Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr. Drib
Let's have some fun, my stodgy friends!
When you throw away the trash, don't forget to throw away most of the books by L. Ron Hubbard - a windbag of hot air and misplaced psychological motives. 
Don |
Hubbard wrote decent pulp stuff, and did some nice Arabian Nights fantasies for John W. Campbell's Unknown Worlds magazine. I do sometimes wonder what he'd have gotten up to if he'd never conceived of Dianetics, but I suspect it would also have been smarmy.
L. Sprague De Camp was a contemporary of Hubbard's, along with Robert A. Heinlein and Isaac Asimov, and knew Hubbard both as a fellow writer and fellow naval officer during WWII, when RAH, Asimov, and De Camp were all at the Philadelphia Navy Yard for a period and Hubbard came through in a visit.
He once described attending Nycon 3, the 25th World SF Convention in NYC in 1967. The Worldcon that year was sharing its hotel with a Scientology gathering. A couple of the Scientologists tried to proselytize Sprague in the lobby. He drew himself up to his full better than 6' height, looked down his acquiline nose at the speaker, and declaimed in ringing stentorian tones "Young man,
I knew Ron Hubbard when he was only a
small time crook!" before stalking off.
______
Dennis