Alien Rapture: The Chosen

Rating:
Summary: Looking to Waste Some Time & Money?
Review: Even if one ignores the poor writing style, silly dialogue, and many, many typographical errors throughout this amateurishly written book, if aliens & alien spacecraft are real, the book does a giant disservice to anyone involved in legitimate research in the field. (Maybe that's the whole point - spread disinformation and make the whole subject look as bogus as possible. Wouldn't that be ironic since the plot includes many references to government disinformation campaigns.) Chapter 1 starts out OK but it's downhill all the way to the end. Reviewer Stephen T. McCarthy got it right: "Hokey-Smokes and Hoo-Wee, this was B-A-D!" See his review in the list. I wish I would've read it before paying out good money. I'm an electrical engineer and design electronics for a living and I stay up to date on computer technology. But even if the average reader doesn't work in the field, most would probably notice the author's dubious knowledge of computers must mainly come from 1970's science fiction movies. His knowledge of operating systems seems to be stuck back in the days of DOS. Descriptions of other technology are just as poor. Chapter 25 reads like it was written for an 8 year old. Actually this should've been marketed as a children's book.
Concerning the reviewers who've given it high marks, maybe they mostly read children's books (not that there's anything wrong with that) and so this story rates relatively high for them. Either that or maybe they're friends of the author or have been paid to say good things. I honestly can't say anything good about this book myself. You can only select whole stars but honestly, I give it one quarter of a star.
Happy reading!

Rating:
Summary: What a great read.
Review: Mystic-McCarthy's highly negative review perplexed me until I read some of his other reviews. I read most of the reviews on "Alien Rapture" and bought it in spite of this moron's obsessively negative review. Mystic-McCarthy is so great a writer, editor and critic that he calls himself a `maroon'? The point is any idiot or `Moron' can find errors in a book.

Many people have written books on the errors in the Bible. Look at how many errors are found in Educational Text Books every year! Unfortunately Amazon's ratings format has turned into a bully pulpit for moron's who can't write but want their rants posted for the entire world to see. Personally I loved "Alien Rapture," and the author Brad Steiger has written and published over 150 books as opposed to Mystic- McCarthy's ZERO! Read some of the excerpts from McCarthy's reviews below.

McCarthy rates "The Orion Prophecy" (Two Stars) which has an Average rating of four stars. McCarthy writes: "Hi, it's me again! I've just finished reading (all that I intend to read of) THE ORION PROPHECY by Patrick Geryl. Now, I certainly never thought of myself as a genius, but evidently I'm a bigger maroon than I ever suspected because...frankly...by page 28, I was hopelessly lost and didn't have CLUE ONE what the author was "doing somersaults" about! It seems he had just "indisputably" proven something, but I had no idea what that was, let alone what proved it!" - - Just because McCarthy can edit and criticize doesn't mean he can comprehend or spell moron.

McCarthy rated "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown (One Star): "In every confrontation, the professionally-trained police/security officer reacts like the village idiot. Yeah, sure; it happens all the time! Our protagonists manage to escape from a couple of predicaments thanks only to the law enforcement officer's unbelievably inappropriate response to the situation at hand." - - Life is imperfect as are humans and many times real life is absurd, unlike Mystic-McCarthy who is perfect, except he used a semi-colon after `sure;' instead of a comma.

Obviously Mystic-McCarthy is `Obsessive Compulsive.' He writes, "I have intently and daily studied The Bible for more than a decade. The margins of my Bible pages contain copious notes representing Holy Spirit-inspired insight, idiomatic notations, and cross-referencing." - - He writes about "Learn The Bible In 24 Hours."

On "Alien Agenda : Investigating the Extraterrestrial Presence Among Us" by Jim Marrs. He writes; "ALIEN AGENDA has a few problems: Too many typographical errors for a major publication. (Followed by As one reviewer pointed out, the author overworks the term "mind-set" and you may or may not find this irritating depending upon your mind-set. Chapter 11, IN THE MIND'S EYE, which is highly speculative at best, is too long. Chapter 12, A METAPHYSICAL EXAM (where I believe we finally sit down to the meat loaf and Tater Tots), is too short. When he refers to "the demagoguery of anti-Communist senator Joseph McCarthy" and his "witch-hunt"; when he insinuates that F.D.R. was somehow an unwelcome threat to the Morgan Banking House, it is clear that MARRS is out in space!"

Any moron or moroon in McCarthy's case can blather out his emotions and slanted opinions in these reviews. It takes a discerning reader to sift through the value of them. I rest my case.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Read!
Review: Besides a decent plot, plenty of action and interesting realistic characters this book had some information in it that could only have come from someone in the know. Thanks for sharing!

Rating:
Summary: ALIEN (C)RAPture!
Review: Hokey-Smokes and Hoo-Wee, this was B-A-D! How bad was it? It read like the screenplay of an Ed Wood movie! It could just as easily have been titled, PLAN NINE AND A HALF FROM OUTER SPACE. In my entire adulthood, I have encountered only one other book this poorly written.

In ALIEN RAPTURE by Fouche & Steiger, the characters are underdeveloped mouthpieces for the authors, with the vocabulary and verbal style of each character virtually identical. The dialogue often exists only as an excuse to relate expository information to the reader, and as such, it is stilted and unbelievable. Imagine one member of an ultra-Top Secret Committee reminding the Committee Foreman : "SHOULDN'T WE BRING THE PRESIDENT IN ON THIS? I MEAN, PRESIDENT TRUMAN SET UP THE ORIGINAL...COMMITTEE IN SEPTEMBER OF 1947, RIGHT AFTER THE ALIEN BODIES WERE RECOVERED FROM ROSWELL, NEW MEXICO." (-page 22)

The book is riddled with trite phrases : "I KNOW THAT YOU MUST ALL BE WONDERING WHY I CALLED AN EMERGENCY MEETING..." (-page 20) / HE "WAS A PROFESSIONAL KILLER WITH ICE WATER IN HIS VEINS." (-page 265)

Not to be outdone, there are typographical errors galore : "WHAT APPEARED TO BE BITS OF SKULL OF BRAIN WERE SPLATTERED ON HIS COLLAR." (-page 248) *Yeah, that skull of brain does tend to get messy, doesn't it?

You will also enjoy the unique sentence structure and keen insight : "DOZENS OF TINY EQUIPMENT LIGHTS SPARKLED IN THE DARKNESS OF THE ROOM THEY ENTERED AS THEY STEPPED INSIDE." (-page 230) / "HE KNEW THAT HIS HANDS WERE SHAKING." (-page 2) *It goes without saying that a person knows if their hands are shaking!

And then of course, there are multiple instances of utter nonsense : The senior member of the Government's most elite Committee bemoans the fact that he couldn't convince NBC to cancel a program on UFOs that the network intended to broadcast in order to inform the public of nefarious government coverups. Ha, Ha! Like our mainstream media consists of renegade watchdogs looking out for the well-being of the general populace and operating beyond the reach of coercion from the highest levels of Government. Right!

Here's my favorite : On page 28 we meet COLONEL TY TRENT, a decorated Marine Special Operations and Intelligence officer. In chapter 16, COLONEL TY TRENT enters an office for a closed-door meeting. This meeting continues through chapter 17, but suddenly we find that Colonel Ty TRENT is being called Colonel Ty TREAT! No, I don't mean that this occurs just once. If that was the case, I would consider it a mere typographical error. No! Throughout chapter 17 the Colonel is named TREAT! Thereafter, he resumes his original name, TRENT. In other words : for an entire chapter, the author forgot the name of his character. And nobody caught this in proofreading? INCREDIBLE! That's how much care and thought went into ALIEN (C)RAPTURE.

I won't say that the book is entirely devoid of truth, but the conclusion that it draws is not only in error, but downright dangerous to accept. If you are the least bit inclined to embrace the dubious analysis presented here, then I strongly urge you to read ALIEN ENCOUNTERS by Chuck Missler; ENCOUNTERS WITH UFOs by Weldon & Levitt; and ALIEN INTERVENTION by Paul Christopher.

Before ordering ALIEN RAPTURE from Amazon, I read all of the negative reviews, but being the Idiot from my Village...I ignored them and bought it anyway. Don't be as big a fool as I was. In his Forward to this book, Brad Steiger wrote : "ALIEN RAPTURE is presenting many facts with a little fiction to protect the guilty and shield the innocent." If Mr. Steiger had REALLY wanted to "shield the innocent" (that's you and me), he wouldn't have published this mess in the first place!

Sincerely,
Stephen T. McCartney
(Oh, McCarthy, McCartney - what does it matter? Like Colonel TREAT, I was close enough!)

[**2005, Jan. 17th ADDENDUM :

1) According to his 2004, Nov. 13th review, the good Doc Smiles seems to be of the opinion that a reviewer who has the audacity to strongly disagree with his assessment deserves to be publicly branded a "moron" and have his review labeled a "rant." Very broad-minded of you, Doc.

2) You seem to condemn my review of THE ORION PROPHECY in part because I gave that obtuse, convoluted book 2 Stars when it has a 4 Star average grade. Sorry, but I don't let the opinion of the masses influence my judgment. I am an INDEPENDENT thinker.

3) What's up, Doc? You mean you've never heard Buggs Bunny use the word maroon in place of moron? Gee, that's so old and so often quoted. Ain't you got no fine cartoon culture, Doc?

4) Smiley, I misplaced a semicolon? Oh, goodness! Well that certainly invalidates my review, doesn't it? By the way, the word "semicolon" is NOT hyphenated. Whoops! And there goes YOUR review.

5) Smiley, are YOU qualified to diagnose me as "obsessive-compulsive"? And especially if it was actually true, that would be a particularly insensitive insult since that can be indicative of serious mental illness for a lot of people! Check your heart, Doc.

6) In excerpting my negative observations about Jim Marrs', ALIEN AGENDA, you conveniently neglected to inform your readers that I also gave the book 4 Stars and called it likely the most "thorough overview of the UFO phenomenon...published."

7) Doc, seeing as how your only participation in the Amazon forum has been this one ad hominem attack on me (as of this date you have no WISHLIST; LISTMANIA lists; SO, YOU WANT TO... guides; Amazon FRIENDS & FAVORITES; and no other REVIEWS posted) am I wrong to suspect that you MAY be one of the authors, or in some way affiliated with one of the authors, and that you are only engaging in damage control here?

8) Despite your mean-minded disingenuousness, I hold no grudge. Keep smilin', Doc!

9) And to the rest of you : This was a perfect illustration of how easy it is to incite the Herd Mentality in people who have ceased thinking for themselves. Doc Smiles didn't need to be accurate; he didn't need to disprove any of my criticism, or even make a germane point. All he needed was to have the most recent strongly worded viewpoint posted in order to inspire a "piling on." If you HONESTLY think that his critique of me (whom he has never met) proves that my judgment of this book is in error, then please DO purchase ALIEN RAPTURE; you deserve to be fleeced! Looky there, got the semicolon in the right place and everything!]


Rating:
Summary: Shadowy-Nefarious Military-industrial-intelligence complex!
Review: Area 51, Groom Lake, Dreamland, Paradise Ranch, Watertown Strip, the Ranch: all refer to the top-secret research installation, located a hundred miles north of Las Vegas, which, for many, has come to stand for all that is shadowy and nefarious about the military-industrial-intelligence complex. Built under the direction of the CIA in the 1950s, the base served as the original test site for the U-2 spy plane and F-117 stealth fighter jet.

In more recent years, Area 51 has spurred public interest from its role in the government's $50 billion "Black Budget," from legal claims of worker illness due to toxic burning, and from sensational charges about captured alien spacecraft. It has also given birth to a feisty guerrilla subculture bent on exploding the secrecy surrounding this mysterious spot.

Edgar Fouche folds the history, legends, startling new facts and insider information into a character based science faction novel, weaving an interesting tale of intrigue and cover-ups that speaks volumes about popular culture and American democracy at the end of the twentieth century.

Only an idiot would compare Alien Rapture to the mass-produced tepid religiously biased Left Behind series. I really recommend this book if you want a strong and interesting story laden with a lot of new facts.


Rating:
Summary: Pathetic
Review: Among the various kinds of generally harmless delusions one comes across, one of the most crious is the believer that there are aliens among us, controlling us, beaming signals into our brains and so forth. Anyone who writes popular science or even science fiction has come into contact with these people, who will bombard you with letters, and if you're not careful, phone calls, documenting their suffering at the hands of these aliens and their confederates in the government.

They're a sad lot, for the most part, living lives domintaed by sadness and paranoia and blaming all their personal failings on the aliens who torment them. But they do serve a purpose; they're the prirmary market for a certain type of literature that caters to their beliefs.

Fouche has cleverly copied the form (and much of the content) of the popular "Left Behind" books, exchanging the Christian Revelation theology for a more paranoid alien theology. It's not God who is watching and will come to take away the believers; it's an alien, who's going to suck your brains out. Lovely.

Poorly written, and appealing mainly to those who are already prone to fantasy, this is not a particularly good choice for someone looking for an interesting Sci-FI read. I came across it in an indirect way, myself; a reviewer writing a defense of a particularly poorly written (and paranoic) political book recommended this as a similarly informative and revelatory volume; it appears he didn't realize it's a work of fiction. (Reading the reviews, a surpriising number of fans seem to make that mistake). You, the intelligent reader, will know better.