Mx. Chara Aznable (they/them) of Pnictogen

One of the many things we learned at #Caltech in 1992-1994 was about #LRonHubbard. I've mentioned that there were a number of his books in the "Blacker Hovse" dorm library, and as a result I can honestly say that I've read Battlefield Earth cover to cover.

I honestly don't exactly know how I managed that, except to say that for a span of adolescent years I regarded it as a virtue to push through as many books as possible and read everything to completion no matter how unpromising it was. For Battlefield Earth is terrible writing. J. K. Rowling looks workmanlike and competent in comparison to Battlefield Earth.

Jan 31 at 4:59pmWeb
Show threadMx. Chara Aznable (they/them) of PnictogenJan 31

And yet the novel manages to have just slightly more going for it than the hilariously awful John Travolta movie version covering about the first third to half of the book. The film is just barely watchable mostly because of Travolta's bizarrely fey performance, but it makes some inexplicable choices of adaptation that strip Battlefield Earth (the book) of what little originality or novelty it's got going for it.

The plot? Hero Johnny Goodboy Tyler (no really) repels an evil alien occupation all by himself, with the help of a tiny band of surviving humans, and nukes the alien homeworld to oblivion. Then Johnny gets informed by some alien bureaucrat that he's now technically the heir to the Psycho galactic hegemony, and that's the happy ending.

Show threadMx. Chara Aznable (they/them) of PnictogenJan 31

I remember being perplexingly locked into reading this trash cover to cover, which probably says much more about how unpleasant the #Caltech experience was, than about Hubbard or Battlefield Earth. Closeting myself in my dorm room with a shitty phone-book of a space opera seemed preferable to soaking up the Caltech campus culture.

Sometimes I wonder if we'd already somehow made friends with the ghost of Jack Parsons (whom I regard as a kindred spirit in terms of bashing heads with the Caltech nerdbros) and it was his impulse to read Battlefield Earth. After all...Parsons and Hubbard had a history.