• Lifting the Veil: Fallen

  • Lifting the Veil, Book 1
  • By: John O'Brien
  • Narrated by: Mark Gagliardi
  • Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (173 ratings)

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Lifting the Veil: Fallen  By  cover art

Lifting the Veil: Fallen

By: John O'Brien
Narrated by: Mark Gagliardi
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Publisher's summary

Humanity is plunging down a slippery slope of morality. Righteous attitudes abound with malice, hatred, and discontent prevailing in the currents riding through humankind. In the spiritual planes, battles between the light and darkness are being fought over souls for their very existence. Assailed on all sides, heaven is left with no choice but to open the seven seals.

The horsemen are summoned and ride forth. Conquest, the drums of war, hunger, and death are felt by all.

Humanity is left standing on the brink where the slightest tremor will send it plunging into the abyss. Will humankind survive the tribulation placed upon it? Or will it vanish into oblivion?

©2018 John O'Brien (P)2018 John O'Brien

What listeners say about Lifting the Veil: Fallen

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

The story is a modern take on "Paradise Lost".

I stopped when it brought up negative right-wing examples, but didn't label Left-wing examples as Leftwing. The author brought up Charletsville as a right-wing incident, when it was both. He got some of the facts wrong too. The governor called a State of Emergency an hour before the event and before there was any violence. The author implied it was because of the violence. He also claimed a woman was killed by the car incident. She was never hit by the car. The woman thrown in the air that was seen on National television was not the one who died. The woman was hit by people who were plowed through by the car. She died of a heart attack. He then brings up the Dallas shooting of 5 officers. The author failed to mention the shooter was a black radical. My problem is that he went to great extent to blame supposed Right-wingers for violence, but did not do the same for the Left. I say supposed because the Alt-Right has all the same views as Democrats if you ignore the Social ones. They want big government, but only for whites. He then goes on to spew a lot of global warming talking points. That's when I had to stop listening. I loved his other books, but this one got too preachy for me. I want to get away from politics when I listen to books, not be subtly preached to. This is one of few times I'm requesting a refund.

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13 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Read, it scared me...

...listened to it and it is giving me nightmares...This is unlike any tale John O'Brien has woven for us and it is truly terrifying because of the state of the world today. Mixing current events with biblical verses and all the mythos we have grown up with make you think about yourself, your family and friends and those you do not know. Will it make you change your attitude, the way feel about things and poeple around you. Would you behave differently or do you feel that it is just a great story fabricated by a great author. You decide, either way it is a fantastic tale he has woven and I look forward to the next installment.

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11 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

One of John O'Briens best books

What an amazing book. From start to end I enjoyed how well he was able to combine religious history regardless of your faith and what society is going through today, with a sprinkle of what could possibly happen in the future. I can not wait for part two of this book.

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Started off with a bang ended with a whimper

Started off with a bang ended with a whimper. I really thought I was going to love this book and didn't.

A little too much detailed description and no real characters to care about. The characters in the book, I'm sure, are to be developed in later books, but this first book should have given us someone to care about. Which it doesn't.

The writer, who writes very well by the way, beats an opinion to death, which unless you are somewhat of a zealot is just plain boring. He also broached politics and frankly, I read to escape politics, and was disappointed.

If you are a religious person, you will probably not like this book. I sure the writer took license with the Bible. But so does every religion I know.

I was just plain disappointed.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Good book

I won't lie I struggled with this book, it was very "technical" with a bit of story in it. After reading the reviews though I figured I was not alone so decided to give the rest of the series a try, I am glad I did. This book is really about setting everything up for the next books, stick with it, you won't regret it!

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

That was very visceral!

The level of thought put into this work was excellent. I this gave me a better understanding of one possible Armageddon.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

It was okay...

I love the concept and the narration was great, but there was hardly any dialogue between characters in the story. It felt like the whole book was just building up and setting the stage for the second book. I found myself fast forwarding through parts of the descriptions because I was getting bored. I’m going to listen to the next book and hopefully it’ll be a little bit better.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

I am not sure yet....

A lot of effort put towards paralleling our own current political/economic/social/cultural/religious situation .... I felt a lot of guilt for my part in contributing to the state of things now and for what transpired in the first book. This helps draw you in.

Much of the book felt like watching the news and reading the scrolling information at the bottom of the screen - lots of details/facts and was bordering on almost too much ‘information’ and not enough character development.. but I hope there is a point where the facts of gat led up to the end will transition into a story about the remaining people.

Made me irritated with the creator for trying to wipe the slate clean on humanity to ‘save himself’

Great read, different than what I expected, which is why I scored it lower. Well written and I am definitely going to the next book with gusto!!

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Not his best work.

I love John O'brien. This is not his best work. there are no real main characters to invest in. 75% of the book is describing the apocalypse. This feels more like an extremely long pro logue than a book meant to cause the reader to invest in the story and characters. I was almost let down. But Gagliardi make anything sound great. I listened to it twice to make sure I didn't miss anything. I most defenitely did not. One long pro logue.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Is there supposed to be a narrative hidden in here?

This fever dream seems to be much more an amalgam of morality plays than a narrative. I need to buy the pdf to see how many times the author mentions greed, racism (though I don’t think he ever uses the word), pollution, etc. I’m not terribly sure when the ‘story’ takes place as the closest thing you get to a main character is Michael, but you only see him between hours long descriptions of gruesome (and pointless) violence or vague descriptions of what the horsemen did at some point in history. Like if you were to take out all of the anti-science, anti-humanist sentiments/vignettes, the book would be an hour and a half long.
I don’t care that the author uses modified Christian mythos, but the weird inclusion of a “council” in heaven that rule with the Christian god seems quite out of place.
It feels more like a manifesto than like a novel.
I don’t often return audiobooks, but this book’s butt is going back on the shelf.

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1 person found this helpful