Left Behind critique (w/spoilers)

In My Humble Opinion
1

In honor of my new sig, I submit my critique of Left Behind:

Sure, the book pissed me off on paragraph 4, but I posted my vent here, and soldiered on, remembering always to keep an open mind.

Good points: It was actually pretty interesting, as a story. I like a good end-of-the-world yarn every once in a while, and this was a nice change from the more typical war/disease/alien attack scenario.

There were also a couple of human moments that took me by surprise. Steele’s copilot killing himself after finding his children gone and his wife dead actually gave me a pang. I wouldn’t have minded seeing a few more of these little snapshots of consequences of the Rapture.

Damning with Faint Praise: This was not a well-written book. However, it wasn’t the worst-written book I’ve ever read, either. I would place it at about the level of a romance novel. Of course, a romance novel has plenty of sex to take your mind of the stylistic errors. I did notice one egregious example of poor editing – Steele had “gotten a hold of Hattie.” Gotten a hold of?

Bad stuff: The main characters really sucked. Steele is an unlikable stiff and Buck is just kind of boring. At that, they’re both at least capable and active, unlike the women… Hoo boy, the women! Hattie is a pinhead and Chloe apparently exists merely to serve as daughter and girlfriend. At least romance novels have the occasional competent and likeable female.

STOP CALLING THEM SKEPTICS! LaHaye and Jenkins used the ‘S’ word constantly to describe our heroes, causing me to channel Inigo Montoya (“You keep saying that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.”) A big deal is made of the fact that the crew wants to do some research before deciding what’s going on. Unfortunately, the only research any of them do is reading the bible, watching a Rapture video prepared by the pastor of a fundamentalist church and reading some books by “end-times experts.” Yeah, real conclusive research there, folks!

Finally (this is the books biggest flaw, IMO) – LaHaye and Jenkins totally cut off any possibilty of suspense by making Carpathia the unmistakable Bad Guy. I didn’t think the Antichrist was supposed to be that easy to spot.

I have a little personal game I sometimes play when watching a movie or reading a book. I call it How Could This Have Been Better? Wouldn’t it have been cool if LaHaye and Jenkins had left some mystery about whether or not Carpathia was the Antichrist? If the whole series had moved forward with the possibility that Steele and Co. were wrong, that the disappearences had some other explanation and Carpathia was really just a wonderful guy?
Then I might have been able to conclude that these books are simply stories. As it is, I’m going to have to side with the folks who claim that they’re really just thinly disguised attempts at pushing an end-times agenda.

Of course, I’ve only read the very first book. We’ll see how I feel after reading the rest.

2

What bores me about these books is how one-dimensional the characters are. The Trib Force are noble and self-sacrificing with nary a moral dilemma. The Antichrist is, admittedly, a bad guy, but a more gifted writer would have given the character more depth. What does it mean to be the Antichrist? Did Carpathia always know who he was, or was it revealed to him? Carpathia is a moustache-twirling, melodrama villain–he makes Snidely Whiplash look like a nuanced, multi-dimensional character.

The anti-Catholic bias of the books is also annoying. Why would the Pope serve the Antichrist? After all, he is the Vicar of Christ on Earth. Fundies should realize that the Catholic Church was the Church established by Jesus through Apostolic Succession, and Protestants are just a bunch of heretics damned for all eternity for denying the doctrines of the One True Faith. <said with tongue firmly in cheek>

3

Bravo to you, Jess, for reading these. My mom has all of them and I just cannot bring myself to read any of them, seeing them as advertisements for Fundamental Christianity, something I’ve been trying to distance myself from.

Anyhoo, if you want a really good end-of-the-world book with TONS of suspense, try Millenium Rising by Jane Jensen. [Tony the Tiger voice]It was GREAT [end Tony].

Honestly, I picked it up from a friend and finished it in one day, it was so good. Amazon has it for about $19 (hardcover) but your library might have. It’s really a great read, tying in the religious end-of-the-world expectations along with some unexpected stuff.

4 stars from me.

4

In all fairness, Carpathia is not so straight forward as he seems. In the rest of the novels, he does come out as more than he appears.

These books aren’t great, but they are better than most of the drivel that is written today. Chaim Rosenweig(sp.) is a very good character and not stock at all.

5

Okay, I finished the second book in the series. Frankly, I’m not seeing much improvement so far. Some specifics:

First of all, what the hell is the Tribulation Force supposed to do anyway? Nobody seems to be trying to do Carpathia any dirt – it’d be easy enough to kill him, after all. Steele is Carpathia’s pilot, all that’s needed is a glory-bound kamikazi flight into a mountain side. Clearly, they aren’t interested in killing him. The prophesy is clear that he will not be stopped and the gig is up at the end of 7 years. Surely their only mission should be to bring as many people as possible to Christ before the end. So, if that’s the case, why are they messing around on the Antichrist’s payroll? And so far as I can tell they’re pretty much undercover – at least Buck is, and with his connections, he could reach a lot of people with the Message. Am I missing something here?

Secondly, it seems like it was way too easy for Carpathia to take over the world. Every nation cheerfully destroying or handing over all of their weaponry? Not to mention all the other one-world nonsense that would be really difficult to achieve. And this is all supposed to have been completed in less than 2 years? I don’t think so. And, I really disliked the image of a deposed President of the United States, after having handed the Antichrist our country’s balls on a platter, teaming up with a bunch of militia members to bomb Washington DC.

The characterization of women has, if anything, gone downhill. Buck and Steele are Big Men doing Important Things, and the women? Well, Hattie is a dimwit AND the Whore of the Antichrist. Chloe spent most of the book (and remember the book is about The End Of The World As We Know It) broodinging over Buck in a soap-opera snit-fit. And, Amanda? Where the hell did she come from? She pops up in the last few pages of the book, completely personality-free, apparently for no other reason than to marry Steele and provide some sin-free nookie.

The quality of the writing hasn’t improved either, although I didn’t take note of any specific errors. I did find a major continuity error: On page 319, Dr. Ben-Judah mentions that he has been married only 6 years, and has 2 small children. On page 398, after Ben-Judah has come out as a Christian, his wife “…sat with her children in another room.” What? Jewish children weren’t taken in the Rapture with all the rest of the children in the whole world?

Finally, I’m standing by my previous statement – the largest flaw in this series is the lack of suspense. We learned in the first half of the first book how it was all going to end. All the major characters are Heaven-bound, the only question is what route they’ll take. The books would have been much, MUCH better if Carpathia had not been allowed to tip his hand so early. Or, failing that, if even one of the major characters had held out against Christianity. Then we could at least have had some suspense about whether or not that character would be saved before the end.

So, on to Nicolae.

Oh, and Maholoth, I most strongly disagree with you about “most of the drivel that is written today.” I worked in a bookstore most of last year, I go to the library 3 or 4 times a month, and read at least 5 books a week. Believe me, there are much better books than these released every single day!

6

Uh, I actually kinda like these books.

I suppose they get better as the time wears on. Steele especially gets to be a little better in Assasins. It’s just a shame you have to wait that long.

More people are added, too, not just the 4 Trib members. No sex, just lots of death and dying…

And as a college student, I don’t really feel like delving deeply into the philosophical mysteries of life as I’m reading a passage… too many times in other books I’ve had to go back and read entire sections, going “huh?” I don’t have time for that!!!

I think the reason it was so easy for Carpathia to take over the world was because

A.) The disappearances. Everyone lost someone, and carpathia just seemed to be the right person at the right time.
B.) His charisma. In light of A, this factors in VERY well.
C.) If all else fails, fall back on the fact that he can use mind control. :slight_smile:

7

Thanks, Bunnygirl. I love good apocalyptic fiction and I found this at allbooks4less for $5.94, in hardcover.