12/07/2009

Battlefield Earth - L. Ron Hubbard

I went into this book prepared to be amazed and overwhelmed at the craziness that I always associate with the name Hubbard. But I was very very shocked. This is a good science fiction book. There is a little bit of social commentary but everytime I felt like it was about to go to far, the story would change and go back to the action. even the social commentary that there was seemed fairly innocuous.

The story is set in 3000 ad when humans are next to extinct and our planet is run by a multiuniverse mining company. the humans are viewed as animals and hunted for sport. one human fights back as a kind of superhuman and eventually owns about 1/3 of all the known universes and humans are the dominant force anywhere. Incredibly far fetched? Yes, but that is what a good science fiction story is. Far fetched but still a fun story.

2 comments:

Matt said...

I haven't read the book, but the movie of it is really pretty strange. It depicts a fascist society, and it's hard to tell whether the movie is pro-fascist or making ironic commentary about fascism.

Anonymous said...

The book was anti fascism anti capitalism anti communism. According to the book the only good government is one that is led by a hero motivated by service to others. So I ignored all aspects of the "what government is good" debate in the book. That made it a much better read.