I enjoyed the Mission Earth series – I read the entire thing. Battlefield Earth, too.
I think I liked it in the same way that some people like “wrestling” or the worst sort of “reality” television, though
At the time, I thought Scientology was hysterical.
I’m sure I wouldn’t have bothered with any of it if it weren’t for his ridiculous, amphetamine-warped allegory. “‘Psychlos!’ Brilliant!”
So, no.
Add me to the list of people who read, or attempted to read, the Mission Earth series prior to having any knowledge of volcanos or clams, and giving up in frustration (midway through book two, in my case).
I made it through at least book 3 of Mission Earth. My only excuse is that I read a lot of crap as a teenager because I read a lot of genre fiction in general. Also I had a very hard time putting down anything I started. That’s one of the few series I ever gave up on at the time. I have gotten wiser with years, trust me.
I also started the Mission Earth series when I was younger. My dad said to me, “here, read this, it’s hilarious.” I don’t think I got all the way through the first book.
Oh yeah, and I hadn’t even heard of L. Ron Hubbard before that, let alone Scientology.
Naw. I didn’t even know about Scientology when I first read his stuff. I just didn’t like it.
I’ve not read most of Hubbard’s output. I read the first…IIRC, 6 books of Mission Earth. This was after I’d heard of Scientology, but before I knew any details other than ‘it’s a religion started by a science fiction writer, alegedly on a bet’.
The first 3 books were fairly entertaining despite its badness (despite, not because of - I was ignoring the stupidity, not laughing at it). His biases are pretty damn obvious (Although, still more subtle than ‘Psychlo’), but the eye-rolling is minimal early on.
As of book 4, it left ‘entertaining despite the badness’ skipped right over ‘entertaining because of its badness’, and right into ‘this isn’t entertaining, it’s just bad’, but I kept on, because I wanted to see how it ended… I got through book 6, and started on book 7, and kind of…petered out. I didn’t want to know how it ended badly enough for that. I think I might have gotten through one chapter of book 7 before bringing it back to the library and getting something that was entertaining to read.
I thought the “Battlefield Earth” movie was really stupid and I had no idea it was based on Hubbard’s work.
I read the Mission: Earth series in it’s entirety in HARDCOVER(!) before I knew about $cientiology. I had heard of Dianetics, but only from the TV commercials.
Despite the fact that each volume was pretty much a rehash of the previous ones, I was determined to finish. The only interesting thing I remember was the audio/video implants that allowed the one alien to spy on the other alien.
When I found about Mr. Hubbard’s “religion”, I destroyed the books (and I never like to destroy books regardless of their content).
Hubbard was a natural storyteller who, unfortunately, also happened to be a lousy writer; there’s actually some pretty entertaining notions submerged in all the awful prose. Reading Hubbard is kind of like reading Lovecraft’s lesser works in that you need to embrace the good bits while letting go of the bad parts.
There are a few of his books that I genuinely like and will re-read every so often: The Ole Doc Methusela stories, Slaves of Sleep, and Typewriter in the Sky. But if you want to see a really painful example of how he went downhill after getting a hardon for psychiatrists, read Slaves of Sleep followed by Masters of Sleep.
Just a tiny quibble. Hubbard was indeed well regarded, but I’m not sure he was much reprinted. There are only two entries for him in the SF story index, covering anthologies from 1950 - 1968. It’s quite possible because it was difficult to get rights, or that editor’s didn’t want to get into a hassle about the rights. It might also be that his stuff, as you say, was competent but not that good.
Hubbard was maybe the most prolific writer in Unknown, and was often in Astounding, both of which were the best markets in the forties. Final Blackout was considered very significant. There is no getting around that he wrote for money, not art, though.
The reports of those who read his later work makes my miniscule desire to read them diminish even further. Did he actually write them, (out of boredom?) or did he get a lackey to do it?
The Ole Doc Methusaleh stories got reprinted by Don Wollheim. They struck me as a bit fascist, even if I’m not sure I agree Final Blackout is.
Hubbard’s pulp-writer background got the best of him. There’ one instance in his military career ht actualy makes me feel sorry for him. He was commanding the PC-815 in the Pacific and became convinced that he contacted two Japanese subs. His actions are reported at this website:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/cos/warhero/battle.htm
Hubbard, the guy who loved sailing, whoe father was in the Navy (and who tried o impress) had fand independent command. He mistakenly believed he’d contacted the enemy, something along the lines of the adventures he’d been imagining and writing al those years, and wrote it up along th same lines, only to be censured for bth the action and th report. That had to be a major blow.
After a subsequent event where he shelled what he thought to be U.S. uninhabited islands for gunnery practice (but which turned out to be Mexican territory) he got into further hot water:
All of this is interesting reading at http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/cos/warhero/contents.htm .
One thing that must have grated was that he was criticized for th style of his reports, although he had been a sucessful professional writer for some time. But he was shaped by his medium.
It’s curious – if you read the business mnuals he wrote fr running Scientology (I ran cross some in a library) he’s all business. It’ very unlike the style of his fiction or his Scientology/Dianetics. Maybe the Navy pu th fear of God into him.
Something that I never understood. El Ron’s “Mission Earth” books remain on the bookseller’s shelves far longer than much better author’s works. For example books by James Blaylock, Tim Powers and Paul Park would come and go within 6 months, while Hubbard’s stuff would continue to stink up the bookshelves for years. Why?
There have been rumors that Scientologists regularly buy up Hubbard’s books to keep them on the lists. Whether they’re true or not I can’t say.
There are reports of Hubbards books being delivered to stores with receipts from other chains still in them.
Lots of rumors, of various types. Scientologists block buying thousands of books to pass out to the members. Scientologists being told to buy a dozen copies instead of just one.
The minimal and most believable rumor is that members are encouraged to get a copy of any of Hubbard’s writings, and perhaps a few more to give out to prospects. This makes psychological sense - surely you would want to have any writing of your religion’s founder, and also be able to demonstrate to unbelievers his fine works.
However, simple hype and the money to do extensive marketing no doubt work for Hubbard’s book as well as for any other crappily written book that makes the bestseller lists. And there are certainly no shortage of those.
This isn’t entirely new for the movie; in the book, the low-tech Humans actually discover, and learn to fly, fully fueled / armed / operational fighter jets.
The movie’s twist is having the entire Earth conquered in nine minutes. IIRC, in the book, that applied only to the last Human defenders – cadets at the Air Force Academy.
His SF goes beyond bad, IMO, though I can’t say that I’ve sampled his complete works. I have read and enjoyed the winners of his Writers of the Future contests (published as anthologies). He thinks he’s a wonderful writer and storyteller, but he’s a complete hack, as others have said. He cranked out words, and it shows.
I never read any of Hubbard’s early work. I read Battlefield Earth in my teens, and remember almost nothing of it.
However, from reading biographies of major SF figures of the time, my understanding is that Hubbard was a just-OK writer of pulp, who made a bigger splash in the community of writers than he should have largely because he traded on his reputation as a larger-than-life character. He gained the attention of other writers not because he was a great writer, but because he could regale them with stories of his own personal adventures which left them somewhat in awe. Remember, the SF giants of that era were, with the exception of a few like Heinlein, just geeks and just as likely to be star-struck by an adventurous rogue as would be your average comic book conventioneer.
But he has had little, if any, impact on science fiction. If it weren’t for Dianetics, you’d probably have never heard of him.
For what it’s worth:
On my much-neglected movie review website (:(), I used to have a feature at the bottom of each review where readers could vote their opinion of the film in question, from loved-it to hated-it. The average number of responses was something like 50-75; I think I had a couple hundred for Gladiator.
But within a week of my posting my Battlefield Earth review, I had 25,000 loved-it votes, against the usual smatterings in the other categories.
I’m presuming this is not 25,000 separate Elron drones visiting my site in a coordinated fashion. It’s more likely to be a Perl script or some other automated vote-casting applet, the work of one or two people, bombarding the site to skew the results.
But it’s still an interesting insight into their methods.