Fear [Mass Market Paperback]

L. Ron Hubbard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1992

Professor James Lowry didn' believe in spirits, or witches, or demons. Not until a gentle spring evening when his hat disappeared, and suddenly he couldn't remember the last four hours of his life. Now, the quiet university town of Atworthy is changing - slightly at first, then faster and more frighteningly each time he tries to remember. Lowry is pursued by a dark, secret evil that is turning his whole world against him while it whispers a warning from the shadows: If you find your hat you'll find your four hours. If you find your four hours then you will die...

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Ethnology professor Jim Lowry publishes a study explaining modern superstitions as the remnants of the primitive delusion that demons were the cause of disease and misfortune. Now it seems that demons may have begun a campaign of revenge for Lowry's skepticism: he awakens on a sidewalk, his clothes torn and stained, with no memory of the past four hours. In dreams he is told that if he finds the four hours, he will die. The publisher has adjured reviewers "please do not reveal the startling ending." There is indeed a twist, which is mildly clever though not "startling." According to the publisher, Fear first appeared in 1940 in the fantasy magazine Unknown and received praise from fantasy master Ray Bradbury. Though Fear may have been groundbreaking in 1940, the development of fantasy and horror fiction in the last 50 years means that the novel, unfortunately, seems a bit convoluted and curiously bland now. However, Hubbard's works are in demand, and Fear provides an interesting look at horror/fantasy of the 1940s.
- A.M.B. Amantia, Population Crisis Committee Lib., Washington D.C.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"A classic tale of creeping, surreal menace and horror... one of the really, really good ones." -- Steven King

"A true scare." -- Ray Bradbury

"Fear is L. Ron Hubbard's finest work!" -- Robert Bloch Author of "Psycho"

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 188 pages
• Publisher: Galaxy Pr Llc (October 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592120148
• ISBN-13: 978-1592120147
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #797,288 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

With 19 New York Times bestsellers and more than 230 million copies of his works in circulation, L. Ron Hubbard is among the most acclaimed and widely read authors of our time. As a leading light of American Pulp Fiction through the 1930s and '40s, he is further among the most influential authors of the modern age. Indeed, from Ray Bradbury to Stephen King, there is scarcely a master of imaginative tales who has not paid tribute to L. Ron Hubbard.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Have no fear!, March 28, 2001

By 

Alex (College Park, MD) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fear (Paperback)

James Lowry, Atworthy's Professor of Ethnology, is paying dearly for having written a scathing article about witchcraft. First of all, he is dishonorably discharged from the college for writing such demagoguery. Then he loses four hours - with no recollections whatever. Worst of all, the entire realm of the supernatural is out to prove him wrong...

Fear is devastatingly boring. It introduces its hero, catch, and premise in the first twenty pages or so, then hems and haws for about a hundred with no plot development whatever while the unfortunate Prof. Lowry has episodic run-ins with the supernatural, finally gets a bit interesting in its final thirty pages by introducing some fairly original concepts, and then ends as abruptly as possible by putting everything on its head and cutting it down with a big rusty axe. Its Final Twist feels contrived, if crudely ironic.

"Fear" is terribly dated and its characters are cardboard-flat. Its protagonist is a perfectly upright fellow, logical, caring, with an academic background to boot: in other words - hard to identify with. "Fear" doesn't even have a defined antagonist. The story consists of a single catch which is revealed in its entirety on the very last page - for the remainder of the book Lowry jumps at shadows, shivers in the dark, sees strange things, and slowly goes mad (though, being so shallow in the first place, he doesn't have much of a personality to warp). Supposedly, he is out to find the four missing hours, but he has neither clues nor leads, nor any faint, sinister memories - he literally goes out at night and "looks" for his loss. The narrative lacks sophistication, and uses lots of exclamation marks and eye-grabbing sentences ("It was an inch deep in blood!").

Hardly worth the while to read.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Trippy, but scary?, March 31, 2002

By 

sporkdude "sporkdude" (San Jose, Ca United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fear (Paperback)

This supposed horror book isn't a horror book. It's more like a description of an acid trip than anything else. A university professor, recovering from malaria, is fired for a controversial paper deriding idols and artifacts of certain gods. Apparently, this angers some spirits, and after seemingly losing a few hours of his life and his hat, he descends (literally) into a world of weird characters and doors and life forces involving his wife and best friend.

It's hard not to give away the plot, because the plot is only revealed in the end. It's basically a few huge extremely strange events in one book.

Even though the imagery is very good for this short, Hubbard's language is a little terse and antiquated to make it a quick read. Though overall pretty interesting, I would not recommend this, as I wouldn't know what to classify it as.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A good idea done badly, January 2, 2010

By 

James Seger (The Woodlands, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fear (Mass Market Paperback)

I decided to give L. Ron Hubbard's Fear a second chance. I'd rated it at two stars from what I remembered of my original read years ago, but was discussing the book in a forum (where it was getting generally positive reviews) and figured maybe I had judged it too harshly in the past.

Well, I finished it a second time, but the book didn't deserve a second read. It just isn't good. And that's too bad, because the plot idea is a good one. Archeologist Jim Lowry loses his hat and his memory of the last four hours. He discovers (or should I say he 'just knows') that if he finds his hat he will find his four hours, but if he finds his four hours he will die. Time to buy a new hat, I say...

Unfortunately for that kernel of a terrific plot, Fear reads like it is the result of a jumble of ideas Ron had that he didn't bother linking into a cohesive tale. Events that happen in one chapter don't seem to have any sort of effect on what occurs in the next chapter. The story seems to just sort of randomly flow with very little rhyme or reason to it, one surreal event after another. Situations rise from out of nowhere. In a way, the book felt like what I imagine an extended acid trip would be like. That might be an accomplishment, but I don't think that is what L. Ron was setting out for.

The writing is not good. L. Ron just didn't seem to have much feeling for the atmosphere required to tell a scary story. Rather than imply things to get under the reader's skin the way the best horror can, he would just use short sentences (the verbal equivalent to a jump cut in a bad horror movie) like "Two red eyes stared back!" (He has an over-reliance on exclamation points! in his narrative as well.) Also, anything Lowry discovers through the course of the story is something that 'he just knows for some reason' rather than anything that the character sifts out from the events unfolding around him.

The stilted unbelievable characters act like nobody except people in bad pulp fiction or '50's sitcoms ever really acted. Jim Lowry and his wife of several years are portrayed as being desperately in love, yet they sleep in separate rooms. The characters don't have any depth or believability to them. I never cared about Lowry, his wife Mary or his beautiful (and this is emphasized repeatedly) friend Tommy (who is aside from being beautiful is also a professor of psychology, though he councils Jim not to go ridiculing the idea of demons and devils. He is also a bachelor at forty who seems to have no interest in women. Maybe he should practice some self analysis? Now that might have been an interesting angle for the story to pursue). Since I never cared about the characters, I never had any apprehension as to what might happen to them.

The self serving foreword and fawning introduction from the 'editors' of the book don't help any. (Though I guess if I had a messiah and s/he wrote a book, I'd probably be apt to oversell it as well.) Also, L. Ron's foreword acts as a spoiler of sorts to the book. I understand he wanted to tell me what an original, creative genius he was, but the should have placed his little note of explanation after the story, not before.

I'd like to see some director take the basic setup of Fear and turn it into a movie. One of those movies where the title and general setup is the same but nothing else is. The core idea is a good one. The way it was executed in this book though, was bad.