1. Julie D says:

    Well, I’m just here to see the response. I don’t have any plans to reread the series any time soon, but I don’t see why people dislike it so much.

  2. Cap Stewart says:

    A great start to what looks to be a great blog series! I only read the first book, but I’m currently working my way through the dramatic audio (DA) series. With the exception of Buck’s voice actor (who can be too deadpan), the vocal cast is stellar. At times, I think the dialogue is mixed too low, and it also doesn’t do *as* good a job as Adventures in Odyssey in describing to the listener what is going on. (Scenes where there is shooting and running and screaming leave me disoriented and unsure who is going where and doing what to whom.)
    But I’m largely nitpicking. Overall, I *love* listening to the audio drama. It’s a blast. It’s also proven to be an encouragement to my faith at times as well.

  3. Travis Perry says:

    I dislike the series. That’s mainly because it takes a 7 year period and divides it up into 12 books. Plus each book past the first tries to recap all the previous books…which makes for a VERY slow-paced effort and one that is VERY repetitive…

    There are other things I could complain about, but in all honest, it’s the slow pace that makes the Left Behind series a bag of snoozes for me.

  4. LadyArin says:

    It’s been years since i’ve read any of the Left Behind books. I remember my parents let me start reading the adult series when i was thirteen. I caught up to where my mom was sometime before book #8 came out, and we waited together for the next installments.

    I know that, at the time, i really liked a few of them. Apollyon was my favorite and the one i was most inclined to re-read parts of. I think i also liked The Mark more than some of the others. I also know that a few of them – Soul Harvest, The Indwelling – were so slow and dry that it was a real chore to get through them. Around book #10 or #11 i started to lose interest. I skimmed Glorious Appearing and didn’t read anything after that.

    I read the ‘kids’ books as well. Talk about dramatic! Some of their plot threads worked better than others, but i think on the whole i enjoyed it more than the adult series. They managed to avoid most of the ‘sit around and wait’ stuff going on in some of the adult books, and personally, i think it handled its female characters better. After the first couple books Chloe spent most of her time cooped up in a safe house, and while we were told she was doing a lot of exciting, important stuff, we never got to see her do it.

    Looking back on them, i’m not sure how much i’d like them now. There were definitely elements that didn’t make sense or work well, but nostalgia is a powerful thing, and there were parts that were good.

    I’ll give both series this – they are much, much better than Elsie Dinsmore. 😛

     

    • Twilight is better than Elsie Dinsmore.

      Your cousin’s Twilight fanfiction is better than Elsie Dinsmore.

      M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender movie is better than Elsie Dinsmore.

      • LadyArin says:

        It’s faint praise, i admit, but i did find Elsie Dinsmore enjoyable from a certain perspective. It was like a Victorian soap opera.

      • Julie D says:

        Has anyone read the ‘modern’ updates….can’t remember who published them, but there were revised versions of Elsie Dinsmore and her relatives that were okay.

      • Even Vision Forum ceased selling the Elsie Dinsmore books. In the words of Karen Campbell on Breakpoint, it was an era that needed to end:

        Elsie is the classic picture of what some men think a woman ought to be, but to see her as a true role model of godly womanhood is far from biblical. She acquiesces, she emotes, she is emotionally strangled, and she is physically and spiritually perfect. But it is through that perfection she is able to have significance, including bringing about the eventual salvation of her father. The message is clearly given to little girls that if they are perfect enough, they can be loved and accepted by both God and man. In no way does she represent a real woman addressing the real issues of life, nor the truth of the Gospel message of salvation by grace alone.

  5. That was an interesting article. I’m always interested to know why someone likes what I loathe. Maybe I need to rethink things.

  6. Eric says:

    My problems with the Left Behind series went beyond the fact that I am an Evangelical who doesn’t believe in the credibility of the scenario advocated by LaHaye/Jenkins.    In fact, I think its based on unsound Biblical thinking.    But I am welcome to the idea of a good drama based in this interpretation of the end times, and the problem is that Left Behind failed to deliver because of two key flaws.   First, the twelve novel approach and the AD having 12 parts per story was a blatant case of letting symbolism (the whole twelve tribes bit) trump storytelling.     It resulted in a narrative that seldom went forward much or stalled out making me very impatient.     The end result was not a well-crafted storyline but more of a shaggy dog type story in which yes, the general end was there but in order to justify this twelve part approach we would get pointless padding like Rayford’s second marriage etc.       The other flaw is that these protagonists, were how shall I say it, too “perfect”.     It seemed to me that in order to cater to the demands of Christian publishing, we could not have heroes who IMO if they are “Left Behind” should have been people with sinful issues beyond the “Indifferent churchgoer” type which seemed to describe *EVERY* protagonist.    We should have had characters with more serious flaws like say, actual adultery, drinking etc.  or those prone to indulge in four letter words because honestly, realism would indicate that these are more likely to be people prone to that behavior and yet there was something too pat about making Rayford someone who thought of an affair but never did.     Finally, let me also get in a few words about the failure of LaHaye/Jenkins to properly do some background research on a few matters that undermined the credibility of the stories.       Commercial pilots like Rayford Steele do not fly the President’s plane (the convenient plot device to set up Rayford flying eventually for Nicolae), the President’s plane is flown by Air Force pilots (that’s why it is called Air Force One!).      Also, the inside joke of aliases drawn from the names of former baseball players really got tiresome after a bit.

  7. Dan Koning says:

    I’m currently listening to the 99 LB audio drama series [again], and stopped to look for a forum where Jenkins may see ppls comment. If Jenkins ever involves himself in another drama, I hope he rethinks things Biblically. Mainly that he’ll strive to establish a sound hermeneutic first so that as ppl listen, they will hear and seen it in their “minds eye” yet filtered through the truth of scripture. Even something as simple as Chloe’s attitude/demeanor which never evidenced the “new creation” or the changed life of 2 Cor 5 v17. She appeared as outspoken, argumentative, with outbursts of anger and stayed that way. Her character would have been an easy and obvious way to display the “life change” which was seen to some degree in Hattie. To be honest, the hermeneutics made the series go from a 9 to a 7, and Chloe’s demeanor made it go from an 7 to a 5.

What do you think?