Joshua has been in Israel for a self-imposed exile. He's a wanted man in The United States. His wife, Abigail, leads the secret militia-type group in his absence as well as seeking to prove his innocence in the courts.
The world is moving towards one-world government and one-world religion as many nations sign on to a U.N. plan for peace. Meanwhile, there is a presidential election coming up in The US. Current President Tulrude is running for reelection while boasting of her attempts to unify her country with the rest of the world. Her opponent is everything the Religious Right want in a man. He's promoted as the perfect retort of President Tulrude's liberal agenda.
Fans of LaHaye and End Times fiction will eat this up. There are plenty of thrilling action sequences, political maneuvering, twists and turns to keep any religious reader up through the night.
Those who aren't fans of LaHaye will dismiss this as just another attempt to make money off a popular idea.
Craig Parshall does an admirable job with this book. It reads like the Left Behind books in that the characters tend to be one-dimensional but this helps move the plot along at a fairly quick pace. The twist probably won't surprise many people as I'm not sure it was intended to be a huge surprise twist.
Like the Left Behind books, these men take hefty swings against the UN, Liberal Americans and promote a heavy dose of military, patriotic Americanism as side-by-side with Christianity.
Below is a brief interview I had with author Craig Parshall
1) With
the Left Behind and Babylon Rising series, what sets this series apart? What
was the rationale for another End Times series?
In “The End” series that Tim and I are writing, there is a concerted
effort to fold breaking current events and trends in technology, geopolitics,
religion and culture into the novel. In fact, Biblically significant events are
happening so fast that we occasionally have to rewrite some of our fiction
scenarios in light of the headlines in the news as it catches up with our
“futuristic” fiction! Also, since the time of those two prior End Times series,
a great deal has been happening which has prophetic implications – the tumult
in all of the Middle East Arab states; Iran’s nuclear ambitions which create an
existential threat against Israel; the explosion of a global communications
connectedness through “new media” goliaths like Facebook, Twitter, Google and
Apple’s iPhone and at the same time U.N.’s attempt to take over the governance
of the entire Internet; a global economic distress and the shocking downgrade
(the first in history) of America’s credit standing; American political policy
that has made historic concessions to the international community and a Supreme
Court that has begun to absorb international law into its decisions, just to
name a few.
2) What
is the takeaway you hope readers receive from Brink of Chaos?
For those who have not yet seriously
considered the New Testament claims about Jesus Christ and His imminent coming,
our hope is that these books will nudge them closer to that kind of
examination. For those who are already following Christ, we hope that our fiction
series will help them to understand how the events in the world can be viewed
through the prophetic lens of God’s Word. And for everyone, we hope they will
have an exciting read, and an appreciation that in uncertain times there really
are only two alternatives for living – either by faith or in fear.
3) How do
you think the end of the world will occur?
In perfect symmetry with God’s timetable, in accord with the outline of
prophetic events He has given us in Scripture, and yet probably still in ways
that will surprise us. All of us, even those that have a personal relationship
with Jesus Christ and are guided by the Bible, still view things, as the
Apostle Paul reminds us, “through a glass darkly …”
4) How is
the writing process divided up between the two of you?
In writing this series I have the privilege
of working with Tim LaHaye, one of the great authorities on Biblical prophecy.
He is also a very gracious partner in this writing process, and while I have
the task of doing the fiction writing and he provides me with the prophetic
overview of events that will be folded in each book, he gives me a very free
hand in the creative process. That said, he also has come up with some terrific
fiction ideas that have found their way into our stories.
5) I
couldn't help but notice the similarities between the political characters of
the novel and real life. You have the ultra-liberal President saying "I
inherited this mess" and a political Opponent/Presidential candidate
described as "Tulrude lite" as in the two are basically the same. Was
it intentional to have these two mirror President Obama and Governor Romney?
The
futuristic picture of America United
States America
6) Do you
see any parallels between what is happening in our world now and what takes
place in this series?
This goes
back to what I had indicated about the novel reflecting current events and
trends. When the series began a few years ago I was interested in exploring a
scenario where the entire news media has been pushed off of broadcast
frequencies, cable and satellite, and onto the Internet, then followed by a
government takeover of the Internet, making the White House capable, in one fell
swoop, of exerting a new form of media manipulation. Compare this with the
real-life fact that within the last few days, we saw the current White House
applying unprecedented pressure to try to get Google to block an anti-Islamic
video on YouTube, the video platform owned by Google. Also, in Brink of Chaos, we see wide-spread
video surveillance of American citizens by the government, and how that impacts
one family of American patriots. In real life, just recently (and after the
manuscript of Brink of Chaos was
finished) the U.S. Senate started holding hearing on the privacy problems
created by the wide-spread use of “facial recognition” technology in America,
including its surveillance use by the government as well as by private
companies.
is okay reading. Like I've written of the other books in the series, after the first 3 books I lost interest fast. Now it's simply a matter of finishing them to know who dies. (Or who survives as the case may be.
is a quick-paced novel leading up to the assassination of the Anti-Christ. It's one of those whodunit stories where the culprit may surprise you.
. After the exciting build-up from the first 3 books, I had a feeling the thrill was going to taper off at some point and this book is when it happens.
is the first book of an end times series dealing with The Rapture and what happens in the world afterwards.
.
, The United Nations are seen as an evil entity. Liberals are viewed as wanting to destroy American sovereignty and, in this book, the Vice President is a Feminist bent on leading the nation down a dark path.
