Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 - Softcover

Hubbard, L. Ron

3.54

23,186 ratings by Goodreads

9780884046813: Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0884046818 ISBN 13: 9780884046813

Publisher: Bridge Publications Inc, 1991

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A New York Times and perennial international bestseller in both hardcover and paperback -- voted one of the best science fiction novels of all time in a poll of half a million science fiction readers.Containing nearly 450,000 words, and over 1,000 pages in length -- the biggest single-volume science fiction novel ever published -- Battlefield Earth continues to engage and enrich the imaginations of millions of readers throughout the world and to garner both wide critical acclaim and such literary accolades as the Saturn, Gutenburg and Tetradramas D'Oro awards. From the novel's menacing opening moments when Terl, the alien Psychlo security guard warns that "Man is an endangered species", Battlefield Earth unfolds against a vast canvas of intergalactic conflict and intrigue, adventure and danger, defeat and victory. Earth has been dominated for one thousand years by the giant, gas-breathing invaders from the aggressor planet Psychlo. Now, at the bleak dawn of the third millennium, Jonnie Goodboy Tyler, one of the handful of human beings that have survived ten centuries of conquest and annihilation, decides to boldly venture out of his dwindling, stricken community in the Rocky Mountains. Although initially captured and enslaved by Terl, he pits courage and resourcefulness against the Pychlo's naked force. With the aid of a band of tough Scots, Jonnie mounts a final challenge to the apparently invincible Psychlo power that is systematically plundering and destroying Earth.

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Review:

L. Ron Hubbard's most famous book may be, as he says in the introduction, pure science fiction but it is also pure drivel--so much like a third-rate pulp adventure from the 1930s that it is almost unbelievable that it actually dates from 1982. The prose is appalling, the plot riddled with clich�s and the depiction of the year 3000 lacks imagination. Here we find Jonnie Goodboy Tyler and his cardboard cut-out allies defending a very old-fashioned vision of the future against the giant alien Psychlos. It's the sort of Flash Gordon yarn George Lucas so brilliantly used as the starting point for his Star Wars universe but the result is 1050 pages of perhaps the very worst science fiction ever written. If you want great space opera, try Hyperion by Dan Simmons, orNeverness by David Zindell.

As a fast moving, simplistic story of good vs. evil, driven by action and corny dialogue in the manner of those old black and white serials, it does the job and is the perfect vehicle for Hollywood producers more concerned with special effects than story. But today's readers, now used to intelligent plotting and characters and stories that actually have something useful and interesting to say, will find Battlefield Earth sadly lacking in almost all areas. --Gary S. Dalkin

Review:

"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 exuberance, style and glory of Battlefield Earth." -Baltimore Evening Sun

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