Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying it's a good series. I do think, however, that there's a tendency to make Hubbard's SF writing out to be worse than it is due to his crackpot beliefs (or, in an alternate viewpoint, extremely clever business) in Scientology. One of Hubbard's books in particular, "Battlefield Earth" (not to be confused with "Mission Earth"), I think is great Space Opera (although it was made into a quite stunningly awful film).
|
I dunno. I read Hubbard's Fear and hated it. Then, ten years or so later, I suspected my impressions might have been colored by his crackpot beliefs/clever business, so I tried Fear again, with fresh eyes. It remained awful.
I did at some point also try The Invaders Plan (Mission Earth, book 1) and it was similarly terrible.
The fact that Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke and Heinlein still have fans but for the most part Hubbard does not isn't completely due to Scientology. I suspect that if it weren't for Dianetics, his reputation would be at about the level of Doc Smith, if he was lucky.