St. Rayford, avatar of the Holy LaHaye

There's a really weird mention in here about Nicky Apennines's health care plan. I have no idea why they put it in there unless they plan on saying that anyone trying to reform health care is out to get you. This would go well with their hatred of anti-war activists. Think I'm reading too much into this? Look at the quote.

"Should the death toll reach as high as 25 percent," the doctor continued, "we will need these new directives to govern life from the womb to the tomb. Our planet can be brought from the brink of death to a shining new state never before imagined."

So any reform to status quo is bad apparently.

Anyway so Ryan tells Judd and they decide to fake out the eeevil pilot by pretending that Ryan has appendicitis and make a break for it when the pilot lands the plane and get back to the church where they meet up with Token Jew and Rayford. That's right: LaHaye's Mary Sue surrogate finally makes an appearance in this novel. Okay he had been mentioned before but I'm counting this as a first appearance because it's the first time he's actually interacting with the YTF. Rayford suggests the kids go in the hole-in-the-ground but Judd isn't game for it saying that he believes Zod can use the kids as well as the adults.

Not much happens in the rest of this chapter except that Token Jew receives a picture of his dead family and for once we get a human reaction as he weeps over it.

Next chapter. Occasionally when you read these books, you will stumble onto one line that is just full of wrong. This one line happens in this chapter when we get mention of John and Mark, the other two members of the YTF who receive even less attention than Lionel and Ryan because Ellanjay doesn't know how to handle multiple characters. Anyway, it is mentioned that John is going to college. Now in any novel, this would be the practical move of a young man, but in a novel where the world has less than seven years to live, it just makes the reader :headdesk:. School only makes sense if the world has a future but it doesn't!

Next is Bruce's funeral and St. Rayford, avatar of the Holy LaHaye, uses this opportunity to preach a sermon. Here it is in all its one-paragraph glory.

"If you had asked people five minutes before the Rapture what Christians taught about God and heaven," Rayford said, "nine in ten of would have said to live a good life, do the best you can, be kind, and hope for the best. It sounded good but it was wrong! The Bible says our good deeds are worthless. We have all sinned. All of us are worthy of the punishment of death."

And all of you are going to die regardless of whether you said the magic words or not. RTCs' denial of the reality of death strikes again!

Also if none of our good deeds matter, then why do our bad deeds count so strongly against us? Why aren't our bad deeds equally worthless?

The funeral ends with Judd being arrested by the pilot. Something tells me, though, ultimately nothing will come of this. I cite as example Vicki's multiple stays in the detention center.