Thursday, January 20, 2005

Betrayed??

Christianity Today has an article on Tim LaHaye's gripe about his publisher.

Tim LaHaye, coauthor (with Jerry Jenkins) of the Left Behind series, is publicly airing his displeasure with his publisher. Tyndale House is selling The Last Disciple, a novel with a distinctly different take on the Book of Revelation than that of the Left Behind series. LaHaye says he feels betrayed and told The Dallas Morning News, "They are going to take the money we made for them and promote this nonsense."

So now LaHaye owns Tyndale, because they sold a few books together? Or is he trying to create a buzz about Last Disciple to help sales?

The controversy has been covered in Time and on Good Morning, America. The fuss has helped sales of The Last Disciple reach 60,000 in hardcover over the first two months, Beers said.

I haven't had much interest in apocalyptic literature since I read The Late Great Planet Earth back when that book was all the rage. It seemed kind of amusing, so I tried my hand at writing the same sort of thing. I found it trivial--too much like cheating--and without any substance or authority. Anybody remember the old TV show Batman, in which Batman guessed the location of this week's villain using random clues and far-fetched puns? Or the movie They Might be Giants, with 'Sherlock' tracking Moriarty through the city in a mad scavenger hunt of numbers? Thus are the apocalyptic writers: "Oooh, there's a number 10, that must be something from Daniel's prophecy!"

Somehow LaHaye's whine doesn't inspire me to go read his books.

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