Critical Acclaim
Excerpts included here reflect but a small selection of reviews from a spectrum of notables as well as book and audiobook publications.
Battlefield Earth
An epic and legitimate trendsetter, a New York Times bestseller, translated into scores of languages and published in dozens of nations, Battlefield Earth is one of the most broadly acclaimed single-volume science fiction novels in the history of the genre.
“Battlefield Earth has everything: suspense, pathos, politics, war, humor, diplomacy and intergalactic finance…. Hubbard keeps things moving so irresistibly…and the 800 pages go by quickly.”
“Good old-fashioned space opera (Buck Rogers stuff) makes a solid comeback in L. Ron Hubbard’s Battlefield Earth…. If you think they don’t write ‘em anymore like they used to, take heart—here’s 800 pages from one of the originals.”
“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.”
“Without a doubt, L. Ron Hubbard is one of the most prolific and influential writers of the twentieth century.”
Mission Earth
The ten-volume, 1.2 million word Mission Earth series is afforded the distinction of the L. Ron Hubbard magnum opus. Each consecutive volume successively rose to the New York Times and international bestseller lists in this “biting commentary on exactly who is doing what on today’s Earth,” as one critic described it.
“You will lose sleep. You will miss appointments. If you don’t force yourself to set it down and talk to your family from time to time, you may be looking for a new place to live. Reading The Invaders Plan is simply the most fun you can have by yourself…. Ironic, exciting, romantic and hilarious. It delighted me from the beginning. Remember how you felt the first time you saw Star Wars? This book will do it to you again.”
“I loved Mission Earth. The CIA will hate it. Hubbard has produced a real knee-slapper…he’s laughing at the Sacred Cow of the Eighties, the so-called intelligence community…. Few writers have had the knack of making a serious philosophical point without ever stopping to preach, without ever slowing the action for an instant.”
“A wicked satire…more addictive than salt and peanuts.”
“We do not collect trendy authors, nor do we collect minor authors. In the field of American literature, for instance, we select with care only those American or Californian authors who we determine are important contributors to the state, to the country and to the world. L. Ron Hubbard is perhaps the quintessential western author, and his works fit perfectly in our collection.”
“The Invaders Plan reads like an intergalactic Raiders of the Lost Ark. Once you start you’ll be hard-pressed to put the book down. On our scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being excellent, The Invaders Plan comes out as a 10. It’s fabulous and fun reading.”
“Mr. Hubbard has managed in this book to bring out things that were not always talked about in those days when he put pen to paper. But now are the most important issues on this earth…. He could look ahead into the future and what he has come up with is a fascinating story.”
Bestselling Novels
Following the international success of Battlefield Earth and Mission Earth, Author Services, Inc. embarked upon an international program to re-publish such classic L. Ron Hubbard novels as Final Blackout, Fear and To the Stars. Critical acclaim stand in testament to the fact that these masterpieces are indeed as timely as they are timeless.
“L. Ron Hubbard’s Fear is one of the few books in the chiller genre which actually merits employment of the overworked adjective ‘classic,’ as in ‘This is a classic tale of creeping, surreal menace and horror….’ This is one of the really, really good ones.”
“L. Ron Hubbard has been, since the 40s, one of the five writers in the SF field who have served me as models and teachers. His stories, Fear in particular, directly influenced all my work….”
“To the Stars is just as timely, just as awe-inspiring, just as profoundly moving as it was in 1950. Anyone who doubts the sheer creative and visionary genius of L. Ron Hubbard need just read this novel.”
“The story is still pertinent today.”
[Final Blackout] “A landmark classic. It has been remembered through the decades as one of the all-time memorable classics of the science fiction field.”
“Final Blackout is as perfect a piece of science fiction as has ever been written.”
“Slaves of Sleep became a sort of buzzword. There are bits and pieces from Ron’s work that became a part of the language in ways that very few other writers imagined.”
[Typewriter in the Sky] “An adventure story written in the great style adventure should be written in.”
[Ole Doc Methuselah] “L. Ron Hubbard remains one of science fiction’s most romantic writers and Ole Doc Methuselah is one of his larger than life characters.”
Stories from the Golden Age
Stories from the Golden Age is comprised of more than 150 L. Ron Hubbard classic pulp fiction tales in eighty volumes and spanning every genre from westerns, mysteries, adventure, horror, science fiction, fantasy and even romance. Included in the series is an entirely new dimension in “literary listening,” with Stories from the Golden Age on audiobook. Recorded with more than seventy performers in a single studio, these are audiobooks that exemplify what critics describe as a “special synergy not heard since the heyday of old time radio.” These are described as a complete “theatre of the mind” wherein the listeners are awash in atmospheric and three-dimensional sound to all but immerse the listener in a story.
“Hubbard’s stunning writing ability and creative imagination set him apart as one of the greatest literary figures of the 20th century.”
“Hubbard was a first-rate pulp writer…. He could go up against any of these giants [Hammet, Max Brand, H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Louis L’Amour]. And while most pulpsters worked in multiple genres, I don’t know of any who covered the full spectrum of pulp categories more ambitiously than Hubbard.”
“Each of these outstanding audiobooks are two hour productions characterized by talented multi-cast performances, which are enhanced with impressive special effects and thematic music. Flawless technical recordings, each and every one of these very special audiobooks provides the listener with a true ‘theatre of the mind’ experience and is enthusiastically recommended for personal and community library audio book collections.”
“Who could have guessed that pulp fiction would make a comeback, finding new life in the form of delightfully over-the-top audio theater performances? Someone at Galaxy Audio obviously knew, because 150 stories later, the ‘Golden Age Stories’ have been made enduring all over again.”
“Rife with action and adventure and laced with melodramatic overtones…these full-cast sound effects-laden productions will engage listeners of all ages, particularly fans of old-time radio, Westerns, genre fiction, action and adventure, and full-cast performances.”
“Hubbard’s classic pulp fiction tale was originally published in 1943 but shows no signs of age. With the tremendous attention to detail and production, audiences will find themselves captivated from beginning to end.”
“If proof were needed that L. Ron Hubbard could handle the Western with the flair of a Louis L’Amour or Zane Grey, this book [Six-Gun Caballero] is it.”
“Such was the respect of his fellow writers, including Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and Edgar Rice Burroughs, that he was only twenty-five when they elected him president of the New York Chapter of the American Fiction Guild.”
“Pulp fiction at its most entertaining.”
“Rife with action and adventure and laced with melodramatic overtones…. These full-cast, sound effects-laden productions will engage listeners of all ages, particularly fans of old-time radio, Westerns genre fiction, action and adventure, and full-cast performances.”
Screenplays to Novels
Ai! Pedrito! and A Very Strange Trip were screenplays written by L. Ron Hubbard in the early ’80s. Novelized by Kevin J. Anderson and Dave Wolverton respectively, both were New York Times bestsellers.
L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future
The Writers of the Future Contest was created and endowed by L. Ron Hubbard in 1983 and after several years of enormous success in fostering new writers, it was soon followed by its companion Contest, Illustrators of the Future. Winning stories and illustrations are published in the annual L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future anthology. Described by critics as a perennial “glimpse of tomorrow’s stars,” a “must-have for the genre reader” and “the bestselling science fiction anthology series of all time,” it is today the most enduring and top-ranking publication of its kind.