The Great Last Days Apostasy

How the American Church Is Falling Away

By: J.B. Hixson

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Something has gone terribly wrong in the American church, and few people are talking about it. Worldly ideologies have obscured biblical truth, feel-good messages have replaced sound doctrine, and the faith of many is crumbling under deception. The Bible warns of a great apostasy as this present age draws to a close. The closer we get to the Lord's return the further the Church is falling away from Him. The Great Last Days Apostasy exposes the evidence of this alarming departure. Will the remnant arise and be found “without spot and blameless at our Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing” (1 Timothy 6:14)?

No more digitized narration please

I could not get past the narration being digitized. I have purchased the hardcopy book. I’ve read many of Dr. Hixson’s books and have enjoyed all of them. I thought I would try an Audible, but unless it’s Dr. Hixson’s voice or a real person, I won’t try an audio version again.

Excellent Content, Horrific Narration

JB is a fantastic writer, researcher, and teacher, and the content of this book is as good as all of his others. That said, I’m sad to say that I can’t rate this audiobook any higher than 3 stars because the excellent content is marred by the equally awful narration.

His previous books were narrated by a talented human—this one, not so much. The decision to use an AI narrator for this book is baffling, and more than a little ironic, considering that one of the chapters is dedicated to warning about the dangers presented by AI, and JB frequently speaks on that subject.

The artificial voice used in this book was especially bad, and there clearly wasn’t any quality control done on the output. Among other things, it injected random, ill-timed pauses (almost as if trying to mimic catching its breath, or just a processing lag), bizarre tempo changes, and laughable pronunciation. Hearing the bot destroy names and attempt to turn acronyms into incoherent words (for example, NASB = naasbee) almost made the suffering worth it. I’m not sure whether it was because of the content, or if the voice model was just breaking down, but the issues seemed to increase in the latter part of the book (or my tolerance was wearing thin). Either way, it got to the point that I was begging for mercy and wanting the book to end—which was a shame because the content was solid.

My last hope was for some redeeming statement at the end of the book that might explain the reason for using the artificial voice, but alas, it wasn’t to be. Instead, the bot struggled through the end of the book and bumbled its way to an unapologetic close.

If you’re interested in this topic (which you should be), skip this audiobook and just read it. That was my first instinct, and I wish I’d stuck with it. JB, if you read this, please do your content and your readers justice and stick with human narrators in the future.