posted
This comes up every few years here, yes. They're generally viewed as unreadable.
I liked the first couple of books but became offended after a while. It was clear the authors were just in it for the money as they dragged the story out longer and longer. I found myself wishing God would just wipe it all out and start a nice zoo instead.
Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
This comes up every few years here, yes. They're generally viewed as unreadable.
I liked the first couple of books but became offended after a while. It was clear the authors were just in it for the money as they dragged the story out longer and longer. I found myself wishing God would just wipe it all out and start a nice zoo instead.
Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
Jeesh, it comes up every few years here. By the response you've already gotten, you can probably guess that they're largely viewed here as being unreadable.
Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
<shrug> Haven't read them. They continue to sell, so I guess someone must like 'em. I'd hope even evangelical christians aren't so desperate for something that presents their worldview they'd completely forgive shoddy writing.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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So there I was in need of a book, and only a few minutes until my flight was to take off. I grabbed what looked like to be an interesting SCI FI book about a large portion of the world's population vanishing, and don't look too closely. When I got to the part about the Orthodox in Israel converting at the wailing wall, I had to switch over to the in-flight magazine.
Posts: 3134 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
If you want a book that covers the whole End of Days thing, and you want it written well and not dragged out over a dozen volumes, I recommend Carol Balizet's The Last Seven Years. Obviously, since it's not my religion, I can't vouch for the accuracy, but it ticked me off a couple of times, which is probably a decent recommendation right there. <grin>
I've had my copy since it was out in the bookstores in the early '80s, and I've probably read it half a dozen times. Give LaHaye a pass and try this instead.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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I agree with jeniwren completely. Those two are on my list of people to punch in the ear if ever I run into them. Right above those My Super Sweet 16 chicks. I have one nasty right hook.
Posts: 1156 | Registered: Jan 2004
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I must be insane. I liked the series and own them all. But I do not read them for the religious aspects, I see them solely as a very long epic and don't get into the various moral/ethical/theist issues. In fact, my train book right now is The Regime, the first of the pre-Rapture novels that are being put out now.
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I'm very curious by this series. I have seen a few of the films, and certainly, i find them stimulating.
Posts: 379 | Registered: Jan 2006
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Oh Goody! I am not the only one who liked the books! I didn't think they were great literature or anything but I enjoyed them. My husband actually came to Christ because of those books so they are especially meaningful to us. I think the point was to reach people who were not being ministered to in church and these books breached that gap. Jeesh, my advice is read one or two of them and if you hate it, don't bother with the rest.
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quote:If you want a book that covers the whole End of Days thing, and you want it written well and not dragged out over a dozen volumes, I recommend Carol Balizet's The Last Seven Years.
For a nice and accurate account of the End of Days, you can't do better than Good Omens.
quote:Originally posted by Goody Scrivener: I must be insane.
Apparently.
I have the first book in the series. I may read the whole thing at some point. I mean, I made it through all 10 books of Mission Earth. This can't possibly be that much worse.
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Had anyone heard that they're making a computer game based on the series? A real-time strategy game, no less.
Hello, weirdness.
quote:No. I tried reading the comic adaptation, once. Gave up in disgust.
Yeah, I skimmed it in a library once. About the point I realized the villains were <sinister demonic voice> atheist scientists!!</sinister demonic voice> I realized I probably wasn't quiiiite the target audience.
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... frankly, I felt that it wouldve been a good thing for the universe if the Voltar Conferedacy got invaded by even stronger aliens.
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It was painful to wade all the way to book three, one more "event" that perfectly conformed to the predicted chronology of the church the book was written to sell to made throw away the book in disgust, it was so smug...
Just once if they would have had an even take place in an unpredicted fashion...
Well that would not save it but oh well.
It was as bad as any thing I have seen in print. and I read less then a fourth of it.
quote:Just once if they would have had an even take place in an unpredicted fashion...
Yes, but unfortunately that's probably not what the target audience would want to see. If they believed that every single word of the Bible is true, then everything has to happen just as it says. So you could actually save your money and just read the relevant part of the Bible instead. It's probably better written, too. After all, I think we know how it ends.
Posts: 1528 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
I believe in all honesty that unless we are so stupid as to press the big red button it will never happen. Why? Because even if God could destory the world hundreds of millions o people would undoubtably die with no hope and everything we worked for in the last 50,000 years would be destroyed.
That is when I say "I quit" and walk away from such madness.
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It is not that it represents a literal interpretation of the Bible, it follows the formula that has been 'extracted' by the evangelical Christians that comb through coded letters in the Bible and believe they cracked a code that was conveying meaningful information eighteen centuries ago. It is painful to see them pat themselves on the back over and over for being the only ones who where right...
There. Now that the obvious are out of the way. If you want to read some decent Christian fiction, pick up some Stephen R. Lawhead. While not the most amazing author to grace the page, he writes a good page-turner. His best known work is the Pendragon Cycle (Arthurian legends). I, personally, enjoy the Song of Albion and Dragon King books.
Another favourite from my childhood is John White's Tower of Geborah series. I have no idea how it would stack up today as I haven't read it in years, but I remember really liking it. It was the first book to keep me up all night.
Posts: 4753 | Registered: May 2002
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I listened to the Left Behind books on tape in my car. I could forgive them the ulta-literalist interpretation of Revelation. I could forgive them their attempt to convert me to be Born Again. I could not fogive the way they had to recap Every. Single. Thing. that had happened in the previous books before going on to the new stuff. I don't remember which book I got to, but by the time I had listened to 4 tapes without anything new happening, I gave up and took it back to the library.
Posts: 364 | Registered: Dec 2005
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posted
You can add me to the list of people who label them "unreadable."
A few years ago I picked up the first one and stopped about forty pages shy of the end. I have no interest in finishing. Nothing made me care about the characters.
Posts: 866 | Registered: Aug 2005
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The scariest part of the series is that the author is behind several Christian conservative politicians. He is trying to swing US policy, mostly foriegn policy, not to a Christian agenda, but to a specific sub-group of Christian--the END OF DAYS Christian agenda.
The strong conservative support for Isreal is not because of the strong Jewish American lobby. Its because once they get all the silly Arabs out of the Holy Land, God's Old Testament promise of returning Jerusalem to the Jews will have been granted. With that off his plate God then can move on to the Rapture.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:Originally posted by El JT de Spang: Yes, wow says it all.
----
I read them all, and beyond about book two-three I wouldn't say I enjoyed it.
But I'm no quitter.
That's pretty much how I felt about Mission Earth. I think I'll read the Left Behind series. The closest we have to such a thing is Murderer in the Mikdash, by Gidon Rothstein. It's a mild thriller that takes place in Israel not long after the Messiah shows up. It's a fascinating picture of what a transitional period might look like. Not quite as exciting as the whole Armageddon shtick, but interesting anyway.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
Has anyone read all of the Left Behind, Dune, and Mission Earth series? I think I would call for an intervention if one of my friends confessed to reading all 3 series through.
Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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posted
Never read Mission Earth, nor The Silmarillion.
But only because I never started them. If I started them, I would have been honorbound to finish them.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Morbo: Has anyone read all of the Left Behind, Dune, and Mission Earth series? I think I would call for an intervention if one of my friends confessed to reading all 3 series through.
Dune and Mission Earth, yes. And the first ten books of the Children of the Lion series (it gets really dumb after the Exodus). I actually recommend them. They follow the families of the biblical patriarchs and a family of armorers (the eponymous Children of the Lion) from Abraham (in the first book) through the Exodus. The remaining 8 or so books take it up to David, I think, but they didn't hold my interest.
1. Children of the Lion 2. The Shepherd Kings 3. Vengeance of the Lion 4. The Lion in Egypt 5. The Golden Pharaoh 6. Lord of the Nile 7. The Prophecy 8. Sword of Glory 9. The Deliverer 10. The Exodus
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
Having barely gotten through the first Left Behind book, I would say if you're looking for a somewhat better written book that is closer to a Catholic end-times-y fiction book, try "Pierced By a Sword" it's an interesting read, and didnt offend my senses too much in higschool.
Posts: 1038 | Registered: Feb 2006
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