Mission Earth 10 - The Doomed Planet

Here it is,  The Doomed Planet, the 10th and final volume of L Ron Hubbard's arid and interminable Mission Earth Series.

I've been seeing these books in libraries ever since I can remember but had never picked them up.  And now, 1.2 million or so words later, I almost wish I never had.  LRH may have been a decent writer during his early years, writing adventure stories for pulp magazines, but by the end of his life he had completely forgotten his craft.  He was no longer a story teller.  The Mission Earth books are not about story - they're not even really about people. The Mission Earth  books were merely an excuse for Hubbard to spout his venom and bile in a nearly endless rant against anyone and everyone who had ever done him wrong.

LRH poison penned psychologist, psychiatrists, the FBI, the CIA, the IRS, Universities, Homosexuals, Punk Rock music, Religious leaders, Public Relations and Advertisers and, and, and, and...  The only people who don't receive this bitter treatment are the members of Godfather mafia styled organized crime family (LRH even named them the Corleone mob!)  It's curious that these criminals are the only one to be treated as righteous and noble.   Why is it that the only people LRH didn't despise were criminals?  Because he, himself, was criminal? 

Here in the final volume the series' hero, Jettero Heller, single-handedly restores the Voltarian Confederation's government after a violent revolution and forestalls the invasion that has been threatened in the whole series. And he does this simply by making an official declaration that the planet Earth does not exist.

Wait... That's it?  1.2 Million words to play ostrich?  1.2 million words to pretend that the things we don't like don't exist.?  Seriously? 

Monte Penwell, the very first investigative journalist on Voltar,  has, in the course of his investigation of this story, become infatuated with all the things from Earth that have never been used on Voltar - things like: psychiatry and psychology, drugs, Public Relation, Drugs, Sex, and Spies and so on.  Penwell is angry with Heller and the restored government for covering up the mission to Earth and concludes his work (ostensibly the books we've been reading...) with a hymn to encourage the people of Voltar to wake up and recognize the cover up that has been perpetrated and to take up the mission to invade earth.

ODE TO EARTH

Oh, Earth, oh, Earth, you luscious globe,
You beckoning, wine-fat treasure-trove,
You whet our hunger as you spin
And lure us with your wealth to win.
You saved my life with your PR.
I triumph now without a scar!
Your spy techniques are quite sublime
And can be used to undermine.
And who could think but to extol
Your psych and psych for mind control.
Who would refuse to cut their fug
If offered some divine Earth drug?
Who can deny that men will drool
For just one shot of good white mule?
And no musician would heed sneers
If he had Punk Rock to drown their ears.
And who, pray tell, would show aversion
To lovely butt and mouth perversion?
And Earth, you number in your riches
Sex that converts girls to (bleeepches).

Did I say sex? Oh, you excel!
Never has such concentration
Been levelled at self-gratification!

It goes on like this for another two pages.  But I can't take very much more... I'll skip down to the last couple of lines.

Don't plead, O, Earth, for mercy now!

Your time has come and this I vow:
Each thing you know we will suck up
And toast your death with blood in cup!
Surrender? No, it is too late.
Just weep while solders fornicate
Upon your grave up there so high,
So soon will be our Voltar sky.
But, cheer up, Earth! When soul has flow
It will in Voltar find its home.
Your wisdom wise like graveyard flowers
Will come to us and will be ours!
So, Earth, just bare to us your breast
And let us suckle you in death!
VOLTAR!  SEEK NOT MORE OF MY PERSUASION!

LAUNCH ON TIME THE EARTH INVASION!

THE (TRIUMPHANT) END!

I cannot comprehend how the adherents of the Church of Scientology could read these and still think that every word LRH spoke / wrote was genius. I cannot understand how the founder of their religion can be revered in the face of this series.  If Jesus of Nazareth had written something like this, I'm not sure that I could continue to call myself a Christian. 

The books of LRH's Mission Earth series should be a troublesome source of perpetual embarrassment to all Scientologists. I suggest that they should purchase and destroy every copy still in print and then, like Mission Earth hero Jettero Heller, issue a proclamation that the series has never existed. 

Mission Earth 9 - Villainy Victorious and Lingering Lewdness

Villainy Victorious, the penultimate book of L. Ron Hubbard’s 10 Volume Mission Earth series begins with what are possibly the only true words LRH ever wrote.

“This bizarre, fallacious tale has not been made any more palatable by the introduction of a different narrator.”

We agree.

Volume 8, Disaster introduced one Monte Penwell – an unpublished and untalented author – to continue the story of Soltan Gris, Lombar Hisst, Jettero Heller and the Voltarian mission to Earth. Gris had been incarcerated, Hisst was taking over the Voltarian confederation, and Jettero Heller had escaped with the ailing and drug addicted emperor. Penwell prefaces the story but makes no further appearance.

Like the preceding 8 volumes, Villainy Victorious is a sprawling chaotic jumble with a lot of bile but little story. What narrative there is focuses on the exploits of the earthlings J. Walter Madison – a PR “genius” and Teenie Whopper – a teen-aged nymphomaniac.

Madison and Whopper proceed to infect pure and noble Voltar with the corruptions of Earth – psychology, psychiatry, drugs, perverse sex, public relations and advertising. Blah, blah, blah. This is the whole point of the Mission Earth series: to demonstrate in overwhelming and graphic detail the sickness and depravity of the planet Earth.

At one point early in the book, Teenie Whopper (who inexplicably came to be worshipped as a queen on Voltar) leads a “lecture” to instruct the prepubescent sons of Voltarian nobles in how to become catamites and sex slaves.

Then with one light finger she touched a spot at the lower center of the boy’s pubic hair. His eyes rolled up, his chin thrust forward, he gave an ecstatic groan.
HE (BLEEPULTATED)!

What the BLEEP? You ask.

This has been one of the running “jokes” in Mission Earth. According to a footnote in each of the books, the translating robots are forbidden to reproduce “cursing or lewd words.” This is ironic because the books are filled with descriptions of all manner of vulgar and disgusting – lewd- activities. That some words are BLEEPed out only serves to heighten them.

It seems as if LRH took pleasure in describing the many and varied perversions of earth. He certainly lingered over each one of them in loving and painful detail.

Teenie leaned over and touched his ear with her tongue.
ANOTHER (BLEEPULATION)!
The crowd went mad! (Villainy Victorious page 81)

Mission Earth Volume 8 - Disaster: What a Disaster!

Earlier this year I began reading L Ron Hubbard’s massive Mission Earth series. I’ve just finished volume 8 Disaster. I can see the end approaching. I’m almost there. Almost there….


LRH has lumbered through the first 7 ½ books like an angry drunk – more concerned with rants against his enemies (psychiatrists, psychologists, the FBI, homosexuals, etc…) than with coherent storytelling. But in this 8th volume of the Mission Earth series LRH finally gets around to tying up all the loose threads of his ‘narrative.’

…at least I think that he got them all. To be honest, LRH left so many subplots  rabbit-trails, and false starts along the way, I’m not sure if he wrapped up everything or not, but I’m not inclined to go back and check.

The 1st half of Disaster moves rapidly to a conclusion: the series’ hero, Jettero Heller, is successful in bringing down the evil oil companies controlled by J. D. Rockecenter and introducing a free energy source to the planet (in the form of a captured black hole placed in orbit around the earth!) and the villainous scoundrel, Soltan Gris, is captured and taken back to the planet Voltar to stand trial for his crimes.

Check and check.

But then, after 7 ½  books written from the viewpoint of Soltan Gris,  LRH introduces another character – one Monte Penwell, a struggling (and failing) author who decides to become the first investigative journalist in Voltarian history. Penwell (Get it? He’s a writer? Penwell? Nudge. Nudge.) continues the story for us.

Heller rescues the Voltarian Emperor from the clutches of Lombar Hisst (Gris’ superior) who had been keeping him weak and addicted to heroin in order to take over the Empire. Heller returns to earth to restore the emperor to health and to prevent World War III from beginning. The book ends with a cliff-hanger, of course.

Has Rockecenter

foiled the entire plan?

What will Hisst do

to retaliate?

Find out in

MISSION EARTH

Volume 9

Villainy Victorious

(page 333)

LRH’s idea of dramatic action packed writing was to string together a series of simple declarative sentences – one per line, with lots of exclamation points and WORDS IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS! – and sometimes he couldn’t even be bothered to write complete sentences.

He could make out the outlines of a spiral chute going down!
A shotgun blasted again at the door.
Heller grabbed his satchels.
He threw himself on the spacetrooper sled.
The shotgun roared again!
Heller hit the controls.
The sound of the door bursting in.
The sled started out the window.
Another shotgun blast!
Something tugged at his heel!
He shot out into the dark night!
THE FIRST EXPLOSION WENT!
It sounded just like lightning had struck close to hand, a blasting, cracking roar that filled the night!
The sled bucked and twisted.
It plummeted earthward from thirty-five stories high.
THE SECOND EXPLOSION WENT!
Convulsively, Heller gripped the controls. The ground was coming up, unseen, but it must be very near!
He got the sled into a climb.
THE THIRD EXPLOSION WENT!
The sled slewed.
Heller got it straightened out!
A tree straight ahead!
Heller zoomed over it.
At least he knew where the ground was now.
He settled the sled vertically and played his light down.
He landed.
THE FOURTH EXPLOSION WENT!
(pages 317 – 318)

And it goes on like this through THE TENTH EXPLOSION WENT! Seriously.

I am almost finished with the series.  I have the final two books from the library now.  The end is coming soon, praise Xenu.

Mission Earth: Voyage of Vengeance - LRH's Real Life

Book 7 of LRH's (L. Ron Hubbard's) 10 volume Mission Earth series, Voyage of Vengeance,  confirms my suspicion that Hubbard was thinking about himself as he wrote.

The book follows the series' villain, Soltan Gris, as he zig-zags across the Mediterranean Sea on a luxury yacht.  This parallels LRH's own life during the years 1967 - 1975 when Hubbard and his own private navy called the "Sea Org" criss-crossed the Mediterranean offending local governments at their ports of call and searching for the treasures LRH had buried in underwater temples during his previous lives.

In Voyage of Vengeance Soltan Gris is sailing aboard a first class luxury cruise liner with a professional crew, gorgeous cabins, and gourmet meals. In LRH's real life the cruise ship was a hastily converted cattle ferry, formerly known as the Royal Scotsman and later re-named the Apollo.  It was crewed by LRH's dedicated followers, members of the Sea Org, most of whom had no experience at sea.  And the accommodations and meals - for everyone except LRH and his family - were spartan and foul.

One curious incident from LRH's real life is recreated in the book.  In 1974 LRH and his Sea Org sailed to the Portuguese island of Madeira.  He expected to be greeted as a king, as royalty, as a hero, as a savior. Instead, the port authorities were suspicious because of the rumors and reports of bizarre activities at their stops. 

Sea Org members were instructed never to mention Scientology when they went ashore. Instead they were to tell people that they were part of a highly successful business consultancy firm - but the people could see with their own eyes that the Apollo was an old rust-streaked ship, crewed by ill-dressed and secretive strangers.

When the Apollo moored in her berth on Oct. 7 and Sea Org members went ashore to advertise a free rock concert (by LRH's band, the Apollo Stars) the people of the city responded by rioting - throwing rocks and bottles at the ship. They believed that the Apollo and her crew were there as part of a CIA spy operation.   LRH and his followers fled.

In Voyage of Vengeance, Soltan Gris also prompts a harbor riot (this time in Greece).  "Black PR [public relations] ... Somebody has uncorked the bottle.... Who would ever have thought I would be at the receiving end of a black PR campaign." (page 245)

Voyage of Vengeance is filled with the same undisguised hatred for psychiatrists, psychologists, homosexuals, women, journalists and etc... as the previous books.  There's little concern for story telling.  LRH just wanted and excuse to fling his bile out upon his enemies.

Mission Earth: Death Quest - Death to Mental Health

It's no secret that L. Ron Hubbard (LRH) disliked psychiatrists and psychologists.  He loathed, abhorred, despised, and hated them. And even that might be understatement.

His "non-fiction" books (and that term is used reluctantly) is filled with venom for mental health professionals.  And so is his sprawling 10 volume Mission Earth series -"the Biggest Science Fiction Dekalogy Ever Written"

I've challenged myself to read the entire series - as a learning experience.  I think I'm learning as much about LRH in his fiction as I am in his other writings and in biographies. I have just finished reading volume 6, Death Quest and  I am convinced that he was seriously twisted. 

It wouldn't be anything strange to be somewhat hesitant to consult a psychologist or psychiatrist, or a "shrink".  There has been, and to some degree still is, a stigma about seeing a counselor.  But mental health professionals have through the years have helped countless numbers of people.  That stigma is fading as more and more people realize that there's no shame in seeking professional help.  Sometimes a problem is beyond our ability to fix and we need someone who is trained to help us deal with it. Sometimes it's a more serious condition - a very real, and medical condition - that can be accurately diagnosed and treated with proper medication.

There have been, of course, failures and horror stories as well.  There have been abuses and scandals.  There are in every human profession - humans being humans after all.  But LRH saw ONLY the horror stories.

By psychology theory, there was neither limit nor personal penalty to crime unless it happened to oneself...man was just an animal that had no conscience or soul, just a rotten beast, in fact.- page 127

Psychiatry is for the rich to keep the poor in line. - page 139

Psychiatrists and psychologists are professional and they are not bound by any law: they can even murder people and nothing is done about it because they actually work with the government and courts and like them, are above the law.  They can do anything they want to anyone placed in their care.  Even murder them. - page 320

LRH filled the pages of Death Quest with lurid accounts of perverse sexual activities - bestiality, homosexual prison rape, necrophilia, and urolagnia (look it up) - and laid them at the feet of psychologists and psychiatrists.  Mental Health professionals in the book are blamed for encouraging their clients in these grotesque behaviors.  One man is told by his psychiatrist to imagine having sex with his mother.  When that didn't achieve the desired result he was told to imagine having sex with the corpse of his mother.  Another 15 year old girl was forced by her counsellor to have intercourse with the boys of her school.

This isn't just satire (as LRH claimed of the series).  This is what he really and truly believed about mental health professionals.

A psychiatrist today has the power to (1) take a fancy to a woman (2) lead her to take wild treatment as a joke (3) drug and shock her to temporary insanity (4) incarnate [sic] her (5) use her sexually (6) sterilise her to prevent conception (7) kill her by a brain operation to prevent disclosure. And all with no fear of reprisal. Yet it is rape and murder… We want at least one bad mark on every psychiatrist in England, a murder, an assault, or a rape or more than one… This is Project Psychiatry. We will remove them.  -Confidential memo "Project Psychiatry" (22 February 1966)

There's only one remedy for crime -- get rid of the psychs![Psychologists, Psychiatrists, any professionally trained mental health worker] They are causing it! -"The Cause of Crime" (6 May 1982)

And his hatred has continued to infect his church - The Church of Scientology - long after his death.  In the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks Scientologists sent a team of their volunteers to ground zero to disrupt the work of professional mental health workers.

...we are trying to move in and knock the psychs [professional mental health workers]  out of counseling to the grieving families and that could take another 100 plus people right now. Due to some brilliant maneuvering by some simply genius Sea Org [Scientology's private "Navy"] Members we tied up the majority of the psychs who were attempting to get to families yesterday in Q&A, bullbait and wrangling. They have a hard time completing cycles of action and are pretty easy to disperse. But today they are out in full force and circling like vultures over these people and all of our resources are tied up in the support efforts in the disaster zone at present.



There is nowhere on Earth right now that hurts like this place. These are brave people and they are the able and they don't know it but they need the Scientologists with LRH's tech to be here right now. ...
 
The fire-fighter company down the street from the org lost 14 members on Tuesday. No one can do anything for them or the rest but Scientologists. The other religions here with their ministers have shown their true colors and are working hand in hand with the psychs to give these people as much false data and restimulation as they can. They HAVE NO TECH and they're not even trying to hide it anymore. They've crossed over and abandoned anything spiritual and to hell with them. - An intercepted Email from Scientologist "Lt." Simon Hare

And again, after the shootings at Virginia Tech, Scientology volunteers were on the scene, claiming that their assistance had been requested by The Salvation Army and the Red Cross.  This was not true.  Their "help" wasn't requested or wanted.  This kind of help we don't need.  One man's (mental) illness and hatred should not be allowed to continue to infect people.

Mission Earth: Fortune of Fear or An Excess of Rape?

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Mission Earth: An Alien Affair - It Just Gets Worse

I am continuing to make my way through the 10 volumes of L. Ron Hubbards' Mission Earth series, "the Biggest Science Fiction Dekalogy Ever Written."  But size isn't everything.

I have just finished book four, An Alien Affair.  On the back of the book are a number of blurbs praising the book, and the series.  And what I don't understand is how Orson Scott Card - who is an extrodinary writer, gifted, and talented and has written some of the greatest science fiction and fatasy novels - could describe this series as "Ironic, exciting, romantic, and hilarious," and then to add "It delighted me from the beginning." 

I'll give him "Ironic," but any snot-nosed kid can be ironic.  The series is not "exciting".  I've finished reading the first 4 books, but very little has actually happened to move the plot forward.  There's a lot of running around but nothing is accomplished.  There's no sense of danger (d'uh, he's not going to die here, we've got another 6 books to go).  The series is not romantic. God no.  There is no romance.  There's a lot of sex and sexual innuendo.  But there's nothing of romance in these books. There's nothing of love. 

And "hilarious"?  Absolutely not. Hubbard's idea of humor is to give all the characters punning names. For example:

The editor of the St Petersburg Grimes is Mr. Vitriahl.
The head of the International Pyschiatric Association is Dr. Frybrain.  (not to be confused with the Dr. Kutzbrain we met in book 3)
The District Chief of the IRS is Mr. Stony T. Blood
and
sceince authors Carl Fagin and Albert Blindstein.

This is humorous?  I suppose it might be if you're thirteen.

But putting all of that aside, there are some seriously distasteful things in An Alien Affair

The narrartor, Solatan Gris, finds himself captured by a pair of misandrists - two sadistic, men-hating lesbians - who torture him for sexual thrills.   The illustration on the cover of the book refferences these scenes of sadism and torture.

But these two lesbians (named Miss Pinch and Miss Candy Licorice!) aren't the only homosexual characters in the series.  There is also the effeminate homosexual man, Odur, whom Gris consistantly calls "Oh Dear" or "the little homo."

L. Ron did not like homosexuals.  No,not at all.

"The sexual pervert (and by this term Dianetics, to be brief, includes any and all forms of deviation in Dynamic II [sexuality] such as homosexuality, lesbianism, sexual sadism, etc... ) is actually quite ill physically. ... He is very far from culpable for his condition, but he is also far from normal and extremely dangerous to society." (Dianetics -page 122-123)

Mission Earth: The Enemy Within

The story so far (such as it is):

The plan is for Voltarian agent Jettero Heller to introduce advanced technology to the inhabitants of earth so that their ecological destruction of the planet will come to a halt. This isn’t done because of any Voltarian generosity. No. The leaders of the Volatarian Confederation of planets intend to invade the planet Earth and they don’t want it to be a charred husk of a planet when they arrive.

Soltan Gris has also been dispatched to Earth. He is a cruel and murderous agent, petulant and juvenile. He suspects his own twisted evil in everyone around him. Gris is sent as Heller’s handler. But he has been given another secret mission – to interrupt and delay Heller, and ultimately, to kill him. Gris’ boss, Lombar Hist has been importing drugs (Speed and Heroin) from Earth to Voltar for his own plans of overthrowing the Votlarian government and he doesn't want Heller or the planned invasion of Earth cutting off his supply of drugs.

I’ve read three of ten books in L. Ron Hubbard’s Mission Earth series now, the third volume of this insipid series being The Enemy Within. And only now at the end of the third book is the plot beginning to move – but not very much. Instead of telling the story as outlined above, Hubbard has taken us through Heller’s strange antics – enrolling in classes at Empire college, taking a tour of the FBI headquarters, ingratiating himself with the Corleone mafia family (yeah, Hubbard was that lazy),forming a multinational corporation with the help of his somewhat nerdy (and Jewish) friend. (Get it? Hubbard’s reminding us that the Jews control everything) and competing in a stock car race.

And when we’re not following agent Heller’s meanderings we’re subjected to the rantings of Soltan Gris, who has finally received the concubine he ordered. He spends a considerable portion of The Enemy Within conspiring to get her into his bed.

This is top notch stuff, I’m telling you. Riveting.

There’s nothing new in The Enemy Within, the same complaints: poor writing, terrible grammar, ridiculous characters and implausible scenes.

But there is however, Hubbard’s overriding hatred for psychiatrists and women. In this third volume of the Mission Earth series, Jettero Heller is seen visiting the psychiatrist Dr. Kutzbrain and his assistant, Nurse Screw.

I’m not kidding.

Mission Earth: Black Genesis Fortress of Evil - the awefulness continues

Give up. Maintain a low expectation. There will be no reward, no prize at the bottom of the box. There will be no buried treasure. L. Ron Hubbard’s 1.2 million word Mission Earth series is a literary black hole, an abyss, a bottomless pit of despair.

So, I can hear you asking, why am I subjecting myself to it? Why am I doggedly plowing through this morass if there can be no expectation of reward? I have, I guess, become rather fascinated with L. Ron Hubbard and with his sci-fi religion, Scientology.

You don't get rich writing science fiction.
If you want to get rich, you start a religion. 1
               L. (Lafayette) Ron Hubbard

In Black Genesis Fortress of Evil, the second volume of the Mission Earth series, Hubbard continues the story of Jettero Heller – a Voltarian agent sent to Earth to save the planet from it’s own self destruction and of Soltan Gris – another Voltarian agent whose mission is to sabotage Heller’s mission so that a steady supply of narcotics can be delivered from Earth to Voltar.

But none of that matters.
Nothing in the first two volumes, nothing in over 900 pages has anything to do with this.

Jettero spends all of Black Fortress allying himself with a mafia family and enrolling in classes at Empire college. Soltan Gris spends the book remotely watching Heller via an implant in Hellar’s skull, that and kicking children to make them cry and complaining that his concubine hasn’t been yet been delivered.

But I am coming to understand something about Hubbard the man. I think that he wanted to be perceived like his hero Jettero Heller – good, noble, pure, idealistic, virtuous, generous, and endowed with a superhuman intelligence. But he has lavished such careful attention on the villainous Gris, that I am convinced that this is a more accurate representation of Hubbard’s character.

There is no more ethical group on this planet than ourselves. 2

Soltan Gris hates everybody, thinks everyone else in the world is uncultured, incompetent, and up to no good. He sees in everyone else what is true about his own self. This is, psychologically speaking, projection – but don’t let Hubbard hear me say that. He hated psychologists and psychiatrists.

He also hated the FBI, the CIA, the IRS, - well any government agency. He also hated educators, journalists, homosexuals and women.

The misogyny in these books is unmistakable. There are only two kinds of women in The Mission Earth books (at least in the first two, the two that I’ve read) – Women are either cold hearted men hating bitches or sluts willing to spread for the first man who comes along. In the first volume the reader was introduced to Countess Krak. This, I thought, was just an unfortunate name, but in the second volume we meet Soltan Gris’ concubine Utanc. It’s an anagram. A very crude anagram.

But don’t let anyone ever say that the Mission Earth books are sophisticated. They’re not. They’re juvenile. They’re puerile. They are the kind of books that a Jr. High version of Dwight Shrute (from The Office) would write.

Some random examples of the quality of writing in Black Genesis:

Miles from the U.N. area, and now in the garment district, Heller was clickety-clacking along, on his way to I knew not where, but if I knew Heller, up to no good. -pg. 248

“Kid,” said Vantagio, “you saved my life! I never before seen such terrific shooting!” He regarded Heller for a bit. “How did you come to get here, anyway?” - pg. 242


I groaned. I was dealing with an idiot, not a special agent. Special agents don’t eat candy! They smoke cigarettes! – pg. 165

I'm reading Dianetics now.  I'll write it up when I finish.  Wish me luck.

1 Response to a question from the audience during a meeting of the Eastern Science Fiction Association on (7 November 1948), as quoted in a 1994 affidavit by Sam Moskowitz.


2 "Keeping Scientology Working" (7 February 1965)

Mission Earth: More Legendary Awfulness

Mission Earth: Volume One: The Invaders Plan


I’m not sure why I put myself through it, this self torturing, literary masochism. Last year it was the four books of the Twilight series, and now I have finished reading The Invaders Plan, the first of L. Ron Hubbard’s 10 volume Mission Earth series. It’s a book that the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction described as "One of the great embarrassments of modern science fiction…" I’ve seen them in nearly every library I’ve ever visited. Now I have finally challenged myself to read them. I’m not sure I can do it.

It wasn’t long ago that I read Hubbard’s more popular, but equally awful Battlefield Earth. I knew what to expect: flat characters, goofy dialogue, and plot holes large enough to drive a truck through… But I also read his book, Fear, which – surprise surprise – wasn’t too terrible. Seriously. It was an enjoyable book. Hubbard was a writer of pulp fiction in multiple genres through the 30’s and 40’s, and was in constant demand. He is credited as being one of the greats from that period. But his later works, like Battlefield Earth and The Invaders Plan, certainly don’t show it.

To begin, The Invaders Plan opens with a ham fisted preface that explains in painfully dull detail the history of satire. Hubbard wants his readers to understand that this book – that this whole series is social commentary. But a joke isn’t funny if you have to explain it and satire isn’t funny or cutting or striking if you have to explain it that it’s satire.

Having finished Hubbard’s preface we enter the story proper – which begins with a preface from Lord Invay, the Royal Historian, and Chairman of the Board of Censors on the planet Voltar. So we, the readers of The Invaders Plan have to imagine a Voltarian reader for this story – a fiction within a fiction. Invay emphatically tells us (or, rather, tells his Voltarian reader) that the planet Earth is sensationalist fiction of the lowest kind.

On the authority of every highly placed official in the land I can assure you utterly and finally, THERE IS NO PLANET EARTH! And that is final!

Then there is a third preface by the (fictional) robot translator who explains that the Voltarian narrative has been translated into “Earth Language” (which is used to justify the abundance of earth clichés …) So we are now asked to imagine a Volatarian reader who is imagining an Earthling reader…

This could be an interesting concept but it isn’t handled well. It only confuses the story and serves to weaken the impact of the whole point – the point that has been hammered away in three prefaces – that this is satire.

And the poor writing doesn’t help either. I mentioned in my comments on Battlefield Earth that Hubbard needed to strike the word “had” from his vocabulary. The same holds true for The Invaders Plan. I don’t think that Hubbard ever met a passive verb that he didn’t love.

Outside, in the dimness of the hanger, I tried to move my arm. It was totally unresponsive. It would swing and dangle but the elbow and wrist would not bend at my command. The fingers would not flex. I felt I was done for!


Considerations that the mission was again stalled, that I was under threat of death from Lombar, that I could lose my paychecks and be cashiered and wind up as a gutter bum in Slum City were all acute enough. But they momentarily took second place to this arm.

The story is told as first person narrative and is an account of the life and crimes of Solatan Gris. Gris tells his story from a cell in hopes of earning clemency for his crimes. Gris is an operative for the Coordinated Information Apparatus (CIA – get it?) charged with a mission on the planet Earth.

The Voltarian leaders plan to use earth as a supply base in their conquest of the universe. It has come to their attention, however, that the inhabitants of the planet Earth are too ignorant to take care of the place and are in the process of destroying the planet. Gris is charged to go to the planet Earth and to halt this self destruction so that the Volatarian fleet can, in the near future, occupy it.

But Gris is also charged by the Apparatus chief, Lombar Hiss with another secret mission. Lombar has been using his contacts on Earth to supply him with drugs and psychiatrists so that he can launch his own coup d’état and take control of the Voltarin confederation. (If there were two things Hubbard hated they were drugs and psychologists) Lombar wants Gris to protect his drug supply.

But Gris is a complete failure. He is bumbling at every turn, incompetent, cowardly, arrogant, rude, and lazy. How he could plausibly be given responsibility in any organization strains my ability to suspend disbelief. There is no invasion in The Invaders Plan. There is no plan in The Invaders Plan! Gris spends 556 pages trying to manipulate the members of his team into leaving the planet Voltar. There is very little movement in the plot but lots of meandering through irrelevant and pointless action.


I’m going to try to get through the other volumes of Mission Earth. This is my literary flagellation. This is my mortification. I will read bad books; I will wear them as a hair shirt. I will become a better writer.