Rating: 
Summary: relatively good idea, but desperately spoiled
Review: This is the first "Illuminati" book I've read so far and I'd like to share my utter disappointment.1. The plot is EXTREMELY WEAK. In fact it is so lousy and predictable that I gets even funny - pretty much like watching a really bad movie - you actually start enjoying it towards the end... 2. The Author doesn't have a slightest clue about computers, yet 2/3 of the book deals with "computer stuff." Those of you having some minor understanding of computer terminology will be abhorred by meaningless collection of buzzwords intended to impress those raised in Nebraska (no pun intended ;). My personal favorite is (page 168): "He had simply commanded the central computer controller to interrupt Loo's "trap" and then reinstate it once Jeff had access to the main compiler." I'll appreciate if someone, personally acquainted with the Author would give him some "Computer for a complete Idiot" book as a gift. 3. Finally, the Author is a devoted protestant and so is the book. The good guys are protestants (with some Jewish people mixed in). The bad guys are abortion supporters (represented as killing children for organs in the book), gays, freemasons, and all kinds of sadists and perverts. The author gets completely delirious towards the end... To summarize, if you haven't left the Bob Jones University campus for 5 years, this is a book for you. Otherwise, don't even bother.
Rating:
Summary: A few hours of my life I'll never get back
Review: This was entertaining for a number of reasons, none of them what Burkett intended. After a few chapters, I had to reframe my experience of the book - I chose to experience it as a crude and cartoonish parody of itself. In that way, it became moderately enjoyable.
For starters, the Society depicted in the book bears very little resemblance to any version of the "Illuminati" I've ever seen. Fearless Leader (Amir Hussein)is a ranting gorgon with no people skills to speak of, and even the inevitable scheming plutocrats haven't a shred of organizational smarts. The whole megilla is basically a dress rehearsal for a very specific version of the Tribulation from the book of Revelation - think of "Left Behind" by LaHaye but shorter and more badly written. Of course, we know it's not the real Trib because there's been no Rapture. Reading this at the end of 2001 - the year the events in the book are depicted as taking place - added a special tang to the mess. Having Dubya in the White House and Ashcroft safeguarding or liberty makes an amusing contrast with the ergot-frenzy dystopia Burkett confabulated. What prompts people like him to persist in imagining 'Christians' as the current or imminent victims of vicious secularist pogroms is and will forever remain a mystery to me.
Rating:
Summary: A few hours of my life I'll never get back
Review: This was entertaining for a number of reasons, none of them what Burkett intended. After a few chapters, I had to reframe my experience of the book - I chose to experience it as a crude and cartoonish parody of itself. In that way, it became moderately enjoyable.
For starters, the Society depicted in the book bears very little resemblance to any version of the "Illuminati" I've ever seen. Fearless Leader (Amir Hussein)is a ranting gorgon with no people skills to speak of, and even the inevitable scheming plutocrats haven't a shred of organizational smarts. The whole megilla is basically a dress rehearsal for a very specific version of the Tribulation from the book of Revelation - think of "Left Behind" by LaHaye but shorter and more badly written. Of course, we know it's not the real Trib because there's been no Rapture. Reading this at the end of 2001 - the year the events in the book are depicted as taking place - added a special tang to the mess. Having Dubya in the White House and Ashcroft safeguarding or liberty makes an amusing contrast with the ergot-frenzy dystopia Burkett confabulated. What prompts people like him to persist in imagining 'Christians' as the current or imminent victims of vicious secularist pogroms is and will forever remain a mystery to me.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Exceptionally Bad, But Not Very Good
Review: This was obviously a first-time fiction author's book, and if I were the editor, I would have sent it back for revision. It had very common first-time author problems, such as pacing issues as well as the problem of not really knowing how to effectively write dialogue. Even when I was supposed to feel something in the dialogue, I didn't. I knew what I was supposed to feel, but I didn't feel it. In addition, there are problems that I have with the writing style. For example, the author shows a panoply of personal biases against anything liberal. Granted, legalization of drugs isn't necessarily a good idea, but that doesn't mean that all homosexuals or all liberals use them, which is implied by the story. All liberals don't agree with abortion, either, but that generalization is made too. It's all right to put things like that in and to let your voice show through, but the condemnation that the characters receive from the AUTHOR is rather harsh. In addition to that, the author cites, several times, the taxation of churches as being unconstitutional. I can only assume that he means the Separation Clause of the First Amendment, but it never guarantees the freedom of churches from taxation. Realistically, they should face property and income taxes like any other institution, and be held to the same laws requiring proof of tax exemption status. However, he is correct when he cites the banning of Christian television shows from being aired as being unconstitutional. Another problem that I had was that characters would make revelations, completely without cause, simply to move the story along. An informant to give them that information may have been more plausible. With experience, the author may correct that problem. One side note, I have read several Christian "End of The World" fiction pieces, and I think that it is quite humorous that all of them have a Democratic, Liberal president taking away the rights of the people, when the closest things in history to these activities were performed by Abraham Lincoln's signing of a law suspending posse comitatus, and President Bush's lovely "Patriot" Acts. Anyway, the only other real problem with the story was one that is common to Christian fiction, and it comes from their viewpoint. In the end of the story, it is a foregone conclusion that all of the good characters are or will be Christians. I understand that they believe that God provides morals, but some morals are provided by society. I don't think that I would standby and allow my neighbors to be rounded up as terrorists for what they believed. No matter how much I disagree with what others believe, I refuse to take their right to believe it away. If you have some free time and want to read an easy novel, pick it up, just get it cheap. You probably won't enjoy it too much.
Harkius
Rating: 
Summary: Incredibly wonderful, and a fun read
Review: When I started the read the book, it seemed very strange. The plot was highly imporbably, the author messes up technical details too often, and the whole "It's the Masons!" conspiracy theory seemed a bit old. But still... I loved it, and I finally figured out why. It's _happy_. Pure evil is a contender, and you know it's going to lose! Whether or not you agree with the author's Christianity, you'll find yourself going "Yeah!" If good, depressing works have gotten you down (like _Of Mice and Men_ or _The Glass Menagerie_), have fun and read this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Fantasy - maybe but- from 1996!!
Review: Where are we now? One europe currency-us next? Really makes you think this was written in 1996!!! Maybe to easy for some to read-no high brow stuff but thats the point. Easy, grade school language so ANYONE can get the drift. To make you aware, make you thing for OURSELVES before its TOO late. Read this in 1996 and again in 1999. WalMart scans chips in your hand,kids have inplanted chips and so do animals already- what NEXT ! Maybe this isn't so far fetched after all.
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