The Other End

by John Shirley
2 out of 5 stars

You can't help but like the premise of this book: What if there were another "end of the world as we know it" rather than one based on childish interpretations of religion, bias, bigotry, exclusion, and cultural narrowness-mindedness? What if Judgment Day came for the whole world and offered true justice?

I had high hopes in Shirley's answer to these questions, but my final judgment (haha) is: meh. I almost gave up on this a couple times, because there are so many characters running around, and none of them are really fleshed out, so they're hard to keep track of, and you end up not really caring about any of them.

The Other End is not as preachy as the first Left Behind book (the only one I read), but that's not saying much. I liked Shirley's idea(s) and the way he explained how the Other End was going to go down, it was just the execution that was lacking. That said, give it a go if you're in the mood for an escape from all the ultra conservative bullshit religiosity that's permeating so much of society these days.