Customer Reviews

Invaders Plan (Mission Earth)

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I knew L. Ron Hubbard wrote many short stories and novellas back in the Thirties and Forties and even read a few of them -- Fear, Ultimate Adventure, Typewriter in the Sky, etc., as they're reprinted in short books by Ace Books and others from the 1970s -- so I thought I knew what to expect. I was wrong. Invaders Plan is a satire on modern American thinking, including drug abuse, drug dealers, homosexuality, planetary pollution & ecology, even Congress! Jettero Heller has been assigned to get the planet ready for invasion by cleaning it up and all that. Soltan Gris (salt & grease, get it?) wants to stop him at all costs and use Earth (Blito P3) as a source of illicit drugs to the rest of the galaxy.

I enjoyed the fast pace and the descriptive chapters and could not wait until the next volume came out. Publishers Weekly gave it positive reviews and so on.

True, Hubbard is the source of Scientology writing, but there's none of this in this novel -- in fact, it's purposely so, as explained in the Preface (but who reads Prefaces?).

Enjoy!

Also:

Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000

The Great Secret (Stories from the Golden Age)

FEAR - and - TYPEWRITER IN THE SKY

Fear & The Ultimate Adventure

What an great book!

The entire series is a best seller.

Hubbard did it again.

"The Invaders Plan" is the first of ten books in Hubbard's "Mission Earth" series. The books were not written separately, but as one long novel and divided into ten parts for publishing. And it shows. The plot moves very slowly, and the entire book is just really a very long buildup. They don't leave for Earth until on the very last page, so don't expect there to be any space adventures of invasion of Earth. I guess that will be in the sequels.

The book does have its good parts, and occasional humor, but the pace is very uneven. At times, there are several pages of descriptions of details that are completely irrelevant.

If you're just looking for a science fiction novel, look elsewhere. The book does not work well on its own. You must be prepared to read the whole series. If it will be worthwhile reading all ~4000 pages, I don't know yet.

Hope you like exclamation marks. Hubbard uses them more than full stops.