The happiest of the happy people

Just a few months ago, I wrote about Hal Lindsey's 1980s: Countdown to Armageddon. Little did I know that an even sparklier gem was waiting for me in the Batavia Library's dusty shelves: Blood Moon, Lindsey's one and only work of fiction.

According to the back cover, "Hal Lindsey's Jeremy Armstrong is an all-American hero for the new millennium. Another literary triumph for America's own Jeremiah, Hal Lindsey. The best selling author of the decade has broken new ground with his first work of fiction. Hal Lindsey has done it again!" That isn't a list of quotes from reviewers, mind you -- it's publisher's the copy on the back of the jacket.

I'm going to be as gentle as I possibly can and say that those who read the back cover may be disappointed.

Blood Moon is a paint-by-numbers trip down the prophetic checklist Hal Lindsey flogs about in his non-fiction work. Israel vs. Russia nuclear smackdown? Check. Text written to a sixth-grade reading level? You betcha. Evil pope? Check. The United Nations as the world's only military power? Also check. A conflicted main character who works for the Antichrist, but remembers stories about The Rapture, and begins to suspect they might be true? Naturally. Extended authorial monologues? Oh, hell yes.

The story, as it were, is set a few years after the Rapture in the far-off world of 2007. The Antichrist leads the European Union, and his army (the United Nations) has already assumed control of a cowed planet. Israel, standing alone, has developed a Patriot-style anti-missile missile named The Arrow to defend itself against its Muslim neighbors. A fair chunk of the book's story focuses on the Israeli General and Corporal in charge of the system, and their frequent monologuing about the need for a strong Israeli military. And for good reason! An evil terrorist named Ishmael Muhammed has discovered a flaw in "the system" and plans to use it to destroy the Jews. He prepares his attack from his secret missile base hidden inside a mountain. Cobraaaa!

Meanwhile, in the United States, an ex-paratrooper from the first Gulf War named Jeremy Armstrong is offered a chance by his kid brother to join the Antichrist's crack team of commandos. They'll be setting up the new world government. Don't ask why paratroopers are being put in charge of organizing a new government: at least it's better than Heritage Foundation interns. Jeremy's beginning to wonder, though, whether aliens really abducted all the Christians a few years back, or if his mother was right when she gave him all those Hal Lindsey books about the Rapture.

Wedged between these parallel arcs are Lindsey's fictionalized retellings of Bible stories, like the birth of Ishmael and Isaac, Jeremiah's scribe recording the prophet's words and preparing to warn ancient Israel of coming doom, and so on. He also indulges in an extended sub-plot involving a young Mohammed being possessed by demons before founding Islam.

"Well Zeke," said Jeremy, "given the latest developments in Jerusalem, with our world ruler waking up from the dead, these concerns are only going to intensify, don't you think?"

"Gee, I never thought about that, Jeremy," he said. "That's a good point."

Let me put this bluntly: Hal Lindsey is a very, very bad novelist. Blindingly implausible plot twists are brushed away with a sentence or two. Characters pause to monologue about what's about to happen. Terrorists launch nuclear missiles at Israel, the Antichrist secretly orders Israel to nuke Syria in retaliation, and the leader of Russia threatens to nuke the Antichrist in retaliation for that. Jeremy meets a sexy UN agent who shares his suspicions about the rapture -- and they flirt! It feels like the sort of spy thriller I used to write when I was in fourth grade, but with less commitment to narrative coherence.

At one point, a character recalls one of Hal Lindsey's own non-fiction books, and is struck by how true its predictions were! It's like Lindsey can't be bothered to create a Mary Sue character, and just writes himself into the story as an exercise in postmodern pique.

By the time the book hits the two-thirds point, even Lindsey seems to be losing patience with this "novel" business. Biblical flashbacks slide into the narrator's voice and he monologues for fifteen pages at a stretch, quoting his own non-fiction books at length. Hand-waving ensues and important plot developments are skimmed over in just sentences. Angels appear, start wars, and vanish in the middle of thirty-page expository marathons sprinkled with troop movement data. Eventually, Jesus returns from the sky. He trips the evil Pope, and the Pope falls into Hell.

Let me repeat that, people.

Then Jesus trips the Pope, and the Pope falls into Hell.

Jesus then kicks the staff of the United Nations into hell, makes the general of the Israeli army the new High Priest, and performs a wedding ceremony for Jeremy Armstrong and his chaste ladyfriend. Jesus gives them a villa for a wedding present, and they have sex.

When they came together at last, it was like the melting together of two souls in a fire of passion. All of their pent-up passions and fantasies were expressed in a rapturous union that made their two bodies as one.

Jeremy and Erin truly were the happiest of all the happy people on earth.

Lindsey concludes the book with a thirty-page narrator's rant about how Jesus will rule for a thousand years, but everyone still needs to study their Bibles hard because they'll have babies, and babies don't follow Jesus automatically.

And then the book ends.

Blood Moon is a standout book in the world of rapture fiction. The writing is uniquely amateurish, the plot makes Left Behind look like The Usual Suspects, and even the prophecy-fulfillin' portions of the book manage to trip over their own tangles.

I suffered for you. Do not read this book.