Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000

Before L. Ron Hubbard was known for “other things”, he was mostly known as a prolific science fiction writer. Then when he had become more (in)famous for those other things, he revisited the well of sci-fi once more and write Battlefield Earth.

This book is classic pulp sci-fi of the golden age of Hubbard’s earlier writing. Despite that the book was only published in 1982, it oozes the morals, ethics, and expectations of the 50s and 60s sci-fi stories. Over-the-top characters and races, massive battles, fast paced plot development, and a heavy dose of in-context-plausible science - this story has it all.

I liked the book enough to finish all 1000+ pages in two weeks (about double my usual reading speed). Is it a “good” book? No, not really: the characters are too shallow for that, the good-vs-evil too obvious, and the hero too ridiculous. But I found it a very entertaining read. Sure, Hubbard lets his pet peeves (about psychology, banking, politics, etc) shine through in places, but that doesn’t distract too much from what I found a fun, easy-to-read science fiction story.