Tribulation Farce

Thanks to MrFrosty for providing me with this novel to review. Click here for a review of the first book in the series, Left Behind.

Once upon a time, there was an alternate Earth where millions of people abruptly vanished. They left behind a hotshot uberjournalist envied by his colleagues and known to every celebrity, a girl who wanted nothing more than love and cookies (in that order), a man who missed his wife so much that he needed a replacement for her, a pastor who cried at every opportunity, a vicious evil dictator and a scientist who single-handedly invented a secret formula that turned sand into earth. I think this last case is evidence of alchemy, and further proof – if any was needed – that we’re not in Kansas any more, or even in the Milky Way, for that matter.

These plastic people were introduced in the novel Left Behind, by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, and their attempt at a story continues in the sequel, Tribulation Force. Many sequels suffer from comparison with the original works, but I’m pleased to report that Tribulation Force not only lives down to the potential of its predecessor, but sets new standards for literary vapidity and substandard characterization. Couple this with a love story less steamy than the interaction between a eunuch and a nun, and you’ve got a book that is unintentionally hilarious when it isn’t completely witless. You have to hand it to the authors, though. Not many novels would contain a glaring error on the very first page…

Recapturing the Rapturing

In one cataclysmic instant, millions of people all over the world disappeared. They simply vanished, leaving behind everything material.

Either the authors forgot that bodies are material, or they wrote heaps of rotting corpses into the original manuscript, but some editor had the good sense to blue-pencil that out. Too bad there were no such brakes on their output this time; it continues as unhindered as the discharges of a cholera victim, and is less pleasant to contemplate. Since the readers might be unable to read between the lines of the characters’ self-denigration – or worse, might not have bought the first book – the prologue goes on to explain that the main character, pilot Rayford Steele, was one of those left behind and now feels responsible for his daughter Chloe’s skeptical attitude. I have an idea, authors. To make comprehension even easier for fundamentalist readers, why not include illustrations? Imagine a picture of Rayford as a Father Knows Best type, wagging his finger as he says, “Now don’t you take that attitude with me, young lady!”

Chloe, of course, couldn’t come up with even her skepticism by herself. She is the ultimate blank canvas, and it is her father’s privilege to paint her with whatever ideology controls him – until she gets married, whereupon her husband will assume the responsibility of telling her what to think. This is likely to happen soon, since she has an admirer in “the most accomplished journalist in the world”, Buck Williams. Buck, another recent convertee to the only religion of merit, narrowly escaped brainwashing from the “murderous evil power of Nicolae Carpathia” in the previous novel. Along with short fat pastor (think George Costanza) Bruce Barnes, Buck, Rayford and Chloe are now members of a special (as in Special Olympics) group calling itself the Tribulation Force. I assumed that a group with such a testosterone-juiced name would be instrumental in fighting evil and thwarting Nicolae’s plans, so that no matter how puerile the love story and how flat the characters, there would at least be some suspense and action. Little did I realize a basic rule of writing physics. 1 microgram of plot divided by the 12 books of a series = filler, and lots of it. Moreover, the authors shoot their own narrative in the foot by telegraphing plot events.

The odds are, only one of the four members of the Tribulation Force will survive the next seven years.

Ideally they would have shot the narrative in the head to put it out of its misery, but there’s money to be made here, folks. So, does anyone want to take a guess on which member of the Trib Tribe is going to die in this book? The hero, Rayford? God’s gift to the field of journalism, Buck? The little lost lamb who crept back into the fold for mating season, Chloe? I didn’t think so either. So let’s begin with a recap of just how wonderfully different the main caricatures are since their conversion; derivative all the way, this novel begins with much the same situation as the first, with Rayford flying a commercial airline.

From Skeptic to Septic

He pulled the headphones down onto his neck and dug into his flight bag for his wife's Bible, marveling at how quickly his life had changed… After all that had happened, only one book could hold his interest.

Oddly, his co-pilot Nick seems less than interested in Rayford's attempt to share the Good News. Maybe Nick is thinking of what can happen when a religious fanatic pilots a plane. Since Rayford is determined to get in a jab of some kind – this is a common motif for him and the authors, perhaps to compensate for their defeats in real-life debates – he claims that Nick would not have respected him if he, Rayford, hadn’t attempted to proselytize. In other words, fundamentalists, preach away. Even if people are telling you they’re not interested, even if they’re asking you to leave them alone, deep down they’re in awe of your chutzpah and your refusal to take no for an answer. And after all, what’s more important than the respect of unbelievers? By the way, I wonder if the authors used this ploy when they were in high school. “Come on, baby, you wouldn’t have respected me if I didn’t try to get to second base!”

Still, just to show that life for a new Christian is not all cookies and Kool-Aid, Rayford faces serious consequences for his attempt to spread the love. His boss tells him that he may have jeopardized his chance at flying Nicolae Carpathia’s plane. Since this is a chance “that a thousand pilots would die for”, his boss goes to great lengths to convince Rayford to take it. Rayford says he will pray about it. If this was set in the real world, the boss would shrug and hand the assignment over to one of the thousand pilots who could make a decision without having to consult an oracle first. However, since it’s set in an alternate universe where Jesus is god above and Rayford is god below, the boss all but begs him to accept the position.

Meanwhile, Buck decides to settle down in Chicago so that he can be close to the church and Chloe, not necessarily in that order, and the narrative goes round and round the burning mulberry bush as Buck tries to figure out what exactly he can do with her. It may be the end times, but a man’s gotta have a woman, or at least a young and inexperienced girl.

Only a fool would begin a relationship at a time like this. And yet wasn't that exactly what he was-a fool? How could it have taken him so long to learn anything about Christ when he had been a stellar student, an international journalist, a so-called intellectual?

This isn’t the first time that the, er, characters themselves point out the absurdities of the book. Of course, they all have to be this brand of Skeptic Lite, people who hadn’t actually read the bible before. Now, being True Christians, they ooh and aah over every page when they aren’t quoting verses from memory to suit the occasion. Buck does this with a Catholic archbishop, giving the man an Ephesians smackdown, but lest you be surprised at his sudden grasp of the apologetics, there’s a good reason for it.

Buck had already fallen in love with God.

The wedding was set for July. Seriously, though, this is Buck’s rationale for avoiding a relationship with Chloe, and it makes a peculiar kind of sense. After all, compared to the omnipotent creator of the universe, what's Chloe? Maybe when she can kill a few thousand people by snapping her fingers, Buck will reconsider her as a candidate for his affections. By the way, he calls her 'little girl' as an endearment; I kept waiting for him to refer to his deity as 'little god', for the same reason.

That had to be his passion until Christ returned again.

Until Christ returned? What is Buck going to do – transfer his adoration from God to Chloe when Christ returns? The god of the bible might be somewhat less than delighted at taking a second place to this inflatable doll. Chloe, of course, is utterly moonstruck over “the most celebrated journalist” of the time. Since she thinks there’s no point in going back to college, she has nothing else to do with her life but plod obediently after a man – Jesus, Daddy, Buck, take your pick. She even describes her behavior as that of a schoolgirl; it’s as though this former college student has been regressing in age ever since her conversion. By the time Jesus returns, she’ll be sitting in the corner sucking her thumb. Now that he’s a Christian, however, Rayford is so unfailing in his support of her that the narrative even refers to him by his title : “Dad shrugged.” This is a most Atlas-like movement, considering the weight he carries. As well as babysitting Chloe and avoiding the antichrist, Rayford has regular Teary Times where he berates himself on being a terrible person and reiterates to the readers how much he wuvs his wife.

Before his wife and son had disappeared, he had not wept in years. He had always considered emotion weak and unmanly.

He had insisted that his wife refer to him as “Spock”.

There were days when Rayford had been so grief-stricken and lonely for his wife and son that he wondered if he could go on. How could he have been so blind? What a failure he had been as a husband and father!

In an attempt to raise his fathering grade from an F to a D-, Rayford eavesdrops on Chloe’s talks with Buck and does his best to manipulate the two of them into a relationship. I’ve heard of Doubting Thomas, but Rayford’s more of a Peeping Thomas, and his spying on his daughter is downright creepy. At times, the Steele house comes off as the Bates Motel, with Rayford playing the parts of Norman and Mother simultaneously. And as if Chloe didn’t have enough of a problem with the most daughter-involved father since Lot, her romance with Buck takes a downturn when she sees a woman, Alice, helping him move into his new apartment. Later on, she meets Alice and says that she saw Alice earlier in the day. In the real world, Alice would ask where or when; in this Looking Glass Land, Alice says that Chloe must have seen her with her fiance. Jumping to the conclusion that Buck is the fiance, Chloe sits in her car and cries. Say, isn’t this the plot of a Sweet Valley High book – maybe all of them?

Since the rational, direct thing to do would be to ask Buck if he was engaged, Chloe alternately sobs on her father’s shoulder and makes snide remarks about sexual morality in their bible study class. She is Woman, hear her whine! Buck looks blank at all this, but then again Buck is either blank or tearful and presumably Chloe doesn’t have what it takes to make a man blubber at her feet. He then plays telephone tag with her, but even that masterful strategy fails to elucidate the problem. This book should be titled The Rules for Fundamentalists; there’s far more mind-reading and weepiness than there are references to the end times. Still, at some point it occurred to LaHaye and Jenkins that Chloe’s childishness was based on nothing but her own imagination. This is presumably not kosher for born-again christians, whose childishness should be based on the bible. Therefore, they spice up the narrative by providing a reason, a good reason, a sound and entirely plausible reason for her fits of grief and jealousy.

She gets a bunch of flowers.

The plot thickens, to match the characters

At this point, I was hoping the flowers would be a poisonous species; she might have eaten them in a fit of pique and ended the imbecilic subplot – no, what am I saying? – whole plot right there. Unfortunately, the writing here is as uninspired and lackluster as possible; we are not even told what kind of flowers they are, much less their color, scent, etc. Still, the flowers (like anything and everything else) are grist for Chloe’s melodrama mill, and she spends page after page trying to work out who sent them to her. It’s the biggest Christian mystery since the number of the beast. Buck denies culpability, though Dad is also an obvious candidate, because what could be nicer than getting anonymous flowers from your lonely, obsessive father? When pastor Bruce Barnes, after having the question posed to him in bible study class, also pleads his innocence, the process of elimination left only the antichrist. Just in case you think this might lead to actual action, though, rest assured it’s just a prank on the part of Carpathia’s assistant/lover, Hattie Durham. So the entire subplot is a joke, albeit one that gives Chloe a momentary purpose in life as she plays Nancy Drew. However, the great mystery of Who Sent The Flowers might prove too much of an obstacle for Buck’s and Chloe’s relationship, so Rayford takes a hand. Since his conversion to christianity has given him a new morality, he reacts to Chloe’s teenage traumatics by allowing her to think he’s on her side while slyly slipping Buck a go-ahead to come to their house at night and talk sense into her.

Rayford didn't like deceiving Chloe. It was almost like lying.

Gee, duh, you think? Deceiving someone is a bit like lying to them? I’d say it took one of god’s chosen to grasp such a deep philosophical concept, but in this case, the blessing on Rayford’s misactions comes from an even higher authority – his mother. Some time ago, he and Irene had a tiff, and she requested that he not contact her, but to Rayford’s relief, Mommy explained that the poor little woman didn’t know her own mind. Normally, I’d have more to say about this patronizing misogyny, but this is Irene we’re talking about. All women, Rayford learned, prefer it when you pursue them. In Left Behind World, stalking = foreplay, and as if that wasn’t creepy enough, parental involvement in children’s affairs runs in this family. Buck’s dip into the Steele gene pool may the first new blood they’ve had in a while, which explains Rayford’s desperation to have Chloe mate with him.

"Buck Williams is at the door, and he won't leave!"

"What do you want me to do about it?"

"Get rid of him!"

"You get rid of him! He's your problem!"

"You're my dad! It's your duty!"

Naturally, Chloe ends up speaking to Buck, and as he sets her straight on her misunderstanding, he describes his approach as “a little condescending, even parental”. This might turn off any other woman, but it’s exactly what Chloe’s familiar with; every dog needs a leash, and an eavesdropping Rayford silently cheers on Buck’s discipline of his daughter. After it finally dawns on Chloe that Alice is engaged to another man (as opposed to the great luminary of the publishing industry), she behaves characteristically.

She couldn't maintain eye contact, and she was clearly on the verge of tears… Chloe uncrossed her arms and buried her face in her hands. "Buck, I'm so embarrassed," she moaned, and the tears came.

The entire waste of time is described as a comedy of errors, though I’m not sure what’s worse – the allusion to Shakespeare in this sewage or the idea that there’s anything comedic about it. Still, get ready for some X-rated action as the happy couple decide to take a walk alone at night and Rayford asks if he can come along, or at least follow from a distance. Chloe, one word : Mace. What follows is a bit like Archie and Betty going on a date, as Buck, the sophisticated jetsetting thirtysomething intellectual, admits to being a virgin. He’s “old-fashioned that way." Plus, he knew that he couldn’t be the hero of the series if he was at all soiled by such a degrading thing as lovemaking. This is like a horror B-movie where the only survivors are the sexually chaste, and they pat themselves on the backs for having the foresight to adopt a fundamentalist principle long before they were actually converted.

"Experienced or a virgin," Chloe repeated. "That's a no-brainer. Definitely the latter."

Ever tried being intimate with an inexperienced virgin, Chloe? I have, and since you probably think touching yourself is icky, if not perverted, Jesus is going to come long before you do. There’s a no-brainer here all right; too bad the Wizard of Oz isn’t going to help you out of that predicament. God is there for you, however, and according to Chloe, he protected Buck from “disease and all the emotional stuff that goes with intimate relationships." Because in this alternate universe, condoms hadn’t been invented, and the only sure way to avoid emotion was to get married. Just ask Rayford. Since it’s confession time, Chloe decides that she too must bare all, metaphorically speaking. If you guessed that she was somehow going to be a virgin too, you’re not dense enough to be a member of the Tribulation Force.

"My boyfriends in high school, and my boyfriend my freshman year at Stanford and I were not models of, what did my mother call it, propriety? But I'm happy to say we never had sex. That's probably the reason I never lasted with any of them."

In a way, this makes sense – who would want to sleep with Chloe? Considering her level of maturity, or lack thereof, this would go beyond statutory rape and into child abuse. What I can’t understand, though, is the idea that this series would be able to convert anyone; with these former unbelievers both turning out to be prudish Vestals, it’s obvious that the authors are preaching to the choir. If they could rewrite the bible, Jesus would be mingling with teenage virgins, rather than with prostitutes and women caught in adultery. And since every protagonist is nothing more than Tim LaHaye under the skin, a blushing Buck goes on to say that he feels uncomfortable with the word “sex”. This explains why he went into journalism; no one in that field would ever be crass enough to say that babies came from any place but Storkland. Luckily for him, one woman fits his Victorian requirements.

There was a purity, a freshness about Chloe.

She must be using the new Always With Wings. Seriously, though, if this fresh purity is an euphemism for what I think it is, it’s going to last until their wedding night, at which point Chloe will have an impurity, a staleness about her. I’ve heard about Can this marriage be saved? but with these people, I’d ask Can this marriage be consummated? Anyway, Chloe goes back home to find her prurient papa all but salivating for the details.

"He kiss you?"

"No! Dad!"

"Hold hands?"

Forget “sex”, these people seem to dislike the terms “boundaries”, “privacy” and “respect”. After plowing through this drivel, even the implausible current events come as something of a relief, and while Carpathia might be the antichrist, at least he’s not a manipulative creep far too involved in his daughter’s love life. Since the authors take Revelations literally, god does the same, and everything is revealed ahead of time to Bruce Barnes.

Countdown to Cry-sis

The young pastor pressed his lips together to keep them from quivering. His eyes were filling.

Between sobs, Bruce explains that two mysterious witnesses have appeared at the Wailing Wall to spread the good news, but Carpathia is trying to stop them when he isn’t organizing One World Government, One World Currency and One World Religion. How the different religions of the world will ever agree to unite is a mystery. Perhaps they’ll have an extra special pot luck dinner. According to the bible, there will also be an eighteen-month-period of peace, and one word – “why?” – is more taboo than “sex” in this book, since none of the wide-eyed convertees ever ask the reason behind the specific period of one and a half years. After that time, god will kill a quarter of the world’s population in order to show the survivors why they should grovel before him. “If the Rapture didn't get your attention, the judgments will,” Bruce intones, perhaps unaware that there are better ways to win friends and influence people than kidnapping their loved ones and punishing them with plagues.

Horrible as these judgments will be, I urge you to see them as final warnings from a loving God…”

In other words, god’s Final Solution to the problem of the uppity human race. Keep urging, Bruce; you don’t want your parishioners to take those blinders off as they march behind you like rats after the Pied Piper.

'The Bible says that the Cross offends. If you are offended, I am doing my job.'

If you are not offended, what's it going to take to piss you off? Insults? Harassment? Do we have to burn you at the stake? Hey, anything to offend you so we know the Cross is still functional.”

At this point, readers who are still awake might be wondering about the title of the book; where’s the Tribulation Force in this tale of woe-mance? At the very least, you’d think that a secret club with such a gung-ho name could investigate the Mystery of the Anonymous Flowers. However, there is mightier work in store for the Tribbles; no matter what prior commitments stand in their way, no matter what else they have to do, they arrange to have regular bible studies with Pastor Barnes.

"Now I know what people meant when they said they feasted on the Word. Sometimes I sit drinking it in for hours, losing track of time, forgetting to eat, weeping and praying."

How do you bore me? Let me count the ways. Carpathia is far more active than these crying crusaders, as he pursues Buck (for employment; Carpathia has more taste than that). The nefarious schemes of Satan involve the construction of One World Newspaper, with Carpathia at the head of it, and he tries to convince Buck to work for him. Since the characters’ uberabilities will never be evident from their actions, the authors have to resort to this device instead (“See? See? Even the antichrist knows Buck is the man!”).

Carpathia nodded. "But what is wrong with controlling global news when we are headed toward peace and harmony and unity?"

"Where is the power to think for oneself?" Buck asked. "Where is the forum for diverse ideas? What happens to the court of public opinion?"

Buck Williams, hypocrite extraordinaire. Try applying those questions to your religion. It’s a pity that Carpathia didn’t call him on his double standards, but then again, it’s doubtful as to whether Buck would be of actual value to anyone; he describes his current journalistic work as “stuff”, sounding like a teenager being questioned by Mom on what he did in school today. Compared to these prepubescent dolts, even Carpathia doesn’t seem so bad, and on the plus side, the Tribulation Force all but pees itself when his name is mentioned.

Rayford actually knew two people-Buck and Hattie-who had personally met the Antichrist! How bizarre was that? When he allowed himself to dwell on it, it sent a dark shiver of terror deep inside him.

Yes! Dwell on that whenever you find yourself imagining what your daughter does with a man. Aversion therapy, shock treatments, whatever works! For crying out loud, won’t someone please think of the children? The conclusion to this gripping subplot is that Buck agrees to work for Carpathia, and so does Rayford. Praise the Lord and pass the ether.

Holy Hysteria

People were grieving. They were terror-stricken.

Imagine variations on these phrases repeated about a hundred times, and you’ll have an inkling of what reading this book is like. The characters also reiterate the mental/moral superiority of god and the missing True Christians, compared to their own stupidity and unworthiness. It’s like a circle-jerk where people use cattle prods instead.

"Does God speak to me audibly? No. I wish he would. I wish he had. If he had, I probably would not be here today. But he wanted me to accept him by faith, not by his proving himself in some more dramatic way than simply sending his Son to die for me."

No one ever points out that god’s need for belief sans evidence has led to them being left behind, and therefore god is ultimately responsible for their situation. Instead, they sniffle their way through bible study, stopping every so often to snipe at secular things like education, since Chloe can learn more from one day of preaching than she could in a whole year of college. Just in case you think this is an exaggeration, it isn’t. The former Stanford student has no idea how to turn on a computer and get an email address, but luckily she has a man to take the lead and show her how to manipulate the arcane technology to serve the best possible purpose.

Within a few minutes, Buck had Chloe connected to the Internet and set up with an E-mail address. "Now you can reach me anywhere in the world," he said.

“Oh!” she gasped in awe. “I had no idea how to do that before you enlightened me, Master. How may I even begin to repay you for your benevolence? Get on my knees? Why, are we going to pray?”

One thing about prayer I learned from this book, however, is that it’s not always done on the knees. Sometimes, it’s done on the face as well, sort of a reverse missionary position. During one of the numerous bible studies, Rayford realizes that he will have to give up the “logical, the personal, the tightfisted, closely held stuff” (there’s that word again) in order to surrender to god’s will, which is presumably illogical and impersonal, making me wonder why anyone would want it. Delighted at the sudden influx of attention, god descends upon the bible study, with predictable results.

Rayford felt so small, so inadequate before God, that he could not seem to get low enough. He crouched, he squatted…

He sounds as though he’s playing Twister. Still, when Bruce starts to cry, Rayford understands that god wants more from him than doing the splits. He lies prostrate on the floor, grovelling his little heart out, and people all around do the same in a self-abasement competition, most crying into the carpet from the realization that they can’t do it as well as Rayford does.

So this was the feeling of dwelling on holy ground, what Moses must have felt when God told him to remove his shoes.

I see the “lose clothing in the presence of god” remains a constant motif. Anyway, having gone through the necessary contortions to appease the alpha male, the Tribulation Force splits up temporarily as Buck goes to Israel to see the two God-sent witnesses at the Wailing Wall. Accompanying him is Rabbi Ben-Judah, another hapless person who just doesn’t understand the supreme glory that is christianity, therefore settling for a far lesser religion. At the wall, a young Muslim man tries to attack the two witnesses, who keep Jesus’s teachings in mind and turn the other cheek. Oh, wait, I forgot; that wouldn’t give the fundamentalist audience the vicarious thrill of watching their enemies burn to death, now would it?

�the other [preacher] breathed from his mouth a column of fire that incinerated the man's clothes, consumed his flesh and organs, and in seconds left a charred skeleton smoking on the ground.

This display of violence convinces Rabbi Ben-Judah that he had better get on the winning side before he’s barbecued as well. Though I have to say, he should have known this was coming, for does his own book not say that the Lord enjoys the sweet savor of burnt offerings?

He covered his face with his hands and wept, his crying becoming great sobs… Buck, too, was overcome and could not stop the tears.

Since conversion is an instantaneous process that leaves you fully equipped to defend the faith, the erstwhile rabbi gets on the radio to make an impassioned pro-christian speech. His reasoning, or lack thereof, leaves something to be desired.

"Our Messiah must be born of a woman and not of a man because he must be righteous. All other humans are born of the seed of their father, and thus the sinful seed of Adam has been passed on to them. Not so with the Messiah, born of a virgin.”

Men are from (Alternate) Earth, women are from someplace else. And for a rabbi, he doesn’t seem to be very familiar with the terms almah and bethulah. Still, he’s one more notch on the Tribulation Force’s communal bedpost. Too bad no one incinerated a man before the pope-in-waiting; he might have been converted as well. Instead, he heads the press conference to announce the formation of the new world religion, and although Buck has to be there with the rest of the press, he understands that Chloe needs some reminder of his existence in order to stem her neediness, much like leaving a ticking clock in a puppy’s basket. Therefore, he bought a cookie for each of them beforehand. Chloe squeals when she sees him on TV. “Look, Daddy, it’s Buck! How did he get into the little box, Daddy?” (OK, that last sentence is my own invention, though it’s completely in character for her). Then she runs to get her cookie so they can eat their cookies together. So, during a press conference attended by the heads of all major religions, Buck chows down as well, though to be fair, he doesn’t smile and cry simultaneously as Chloe does.

Marry in haste, the repenting’s done on a minutely basis anyway

"You'll never miss me as much as I'll miss you," she said… And she began to sob… “Buck, you can't say you care for me as much as I care for you."

Buck kisses her (probably to shut her up for once), though he knows and she knows and we know that once you’ve kissed a woman in Left Behind Land, love, marriage and babies are all implied. At this point, however, it occurred to LaHaye and Jenkins that Chloe’s marriage bed wouldn’t be large enough for three; therefore, something had to be done about her frisky father. We are told, one last time, that he misses his saccharine wife (described as “the sweetest little woman”, rather like an anatomically correct jelly baby).

Every room, every knickknack, every feminine touch reminded him of Irene.

And then he gets a new wife. Out of nowhere, a woman called Amanda White is shoehorned into the narrative during the last two chapters, for no purpose than to marry Rayford. Hey, she’s a True Christian – what more qualification does she need? Buck and Chloe are thrilled, since they had understandable concerns about who would take care of Daddy were they to marry. Now that Amanda will fulfil the role of daughter/wife/caretaker to Rayford, their path is clear.

"I'll be married before you will if Buck doesn't get on the ball. Has he even held your hand yet?"

I expect consistent future dialogue from Rayford to be, “Say, Chloe, you and Buck have been married for a month now. Has he used whipped cream yet?” Chloe’s response to her father’s incessant prying is to blush like an octogenarian spinster hearing a naughty word. This is not a college student. This is someone who lived in a hole in the ground. Though in case you’re wondering what Buck sees in his “little girl” besides her virginity, it’s simple.

She could give advice and feedback without saying a word.

That’s ideal, since whenever Chloe opens her mouth, it’s to complain or cry; it makes sense that she appears far more intelligent when she closes it. You can’t blame these people for their rush to the altar during the last few pages, though. They must have read the verse in the bible about no sex in heaven, and are trying to get as much as they can beforehand. Insert your own “rapture” jokes here, because they’re probably better than what passes for humor in this book.

Buck laughed, not because the joke was any funnier than the first time, he decided, but because it was theirs and it was stupid.

Finally, something I can agree with. Since there’s enough enmeshment in the Steele family to keep every therapist in business, Rayford and Buck propose simultaneously to their respective targets and suggest that they have a double wedding. Amanda has already grasped the fact that her boyfriend and his daughter are Siamese twins incapable of doing anything apart from each other, so she agrees, provided that Chloe says yes. By the way, are there any doubts that the members of the Tribulation Force share a single brain (if that much)?

"A double ceremony?" Chloe swiped at her tears. "I'd love it. But do you think Amanda would stand for it?"

I didn’t think so. Proving that True Christians do it en masse, the weddings take place at the same time and place, and Rayford is either relieved or aroused to see Buck finally holding Chloe’s hand. One thing’s for sure, though : he’s much happier to have a four-person family again. Sure, they might not be the original four people, but it adds up to the same number. Unfortunately, his bubble bursts when he finds out that non-christians can have sex too; after he takes his new wife to meet his new boss, “the most evil man on the face of the earth”, he finds that Hattie Durham, Carpathia’s secretary, is expecting a happy event.

Carpathia was beaming, as if expecting a joyous reaction. Rayford did what he could to not betray his disgust and loathing.

Disgust and loathing? Why, is the baby going to be born with hooves and cloven feet? And even if that’s the case, it’s still a sweet precious innocent little unborn human being, isn’t it? Really, Rayford, only once it’s past the cervix is it a vile sinner and worthy of your spittle-flecked invective. While her husband struggles to control his gorge in the presence of Rosemary’s Baby, Amanda makes a snide comment about Hattie’s lack of a wedding ring, though neither Hattie or Carpathia seems crushed by her (f)rigid views. Still, not only is the baby a reincarnation of Damian from The Omen, the little fellow’s illegitimate too, and is probably going to mooch off of Welfare for the rest of his unnatural life. And the horror of Hattie being a single mother proves too much for the younger members of the Tribulation Force.

But when Buck reached Chloe, he could barely speak. He managed to work out the story of the evening between his tears, and Chloe wept with him.

I felt sorry for Carpathia. He expected people to be happy at his prospective fatherhood, but the True Christians compartmentalize their emotions according to where they are. (Pseudo-)Earth is for tear-soaked handwringing and self-flagellation; heaven is for mindless praises and happy happy joy joy. And this novel is for the most inane writing I’ve ever seen in a published work. The authors seem to be imitating the bible’s style, since the most humdrum details are repeated ad nauseum, and every event is broadcast to the reader ahead of time. As for the characters, their emotions are spelled out carefully, for the benefits of any four-year-olds among the reading audience.

Buck was wounded.

Hunter had shot him with Gun. At times the writing rises above simplistic to become bizarre instead.

Chaim Rosenzweig put a gnarled hand on Buck's knee.

“Higher,” Buck said hoarsely. Seriously, though, Chaim’s not the only man to feel Buck up; either the authors are completely oblivious to their lunatic narrative, or some editor slipped in these periodic gropes to enliven the story for the slumbering readers.

"That's it!" the president said, slapping Buck's knee hard enough to make it sting.

Buck must have the biggest knees since Torgo, since they seem to be a magnet for the males in the vicinity. It’s not just his knees, though.

"This is a great day, Cameron," he whispered, reaching for Buck's hand with both of his.

After chapters devoted to flowers and cookies, Bruce’s death – oops, hope I didn’t spoil it for anyone – is crammed into the few remaining pages at the end of the novel. Perhaps he should have gotten married somehow in order to stay alive that much longer, though one could argue that smart people get out of a novel like this through any means necessary. The last sentences of the book sum up some action that would have been a great deal more interesting than the love rectangle between Buck, Chloe, god and Rayford.

Washington had been obliterated. Heathrow was gone. There had been death in the Egyptian desert and in the skies over London. New York was on alert.

The Red Horse of the Apocalypse was on the rampage.

Make it read this book; it’ll be begging for the glue factory in no time. When I started on Tribulation Force, I didn’t think it could be worse than the first book in the series, but it proved me wrong. A supposed college student and skeptic in the first novel becomes the zeroine of this book, a helpless virgin so passive that she can’t even tell her fixated father to mind his own business. And the rest of the characters have sunk into full-blown fundamentalism, right down to the slavish blindness they develop regarding their religion. If you cut out the flowers, the cookies, and the stultifying romance that rests on these two props, Tribulation Force would shrink in size to a Chick tract. As it stands, however, I’ll paraphrase Mark Twain : this book is Chloe-roform in prin

Back to the Nutwatches!