This concept continues to fascinate me, offering a view of what the world would look like after the Rapture. With all believers gone, all children gone, no one left who would know or think that what had happened was from God.
In this third instalment of life after the ‘disappearances’, pitched as the time “12 weeks following the Rapture”, we continue to follow the story of the main protagonists, but this time through the eyes of a new character. A young man, an IT expert, who is following their progress online, as their lives are broadcast globally via a new AI system.
Seventeen year-old Jack (appropriately nicknamed ‘Hack’) lives on a rural ranch, spending his time away from farm chores hacking computer programs. He stumbles across the others when accessing the back-end of the AI implant system, slowly unravelling this emerging new world order of ever-present surveillance. It has some interesting shared themes with George Orwell’s classic 1984.
We see the prophesied natural disasters begin to happen around the world, politically there is an emerging single world order, whilst civil unrest and violence increases. Society is in meltdown. Kindness has been sucked out of the world and in it’s absence society is wholly exposed to evil influence. It is the glue that holds things together.
And then the anti-Christ emerges and begins to takes charge, in the form of the charismatic leader of a corporate conglomerate that is taking control, using the power of AI to manipulate and control everything.
A number of end times pointers are dropped in, like a single world currency, devices to track every individual, the amalgamation (and dilution) of religions and ultimately a man posing as a benevolent saviour attempting to unify all countries, but clearly he is the opposite.
The story continues to follow the same individuals as the first two books, whilst introducing new characters, angles and plot twists that keep it fresh and very readable.
I find it incredible that the majority of people seem blinded as to what has happened, that is the Rapture of all believers. But slowly some come to the realisation that this is what may have occurred. The characters, when enlightened to the emerging evil, start to realise that a faith in God is their only source of real hope, and searching hearts begin to turn. Faith seems to offer a rare hope that can’t be found in a world that is crumbling physically, politically and spiritually.
The book ends clearly with another one still to come, which I am looking forward to. Yes, to find out what happens to the characters in their circumstances, but also to another round of being challenged to imagine what the end times may actually be like.
Untaken Three, by C O Wyler, is available here.
Thanks to the author for a gifted copy in exchange for an honest review.
