Left Behind (Full Version)

All Forums >> [Fun] >> Books



Message

InfoCentral -> Left Behind (8/5/2008 10:28:55 AM)

I'm about half way through this series and I noticed that there is starting to be a lot of filler space. I keep getting these large amounts of recaps. Going over the story up to this point only later to have the same thing done. Is going to be the trend from now on in this series. "OK, now lets review the story so far." Geesh....



JimboFletch -> RE: Left Behind (8/5/2008 10:36:07 AM)

The filler gets thicker and the story line gets thinner. I gave up before The Glorious Appearing for several reasons. One was that the theology was sacrificed for the story line and the story line became too weak to keep my interest. I felt they were just trying to milk a story that could have been told in no more than 3 books at most.

Jerry is a good fiction writer but, IMO, Tim is a pathetic excuse for a theologian. I began disliking him back in the 70s long before he had aspirations in the field of eschatology.



Miss Giggles -> RE: Left Behind (8/5/2008 11:02:25 AM)

The whole serious is like that

You can skip the whole serious and read the "Are we living in the end times book" by the same authors. It summarizes the whole left behind series for you.



JustinDew -> RE: Left Behind (8/5/2008 1:56:05 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: JimboFletch

The filler gets thicker and the story line gets thinner. I gave up before The Glorious Appearing for several reasons. One was that the theology was sacrificed for the story line and the story line became too weak to keep my interest. I felt they were just trying to milk a story that could have been told in no more than 3 books at most.

Jerry is a good fiction writer but, IMO, Tim is a pathetic excuse for a theologian. I began disliking him back in the 70s long before he had aspirations in the field of eschatology.


I completely agree.. I stopped reading it for fun during the book when Chloe got killed.

After that I skipped the rest of the books till The Glorious Appearing just so I could read that..



HisFish -> RE: Left Behind (8/6/2008 11:21:57 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: JimboFletch

The filler gets thicker and the story line gets thinner. I gave up before The Glorious Appearing for several reasons. One was that the theology was sacrificed for the story line and the story line became too weak to keep my interest. I felt they were just trying to milk a story that could have been told in no more than 3 books at most.

Jerry is a good fiction writer but, IMO, Tim is a pathetic excuse for a theologian. I began disliking him back in the 70s long before he had aspirations in the field of eschatology.

So right Jimbo, i coulent even get through the first book.



kohls356 -> RE: Left Behind (8/6/2008 2:50:58 PM)

I have all of the books but never finished the series. I really don't even remember which book I quit reading in the middle.

The first 3 books or so I thought were ok and moved right along but you are right there is so much filler in them. If I remember correctly there were only suppose to be a certain number of books in the series, can't remember, but then they decided to drag out the series and it seems like that is when the books became more filler than anything else.



Mark328 -> RE: Left Behind (8/9/2008 2:29:14 PM)

If you take the theology out of it, it made for an interesting action story. But there's a lot of holes in it from a theological aspect.



InfoCentral -> RE: Left Behind (8/9/2008 10:49:11 PM)

I found it quite exciting until all the recaps started showing up.



sunshine4God -> RE: Left Behind (8/9/2008 11:12:03 PM)

Left behind is my dads fave series.I like some of the movies.



PolarBear -> RE: Left Behind (8/10/2008 3:56:08 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mark328

If you take the theology out of it, it made for an interesting action story. But there's a lot of holes in it from a theological aspect.

Exactly. Liked the fiction. But pretty much as soon as I finished it I converted to postmillennialism. [8D]



InfoCentral -> RE: Left Behind (8/10/2008 6:08:50 PM)

I think they came up with 3 movies. I'm not sure that the third one following the series too well.



RJR_fan -> RE: Left Behind (8/16/2008 1:35:38 PM)

quote:

Exactly. Liked the fiction. But pretty much as soon as I finished it I converted to postmillennialism.


I wonder how many people here have seen that dead-on accurate parody, the Left Below episode of The Simpsons?



RJR_fan -> RE: Left Behind (8/16/2008 1:36:40 PM)

quote:

I keep getting these large amounts of recaps. Going over the story up to this point only later to have the same thing done.


Well, it only took Jerry Jenkins 6 weeks to write each installment. I guess that's one way to get your word count up quickly -- recycle, reuse, restate!



Wonder_Woman -> RE: Left Behind (8/16/2008 7:44:10 PM)

The first book was interesting, the second okay, then it started to get a little humdrum. By the sixth book I could hardly stand it, but was determined to complete the series.

Saw the first movie with Kirk Cameron. Didn't like it. Won't watch any others. There's really three of them? Amazing.



Zhi -> RE: Left Behind (8/18/2008 9:45:10 PM)

The filler books were annoying. And frankly I'm not really sure what I think of the stability of their theology.

That being said, I thought "Glorious Appearing" was wonderful, just in how the Revelations depictions of Christ were used and just broke my heart with beauty. It's fiction based on some pretty strange-sounding prophecy, and therefore pretty much wild speculation in a lot of ways, but wild speculation regarding the awesome glory of God incarnate returning in all His majesty can be pretty cool and worship-inspiring just based on what we do know.

Honestly I think the entire series would have been better as a trilogy. Granted it wouldn't have made as much money as a trilogy. [8|]



uncabeeil -> RE: Left Behind (8/19/2008 10:58:18 AM)

quote:

Honestly I think the entire series would have been better as a trilogy.
I believe it was originally planned for five, but then they got greedy or diarrhea of the word processor. Let's not forget the 30 or more "Left Behind Kids" junk that they also did.



sisrev -> RE: Left Behind (8/19/2008 11:13:02 AM)

I managed to hold on until about book 8 or so--then I just gave up in disgust and never bought or read any of the rest.



angie4God -> RE: Left Behind (8/20/2008 3:55:43 PM)

Same here. I've gotten through only 5 or so books and stopped in the middle of one of the books, tried to reread but haven't continued them.

And have you noticed that in the later books the print just got bigger and more space on the page??? DH noticed it too and yeah, it was more filler and not as exciting. Sad that they just took it and tried to mik more money out of it with more spinoff books - the kids series etc.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they even came out with a pre-quel book series about before they were left behind ??? [8|][8|]

Geez, they're getting just as bad as Disney[8|]



rapturefish -> RE: Left Behind (8/22/2008 2:12:01 PM)

A money-making exercise if ever I saw one. I gave up after the sixth book when characters started coming in and out like people through a revolving door - they just didn't resonate with me and they had little depth. And I think the vision of what the end-times will be like from the authors' points of view is pretty narrow and not at all believable.

Seeing how many books have now come out, along with all the kids' books and other spin-offs, I'm just cynical this series had anything solely good in mind for Jesus. Add to that the legal action with Cloud Nine over the movies of the books, it's not a good picture. Only possibly worth reading for the first few books.

And those movies were terrible! The first one was the "best", which means adequate, but the second one was a bible-bash along with a clichéd angel singing AmaZing Grace amongst some woeful production values. A waste of money in my view considering the similar budgets of LB2 vs Passion of the Christ.



danielmount -> RE: Left Behind (8/31/2008 10:37:06 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: kohls356

I have all of the books but never finished the series. I really don't even remember which book I quit reading in the middle.

The first 3 books or so I thought were ok and moved right along but you are right there is so much filler in them. If I remember correctly there were only suppose to be a certain number of books in the series, can't remember, but then they decided to drag out the series and it seems like that is when the books became more filler than anything else.


Actually, as I recall, #4 was my favorite in the series.



Quaisoir -> RE: Left Behind (9/2/2008 8:15:54 AM)

I read the whole series in all and seemed to enjoy it. Yes the story line did drag on for a long time in the last few books and was tempted to put it down. However I didn't and it helped me to understand Revelation better than I thought I had.

At that time my pastor had been doing a sermon series on Revelation which took him well over a year to complete. Having read the books helped me to understand what to expect next from the sermons and helped put into context of what the Bible really said vs. the books.

I see the book as a laymen term of Revelation if you have a hard time trying to imagine some of the things in it.



JimboFletch -> RE: Left Behind (9/2/2008 2:36:14 PM)

Little things like people getting saved that refused the Gospel before the Rapture and people taking the mark of the beast but still being saved - all to move the story along - sort of rubbed me the wrong way since they go against orthodox eschatology. I guess bad theology doesn't bother everyone as long as a story is kept interesting...

Eschatology according to the Left Behind series has been one of the strangest events I've witnessed in over five decades of life - and that includes Jim Jones, David Koresh, Jimmy Swaggart, and Jim & Tammy Faye Bakker



rgod -> RE: Left Behind (9/9/2008 8:13:57 AM)

I think I got all the way to Apollyon then stopped. While I appreciated the storyline - I didn't necessarily agree with the theology of the books. But I looked at it as fiction and went with it. The thing though that I didn't like was the way the character development. I felt like a lot of the characters were flat, caricatures even - which is always something that I hate. Because of that, I've not really read much of anything else that Jenkin's wrote - although I might try to read Riven. He did write a nice book to encourage new writers called "Writing for the Soul" that I found to be helpful. I might check out the Glorious Appearing from the library based on the comments I've read here.



twincities -> RE: Left Behind (9/12/2008 12:47:01 AM)

the movie is cheezzy.
I got through 4 books. I liked it but it got kind of long..



Lady_of_Faith -> RE: Left Behind (9/20/2008 12:34:40 PM)

Cheers

I'm currently in the middle of the series. I enjoyed the first book, the 2nd seemed to drag, the 3rd was a bit better though. The rest of the books, I have to agree with most that the story is dragged out to a point to where I'm thinking I should put it down. My curiosity pushes me to finish to series, as I like reading series-style books.

I'm also reading Babylon Rising, which was co-written by Greg Dinallo and before page 5 the action was beginning. This book only has about 4 novels and is based on finding out a great mystery in regard to the Book of Daniel. I'm sure I'll probably finish this series as well.

My son is reading the Left Behind Kids, first book, but I don't think he'll read all 40 books! I like how the author incorporated the adult characters into the kids' series which leads my son and I to discuss. Sort of like a book club amongst ourselves.

I don't place these books as Gospel, but a lot of people have claimed coming to Christ after reading this books. I only pray that they study to the Bible for absolute truth instead of believing a work of fiction.

Good Day and God Bless



Page: [1] 2   next >   >>



Forum Software © ASPPlayground.NET Advanced Edition 2.5 ANSI