Vorkosigan

If you don't like the books, they sell a Left Behind: The Comix Version in Walmarts. Much easier to digest.

Vorkosigan

Mecha_Dude

It sounds like it's parody time., hehehe...

Cozmoe

Originally posted by Ragnarok:
If your talking about "A Thief in the Night" it's especially weird for me since it was shot here in Des Moines (Yet another reason to make fun of Iowa)

As for the books, I hate to admit they are a guilty pleasure for me. I've read the first 7 books.

I don't know what it is about them. I mean the characters stop once in a while to give you a sermon, and the character themselves are about as deep as damp pavement, even the villains are boring. But somehow the books do build a sense of anticipation, you kind of want to know what happens next. However a lot of it doesn't have anything to do with religion. There are a lot of chases and narrow escapes from the "evil one world government" and so forth.

Also I guess it's a peek into how these fundies' minds work. A raw, unfiltered look into LaHaye and Jenkin's minds would probably scare the piss out of me.

Mediancat

The interesting thing is that the first Left Behind book was published in 1996 . . .

So if there was a miniseries in the 1970s with a similar theme, hmmm. Possibly Mr. LaHaye's idea wasn't completely . . . original?

I tried to read them and found them utterly charmless. (The comic version, oddly, is better . . . but it's being done by people who actually know how to write comics.)

Rob aka Mediancat

Mediancat

For what it's worth, it's also interesting looking at the commentary on the Amazon.com website for the first book in the series . . .

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0842329129/qid=1025439766/sr=1-4/ref=sr_1_4/103-3354261-9647861" target="_blank">http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0842329129/qid=1025439766/sr=1-4/ref=sr_1_4/103-3354261-9647861</a>

One reviewer says, "They have absolutely no knowlege on this subject. If you readers believe that this is the way it's all going to end, then you have been DECEIVED by Satan. And you can go to hell believing a lie! No lie!"

OTOH, another one says, "I have started reading the Bible, I now look forward to Sunday morning, and I (people think I am crazy for this) want for my birthday a huge 5 foot tall cross to hang on my wall. I don't know where they would get such a thing, but I want one!"


Again in the words of the great philospher Bull Shannon: "ooooo-key."

Rob aka Mediancat

Writer@Large

I've never read the books, but I tried to watch the movie. I couldn't stop giggling at the names. "Rayford Steele." "Buck Willimas." "Ivy Gold." "Nicolae Carpathia."

snort!LOL!!

Half these names are borrowed from 1950s romance comic books; the other half are from porn films. "Rayford Steele," I think, was the original title of Pierce Brosnon's 1980's TV series ...

-_W@L

[ June 30, 2002: Message edited by: Writer@Large ]</p>

Ragnarok

OK, OK, I was confused. The films I'm thinking of were a series of 4 that were put out starting the 1970s and written by Russell S. Doughten, Jr. and Donald W. Thompson (looked it up). There doesn't appear to be a LaHaye connection at all. Damn, I was sure he was behind that series. He's pretty old so he could have been. Of course when it comes to crazed fundy end-times materials it all sort of blends together.

Praise Jebus!

[ June 30, 2002: Message edited by: Ragnarok ]</p>

Grumpy

Speaking of Wal-Mart, do the books themselves make reference to what happens to this venerable retailer? I imagine that in Book 1 all Wal-Mart stores ascend bodily into heaven, leaving customers stranded on the ground.

I mean, they've certainly earned the right to be "saved" based on their aggressive hawking of LaHaye's masterpiece (or is it P.O.S.?).