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Battlefield Earth
 
 

Battlefield Earth [Mass Market Paperback]

L. Ron Hubbard
3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (366 customer reviews)
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Product Description

From Library Journal

This title is now better remembered for being transformed into one of the worst B-movies in history. Don't blame the book, however, which is well regarded in sf circles. This 20th-anniversary edition offers the full text of the original. Galaxy Press, which launched this July, will reprint a number of Hubbard's books. If your existing copy looks as if it has been on the battlefield, this quality hardcover will make a nice replacement.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

Battlefield Earth is a magnificent, sprawling 820-page, "Star Wars"-type novel, lavishly written with wit and adventure and the occasional curlicue in plot.

This also is a novel featuring the most deliciously despicable villain of all times, the insidious Terl, member of a master race, genius, eccentric, and certifiably psychotic. (You can tell when Terl is up to something nasty by his chuckle.) Terl is introduced to the reader with the near-prophetic words, "Man is an endangered species."

The story is set in the year 3000. Our civilization had been wiped out centuries earlier by a malevolent race of conquerers known as the Psychlos, who establish a mining colony on the planet. The handful of humans remaining are considered little better than animals.

Think of the "Star Wars" sagas, and "Raiders of the Lost Ark," mix in the triumph of "Rocky I," "Rocky II" and "Rocky III" and you have captured the exhuberance, style and glory of "Battlefield Earth." -- Baltimore Evening Sun, November 14, 1982

Back in the fray after 30 years of absence is L. Ron Hubbard, one of the great formula and pulp writers of the Golden Age of Science Fiction. Battlefield Earth is the huge, rollicking saga of Jonnie Goodboy Tyler. A youth from the hills where remnants of mankind hide from a high-technology race of aliens who have occupied Earth for a thousand years, Jonnie is captured by the aliens and ends up turning their own technology against them.

The pace starts fast and never lets up.

With Battlefield Earth, Hubbard comes across as a powerful science writer comparable to Robert Heinlein. -- Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 1982

Hubbard celebrates 50 years as a pro writer with this huge (800+ pages), swarming, sometimes gripping slug-fest. The Earth has been occupied by monsters, imperial Pyschlos representing the Intergalactic Mining Corporation, who use "breathe-gas" (air is poisonous to them) and whose power derives from the closely guarded secret of teleportation. Furthermore, ambitious, devious Psychlo security chief Terl schemes to enrich himself by clandestinely mining gold, using humans as slave labor and he is soon exploiting explorer-bravo Jonnie Goodboy Tyler (holding Jonnie's girlfriend as hostage). But Jonnie, learning that breathe-gas explodes on contact with radioactive materials, quickly amasses allies, arms, equipment, and expertise for a war of liberation: he plots to doublecross the snarling Terl by substituting nuclear bombs for the gold to be teleported to planet Psychlo. -- Kirkus Review, August 1, 1982

In the year 3000, Earth and her few remaining people are dominated by the cruel Psychlo aliens whose greed for wealth and power obliterates whatever compassion may have once existed. When Jonnie Goodboy Tyler's destiny leads him from a small Rocky Mountain community to confront the tyrannical aliens, he finds himself facing insurmountable odds no mortal man could hope to conquer. An epic in science fiction adventure, the absorbing story captures the mind and imagination in this tale of an Earth-destroying future war. -- Orange County Register, Nov 14, 1982 --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.


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"Man," said Terl, "is an endangered species." Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews

366 Reviews
5 star:
 (196)
4 star:
 (36)
3 star:
 (30)
2 star:
 (22)
1 star:
 (82)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.7 out of 5 stars (366 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most helpful customer reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars An all out assault on your intelligence., Oct 23 2003
By 
Roule Duke (the Green Inferno) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Battlefield Earth (Mass Market Paperback)
Well after seeing that turkey of a movie Battlefield Earth and then reading cult member written reviews saying, "Oh the book is so much better" I decided to have a gander. I managed to 'grab' a copy of the eBook, and am happy at that because to pay money for this utter tripe is immoral as it will only add to the coffers of Hubbard's Scientology cult. The amount of 5 star reviews here had me at first expectant that the book would be good, but after the first page of this... monstrosity... I have no doubt that every positive review on this site is written by one of Hubbard's brainwashed followers. I have in my time read a great many books ranging from fantasy, to military history to science fiction, and I can quite confidently say that this is the worst book I have ever read.

First off we have Hubbard's introduction which has to be one of the most self-serving and self-centered pieces of text I have ever read. He seems to think he's some big time professional novelist and the man with the final word on what's real science fiction and what isn't, calling his book 'hard science fiction'. Well Mr. Hubbard keep on dreaming, because you sure aren't a professional level writer and this sure as hell is not 'hard science fiction. I simply cannot believe that this book is held as a 'science fiction classic', I was under the impression that for a story to be SF it had to at least have a grounding in reality, plausibility and science, this book totally lacks any of these attributes. Furthermore it reads as if a grade school student wrote it.

Trust me, if you have seen the movie and heard the pleas of Hubbard's devotees saying how much better the book is don't believe them, they are exactly the same with the movie just having less long winded content. You see just like the movie, the book requires you to take these enormous leaps of faith over absolutely gaping plot holes. We are expected to swallow that a bunch of cavemen, remnants of a human society who's high tech armies were destroyed by the Psychlos in 9 minutes, can somehow in such a short space of time bring about their liberation.

Along the way we have many oddities like the humans using 1000 year old flight simulators (where did they get the power to run them?) to learn how to fly 1000 year old Harrier jets (fuel and the restoration it would take to get these planes off of the ground are all totally negated) and somehow learning to use 1000 year old firearms to bring about the Psychlos doom. The only explanation for how they are able to achieve this is quite simply MAGIC there is no other plausible explanation offered in the book. The human characters themselves are painfully devoid of character, they are simply cardboard cut outs and the hero 'Johnny Goodboy Tyler' is just too perfect. The treatment of the female characters is painfully sexist and the racial stereotypes represent by alien races like the Chinkos (an obvious dig at the Chinese) is something I find totally unacceptable. It seems not only is Hubbard the whacked out leader of a ridiculous cult, he is also a sexist and racist bigot.

The Psychlos themselves are so retarded that you begin to wonder how they even managed to conquer earth in the first place. I mean you think that they'd realize after conquering these 'human-animals' who once had a technologically advanced civilization that a man could figure out how to pull the trigger on one of their guns, or how to organize resistance. But they don't, it totally takes them by surprise and the only explanation we have in the book is the Psychlo's arrogance.

The Editorial review of this book mentions that it includes no scientology, well I think this is very misleading, the book is jam packed with scientology propaganda. The Psychlos and the whole implantation thing with the 'Catrists' is so obviously an attack on psychologists who in scientology are held to be the root of all evil which exists in society. I wonder why Hubbard has such a store of hate against Psychologists? Maybe this hate was generated because a Psychologist told Hubbard that his whole idea to start this Scientology cult was ridiculous? Who knows, but I couldn't agree more, this guy and his cult are purely and utterly ridiculous.

It immensely distresses me to find that this piece of garbage is so popular, I guess it just shows how dumbed down society is these days when an all out assault on your intelligence like Battlefield Earth can be called 'classic science fiction'. Either that or it shows how deeply entrenched in society scientology is these days. Take your pick, I find both possibilities equally disturbing. If you want to read some classic SF go and get a copy of Day of the Triffids, 2001 A Space Odyssey or anything by Asimov, this book is quite simply the mucky bottom of the barrel.

In my opinion Battlefield Earth the book, and Battlefield Earth the movie go hand in hand as the worst piece of writing and the worst piece of cinema ever shoveled steaming under the nose of man kind. We should hold a global book burning bon fire where every copy of this utter filth is gathered and tossed into the flames to forever be removed from history, then we can dance around and sing in joy and maybe throw Hubbard himself in.

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4.0 out of 5 stars Critics are too harsh..., April 22 2012
By 
Savant (Toronto, Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Battlefield Earth (Mass Market Paperback)
While this book doesn't rate 5 stars for me, I think it is far too harsh to give it one star and harsh criticism that it has received from some. However, having just finished reading it, I can see how some people were put off by Hubbard's style of writing, and some aspects of the story.

One of the main objections seems to revolve around a key story element. (This isn't a spoiler...) The story opens with the revelation that mankind had been wiped out 1000 years ago by an alien race. As can be expected, the few pockets of humans that remained had mainly reverted to more 'primitive' living. For example, the 'hero' of the story is an accomplished hunter who uses clubs to kill his prey. So, this begs the question, would it be possible for a man who knows nothing of 'technology' and things like 'flying craft' ever be able to learn and master using such devices in a short (weeks to months) period of time?

This is a key element in the story that the reader must accept, and it would seem that some people just can't make that leap. For me I tend to think that in 'desperate times' a person could be capable of just about anything.

Something else I think needs to be kept in mind is this book was finished in 1980, and given the size would have been in progress for many years. This story is likely 40 years old. Don't judge it without keeping that in mind.

Lastly, I think this story would have been better if broken into two parts. Without giving anything away, there is a distinct shift in the story, and it easily could be broken into two books.

However, I still found it to be an interesting read. I think most people will find it enjoyable so long as they don't have excessively high expectations.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars Read only half, or be bored straight to hell!, Jan 23 2004
By 
Ok, look. I already wrote a review awhile ago, and now that I've finally finished the book (6 months later) I'm ready to give you the rundown on this piece of crap.

L. Ron Hubbards books are always a bit to compelling for the average reader. Lots of use of scientific words, political matters etc. This book is no exception. HOWEVER, this book is the best he's ever written. Although there are still many pointless boring long annoying points in the book, its still a great page turner, when your reading exciting area. Up to page 500, you wont want to stop reading. Its just great! filled with action and exciting mystery's.
After page 500 it all turns into crap. page 0-500 is about man-kinds revival from the endangered state, the Psychlos an alien race, set them in. It shows how the stupidity of the otherwise clever psychlos, leads the main character Jonnie (a character who becomes extremelely dull after page 500) to re-take the planet. After lots of action, with the help of a few hundred scots, they do in fact re-take the planet.
page 500-1050 is total crap. For starters the main character becomes really annoying, stupid, pointless, un-needed, injured, and dull. He's no fun to read about any more. Plus, Ron decides to add about 20 other random, pointless and also dull characters into the story, leading the book, into pointlessness. Then you will become interested again as new alien invaders come over for some action. But Hubbard leaves us in suspense for about 20 chapters (which really stinks, as you wait to find out more information) and eventually instead of another war, it just leads into the political stage of the book, which almost made me fall asleep while reading, during the afternoon! Luckily this goes back to action again, but like i said pointless characters and a dull main character lead to pure boredom, even when action hits the scenary.

All in all, if I were you i would get the book and read up to page 500 and then stop, no matter how interested you are, you will become disapointed if you read on. If you must, rip page 500+ out of the book. If you know that if you hget it you will have to read it all, then DON'T BUY IT! Its pure crap after page 500! Trust me!

Ok, I'm out. I hope you enjoy your life by not reading past page 500.

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