I've started this thread mostly to critique the books, because on top of finding the theology BS from a Christian perspective, I also consider them badly written from a secular one.
Not that they are utterly bad, some of the books do have redeeming moments of actual clever writing or instances that were surprisingly well researched, but overall, even though the later books made less writing fumbles, the earlier books were riddled with all sorts of errors and shoddy writing.
In fact, the first book alone has so much fail describing a trip across New York it's hilarious, the UN is utterly misrepresented, a murder takes place in a manner that is physically impossible given the manner in which it is described, and some of the side plots beggar my suspension of disbelief.
A good critic of this is Fred Clark, who has been tearing the books a new one on his blog:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/tag/left-behind/
Have to admit I do feel Fred is overly cynical at times, and some of his conclusions approach some nauseating levels of SJW-ery at times, but overall, his analysis is pretty good.
I also have recently finished the young adult 'Left Behind: The Kids" series, and honestly, while the early books of that were also marred with some bad writing, the later books go out of their way to fix many of the mistakes of the early adult books and fill in a lot of blanks in the world Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins wrote.
For example:
1. The almost laughably inept Global Community goons in the adult series can be frighteningly competent and legit scary.
2. The young adult series does a much better job of expressing just how terrible the world has gotten as the books go by. Compared to the adult series, which mostly told us the world was getting more miserable, we actually get shown the misery, it truly feels like the end times.
3. The good guys seemed to have it VERY easy in the adult books. Despite having the whole world as their enemies, the adult series made the protagonists nigh invulnerable except when the writers decided they shouldn't be. By contrast, the young adult protagonists are constantly on the run and doing all sorts of desperate things to survive.
Of course, the young adult books have their own problems, as they are forced to stick with a lot of the dumber writing the adult series is married to, and the early books were also written with the same cringey mistakes as the adult ones, but overall, I found the writing of the later young adult books was a lot better and filled in a lot of blanks in the plot of the adult series.
Regardless, I won't claim the entire franchise was redeemable, as all the mistakes made overrode a lot of the better writing later on because the writers were forced to reference or build off earlier mistakes for plot reasons, and again, I find the theology the book uses abhorrent for multiple reasons, chief among them being that they did a lot of biblical cut and paste to make the story work.
I also draw issue with a lot of the personal biases of the authors that seeped into the writing (a lot of their portrayal of women comes off as pure cringe), though that thankfully became somewhat less noticeable in the later books.
However, that's just my take, was wondering what everyone else thought of these books.
Not that they are utterly bad, some of the books do have redeeming moments of actual clever writing or instances that were surprisingly well researched, but overall, even though the later books made less writing fumbles, the earlier books were riddled with all sorts of errors and shoddy writing.
In fact, the first book alone has so much fail describing a trip across New York it's hilarious, the UN is utterly misrepresented, a murder takes place in a manner that is physically impossible given the manner in which it is described, and some of the side plots beggar my suspension of disbelief.
A good critic of this is Fred Clark, who has been tearing the books a new one on his blog:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/tag/left-behind/
Have to admit I do feel Fred is overly cynical at times, and some of his conclusions approach some nauseating levels of SJW-ery at times, but overall, his analysis is pretty good.
I also have recently finished the young adult 'Left Behind: The Kids" series, and honestly, while the early books of that were also marred with some bad writing, the later books go out of their way to fix many of the mistakes of the early adult books and fill in a lot of blanks in the world Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins wrote.
For example:
1. The almost laughably inept Global Community goons in the adult series can be frighteningly competent and legit scary.
2. The young adult series does a much better job of expressing just how terrible the world has gotten as the books go by. Compared to the adult series, which mostly told us the world was getting more miserable, we actually get shown the misery, it truly feels like the end times.
3. The good guys seemed to have it VERY easy in the adult books. Despite having the whole world as their enemies, the adult series made the protagonists nigh invulnerable except when the writers decided they shouldn't be. By contrast, the young adult protagonists are constantly on the run and doing all sorts of desperate things to survive.
Of course, the young adult books have their own problems, as they are forced to stick with a lot of the dumber writing the adult series is married to, and the early books were also written with the same cringey mistakes as the adult ones, but overall, I found the writing of the later young adult books was a lot better and filled in a lot of blanks in the plot of the adult series.
Regardless, I won't claim the entire franchise was redeemable, as all the mistakes made overrode a lot of the better writing later on because the writers were forced to reference or build off earlier mistakes for plot reasons, and again, I find the theology the book uses abhorrent for multiple reasons, chief among them being that they did a lot of biblical cut and paste to make the story work.
I also draw issue with a lot of the personal biases of the authors that seeped into the writing (a lot of their portrayal of women comes off as pure cringe), though that thankfully became somewhat less noticeable in the later books.
However, that's just my take, was wondering what everyone else thought of these books.
