the nuclear trigger.

Which makes it the most disturbing book of them all.

Next post: Chapter 1

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The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

I'm not the only person who loved this book--it won a ton of awards last year, including both the Hugo and Nebula Awards. Flash forward to 200 years from now, and assume that an Apocalypse occurred that rewrote the Rules and Reality of the world's Economy, Agriculture and Climate, but left a goodly number of human beings alive to scrabble around in it and try to paste together a post-modern society operating with a lot of pre-industrial technology. If you believe that Climate Change is Real (and if you don't, kindly leave this blog and GFY, or, better yet, just go DIAF), Monsanto is Sinister, and Trouble Writ Large is Brewing, then you will enjoy this book.

Joint Winners

Twenty novels have won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novel since 1966 (when the Nebula Award was first bestowed). The excel sheet is available here, and embedded below. Two-time joint winners are Arthur C. Clarke, Orson Scott Card, Joe Haldeman, and Ursula K Le Guin. I know that I've read four of these books (The Forever War, Neuromancer, Ender's Game and The Windup Girl), and I definitely started and possibly finished a few others in my early teens (Dune, Rendezvous With Rama, Ringworld), but Dune is the only one of those three that I remember much about. I'll be making my way through the sixteen that I never read or can't fully remember over the coming year. This is a Promise.

Nebula Award for Best Novel

Since 1965, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) have voted and given out this pretty trophy (and $0.00 in cash) for Best Novel published in the USA during the previous year. Note: the "previous year" bit makes their awards, annoyingly, not correspond By Year to the Hugo awards.

Notable winners: Ursula K Le Guin has won four times for Best Novel...Joe Haldeman has won thrice. I've read two of the three Haldeman winners (The Forever War and Camouflage), and thoroughly enjoyed both of them (you can see my thoughts on them here and here).

A quick justification/qualification/rationale for posting stuff about these awards here: while these books aren't all necessarily Post-Apocalyptic, in the purest Spam-In-Bunker/Mad-Max-Thunderdome (or Tank Girl, if you prefer) style, they do almost all take place in the Future--and usually the Future is a less than perfect place, wherein something Really Bad happened to the Past (i.e. Our Present) to make it End, and hence, allow the Future to become What It Is (which is, usually, Dystopian). You follow?

As for why to be listing these award winners at all: the SFWA's website is a mess, with links to pages that don't exist for basic things (such as, um, list of Best Novel Award Winners). And while Wikipedia has this info, it's in a jumbled format, mixed in with Other Nominees (i.e. LOSERS) and incorrect statements such as, "William Gibson has won SIX times."--He's only once for Best Novel (Neuromancer), although he's been nominated many other times--and may have won a few times for short stories, novellas, or screenplays...but that's hard to determine for the above reasons. I know I could correct Wikipedia, because that's what it's all about...but I'd rather just post The Truth here.

Embedded below is the table of Nebula winners by year, while the actual excel sheet (should you like to create some sort of pivot table) is available here.

Compiled List of Hugo Award Winners

On a more practical note, here is the compiled list of Hugo winners that I ripped off from YouShouldaMarriedMe.com. The list runs from 1953-2010. I believe Richardo is compiling another list of Nebula winners and then cross-referencing the two.

Escape from Spiderhead

This George Saunders short story in the December 20 & 27, 2010 issue of The New Yorker takes place in a near future dystopia where current trends in illiteracy and commercial penal reform converge in a uniquely American horrorshow.

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