2008-05-12 Ridiculous story, incompetent writing

(This review is based on the 1991 edition of the book. apparently some details have been altered in the 2004 edition)

I suspect the title of this book was chosen to cash in on the mythical Illuminati, which has nothing to do with the secret society in this novel, "The Society" (although Burkett calls it the Illuminati a few times when first describing it). Burkett's Illuminati is a group whose goals, besides world power, is to "establish Satan's kingdom on Earth". Needless to say, they hate Christians, which we are told more times than I can count. The novel is set in 2001 (re-edited version in 2015), ten years after it was written, and somehow everybody in the USA, except for a small minority, is now against Christianity. Considering that a vast majority of americans are christians, this scenario is just too implausible to believe.

Instead of just telling his story, Burkett constantly voices his own opinions, calling liberals "fanatics" and portraying liberals as anti-Christian, foul-mouthed, coke snorting homosexuals who somehow managed to outlaw religious broadcasters and turn their tv and radio stations over to the evil "Gay power" groups. The bad guys are laughable stereotypes:

"By this time an avowed socialist and atheist, Sievers was attracted to a young English woman traveling with the group. Their mutual interests included an elitist view of themselves, a disdain of religion, and a desire to establish a new world order." (p.90)

Later in the book we have large mobs assaulting and killing Christians, carrying signs with an inverted cross, which according to Burkett is a symbol of the gay rights movement. The gay rights people continue their killings and in the meantime we learn how liberals want to harvest organs from babies. If Ann Coulter would write a novel, it would probably be like this one.

In the foreword, Burkett tells us he is a talented writer (leave that up to the reader to decide, why don't you?) and that the story is realistic. Unfortunately, he's wrong on both points. As for the realism, there is none. The Christian resistance movement can do absolutely anything by hacking the "Data-Net", and the government is left clueless as to how they do it. And the writing, all other flaws aside, is awful. The point of view switches all the time with no consistency, even within the same paragraph and the same is true about location. It's a mess.

A reliable source told me that Burkett was, although a bad fiction author, a wonderful man. If that is true, this book doesn't show it. Instead he comes off as simple minded, homophobic and paranoid. And an incompetent writer. Read this book only if you want to read some of the worst religious fiction there is. As trash, it is somewhat entertaining but it's too boring to qualify as true "so bad it's good" trash.