James F. David's Judgement Day is a recent entry in the Left Behind subgenre: fictional treatments of the Book of Revelations. It has some good points, and many bad ones.
God has inspired a Christian scientist (um, a scientist who's a Christian, not a member of the Christian Scientist denomination) with the designs for faster-than-light antigravity spaceships. He and his church movement build the ships, explore space, and find an unspoiled new planet to move to. So (as one Amazon reviewer put it) they provide their own Rapture; which is good, because God keeps a very low profile in this novel.
Most of this novel's good points are, similarly, its innovations, which lend its characters a very human and fallible tone. Given this wondrous new technology, the Christians spend most of their time making money off of it. They're uncomfortable when black Christians ask to be part of their modern Exodus. And the Antichrist, far from being omnipotent, is clueless and rather inept for most of the novel.
The bad points: um. Well. Most of the characters are flat. The author sets up emotional, dramatic situations and then plods through them with astonishing clunkiness. Several of the names are pseudo-clever, reminding me of license plates: "Ira Breitling," for example.
This is apparently the first novel of a series; which is good, because the ending is appalling in its implications. (And if I could find a way of explaining this that wasn't totally spoilerish, I would.)
But I doubt I'll buy the second book. There's more Heinlein to be read!
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