The best realized emotion is anger (something that may accurately reflect Hubbard himself). It is ironic that in his introduction to the novel, Hubbard admonishes other writers that sci fi is more about people than about science and then he goes on to create absolutely wooden, almost-emotionless characters. By book’s end, they have two children, leaving the reader to assume that they eventually get beyond the embrace. Somewhere after page 990, they finally get to embrace.
In the beginning, he barely acknowledges her and during her ordeal of being held captive by Terl, a Pscyhlo who needs leverage over Jonnie, the most contact they have is an almost-hand-holding incident. Plus, Hubbard had been isolated from mainstream society for years, hiding from the authorities on his ship, and may have been unaware of the importance of computers in aviation.Īnother 1950s aspect to the novel is Jonnie’s relationship with Chrissie, his love interest. This makes sense, as in the late 1970s computers were uncommon and expensive (so it also makes sense that the first characters in the book to use them are the inter-galactic bankers). Smith, complicated craft are run without their benefit. Also telling is that computers are not introduced until very much towards the end of the novel-just like the Lensman series of E.E. He also becomes an expert diplomat after a half hour of coaching from one of his assistants. Despite coming from a material culture that has been reduced to the horse, he easily adapts to machines. He masters the language of the invading aliens, the Psychlos. Tyler is very much a Gary Stu character-he can and does learn anything. The main character is Jonnie Goodboy Tyler. Battlefield Earth may have been published in the 1980s, but it reads much more like a novel of the 1950s. What also shows is the era when Hubbard did the majority of his science fiction writing. He states in the introduction that he didn’t make any effort to contain himself while writing Battlefield Earth and it shows.
My kingdom for an editor! At over 1000 pages, this novel really needed one, but I guess it’s not so easy to edit a paranoid madman (for that’s what L.
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