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Summary: Best novel I have read with a Catholic background
Review: This is at last a serious,well written book that ranks right up there with the best literature. It contains well delineated characters and it makes a lot of commentary on our society today with a sense of urgency. This is without question the most refreshing book I have come across in the 90's. I understand the book's appeal might not be so great for people who don't have a Catholic background, but this is must read for anyone who doesn't understand what is wrong with our modern world. It is also scary reading as anyone who is a serious thinker has to wonder how far are we from the events described in this book
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Summary: Thoughtful, thought-provoking meditation
Review: A splendid book, superbly written, with moments that are truly transcendant in the best tradition of the novel. Before continuing, it would be good to note its single flaw and that is that after reading 600 pages the resolution is incomplete--obviously indicating some manner of sequel. But, in the larger scheme of this story, the flaw (believe it or not) turns out to be trivial.
This story is an exploration both of the Church at a crossroads, and of the souls of individuals--both extraordinary and ordinary. What is most remarkable is that every character in the book is real, alive, and breathing. This isn't packed with the usual panoply of stereotypes who serve to "swell the progress of a scene." Each person is a person. Michael O'Brien's message in this book is ultimately (as in all good apocalypses) one of hope. Redemption is not only for the perfect. Even in the face of great evil and great menace, ordinary people are capable of tremendous and occassionally saving love. Ordinary people are capable of showing us the way to God.
This book is a meditation and a reflection on Salvation--its promise and its fulfillment. Michael O'Brien has given Christians something they have longed for since the death of C.S. Lewis--Christian Fiction that is interesting, relevant, and real, Christian Fiction that at once proclaims the Christian message, and tells a story of fallible humans and ordinary life. This is a book that should not be missed under any circumstances. Whether you are Christian or not, the wonderful flow of story telling is reminiscent of novels of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth century. Novels in which there is a story and room to breath and reflect. If Michael O'Brien fulfills the promise of this book, he will be a writer to watch carefully.
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Summary: BEST CATHOLIC NOVEL EVER WRITTEN
Review: If you want to know what is going on within the Church RIGHT NOW then read this wonderfully well written book! Set against the backdrop of the time of THE Antichrist, which, as we know from Church Fathers, and approved sources, cannot happen until after a yet to come Age of Peace, this book has some frighteningly accurate scenarios. READ IT!!!
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Summary: An exceptional novel on the end of time and the Second Coming of Christ.
Review: Subtle and frequently beautiful, "Father Elijah" is a stirring and, at times, haunting apocalytic meditation, two thousand years after the birth of Christ, on the coming of the millenium and the end of time. The protagonist, Father Elijah, a convert from Judaism and a man once powerful in Israel, is summoned to Rome by the Holy Father from Mount Carmel, where, for twenty years, he has been "buried in the dark night of Carmel" as a cloistered Carmelite monk. Twenty-nine centuries after the emergence of his namesake, the greatest Old Testament prophet, Father Elijah soon finds himself contending with the president of the Europarliament, a man the pope believes to be the Antichrist. Through a series of events rich with intrigue, treachery, adventure, and profound spiritual turmoil, Elijah strives, evoking the struggles of his namesake nearly three mellenia before, to convert the ruler whose hegemony, though thickly coated in the vernacular of humanism, threatens the human race. A master of verisimilitude, Michael O'Brien's story is frequently affecting. He effortlessly weaves the salient threads of thirty centuries of Judeao-Christian messianic tradition with quotidian events unmistakably approximating those of our own day. From his careful renderings of the pope and other senior officials of the Roman Curia, to the terror of traffic in Rome, to the struggles between the orthodox and modern forces within the Universal Church at even the lowest level, to reemergence of a powerful urge on the European continent for untiy under a single superstructure, O'Brien manages to convincingly blend the headlines of contemporary life with spiritual struggles seemingly hidden from public view, which signal the second coming. Given the powerful portrayal of certain of his characters (the stigmatic monk Don Matteo comes to mind), one often wonders whether they are fully figments of his imagination or whether O'Brien, a Catholic artist and novelist, has experienced the company of these uncommon characters.
Though subtitled "An Apocalypse," the novel is not animated by garrish spectral imagery that one might find in science fiction or in horror books or movies. While there are specters in "Father Elijah," they are of a subtler, and thus more believeable, sort -- not so much Halloween monsters, with horns and teeth dripping with blood, as menaces cloaked in nature, the iron fist in the velvet glove. And though an adventure, a journey, one full of startling and disturbing developments, "Father Elijah" does not gallop at the pace of a techno-thriller. It's pacing is relaxed, allowing the reader to luxuriate in the imagery and struggles O'Brien draws. At a time when the best-seller lists are filled with New Age novels about various "prophecies" and midnight encounters between good and evil, a reader's time would be more profitably and enjoyably spent with the more authentic "Father Elijah."
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Summary: A chilling geopolitical thriller.
Review: Scary stuff on a subject which is more truth than fiction. Also recommended in this genre: "Keys of This Blood" by Malachi Martin. Probably the best novel of its type. Much of what was written by this brilliant and controversial priest-author has come to pass.
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Summary: the Catholic answer to Pullman?
Review: I did not like the look of this book. (Perhaps because I`m English) I am prejudiced about North American apocalyptic literature - religiosly and historically illiterate nonsense usually. And I didn`t like the dialogue as I skim-read the first few pages [actually I still don`t like a lot of the dialogue]. But the cover review from Stratford Caldecot and the fact that it camre from Ignatius won me over.
Thank God.
This is one of the most extraordinbary books written in recent decades. As Lewis said of THE LORD OF THE RINGS, this is lightning from a clear sky. Partly Dostoyevsky, partly Charles Williams or Lewis, imagine if you can a novel written by von Balthasar or Adrienne von Speyer. This in a way - though too difficult for most children - is the Catholic reply to Philip Pullman`s "war in Heaven" in HIS DARK MATERIALS. I want everyone I know to read this book.
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Summary: Leave Left Behind and Cling to Children of the Last Days!!!
Review: While I am not a Catholic, I can recognize great literature when I read it. I read this book and now I'm well into the whole series. The author offers great characters, solid plots, powerful descriptions of the real struggle between good and evil. It is a sad commentary that the fictional Left Behind series has done so well and few people know about this far better series. I suppose that as long as comic books out sell great books then this will happen, but I call for all lovers of fine literature to push the fluff stuff aside, put down the shallow and empty Left Behind hype and read some real literature!
Rating: 
Summary: Sets a new standard for apocalyptic literature
Review: I these days of the Left Behind series literary fiasco, it is refreshing to read a book that is not only theologically thoughtful, but extrememly well written and fascinating. There is an odd but effective mixture of horror mixed with remarkably deep Christian meaning in addition to adept social commentary. Anyone who takes Christianity seriously and who has a certain amount of introspection (which the Left Behind series does NOT appeal to) will love this series.
A warning to my fellow protestants: this book is unabashedly Catholic. If you are uncomfortable with minor Mary veneration and a greater focus on relics, you may sometimes be annoyed. However, given the reality of history, this is an accurate reflection on a Catholic approach to Christianity. Moreover, it does not fail at being Christocentric.
Read and enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: top class Catholic novel
Review: If you have read other Michael O'Brien works and not Father Elijah, you missed his best to date! Inspired.
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