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zamyatins_fears's review against another edition
2.0
This book is about Johnny Goodboy Tyler… pretty much exclusively, as all other characters are nothing more than stereotyped cardboard cutouts. Johnny is your typical Mary Sue character with the accompanying (and constant) dues ex machina one might expect. Battlefield Earth starts off in a post-apocalyptic world in which Earth was conquered by a vicious alien race thousands of years ago, leaving it with a current population of perhaps thirty or forty thousand humans scattered across the globe, struggling for survival. Johnny has grown up in a small mountain village with a dwindling population. One day, restless Johnny (who scoffs at his tribe’s superstitions) leaves his home to look for the ancient cities of legend, though they are rumored to be filled with foul monsters. Johnny is soon captured by one of these beasts, an alien named Terl, from the vicious Psychlo race which conquered Earth thousands of years ago in order to mine its precious metals. Terl has a plan to make himself rich, by capturing humans and forcing them to mine out a large vein of gold and thus, avoid the scrutiny of the company he works for – the Intergalactic Mining Company. Through use of superior technology (and Johnny’s superior brain), the captive Johnny learns the Psychlo language, machine operations and quite a number of other things Terl doesn’t count on. Before long, Johnny is working towards the destruction of this alien race that exterminates or uses humans without a second thought and to rescue Chrissie – a girl from his village who follows him like a lost puppy, when he fails to return in a year and thus, gives Terl leverage.
This could have been an entertaining science fiction story in the style of 30s-40s pulp/space opera, if only the author had stopped after the first major plot resolution. That, I could have given a three or four star review, but it goes on and on… and on. I’m no stranger to 1000+ page books, in fact I usually get quite excited at the prospect of starting a lengthy novel. However, this book kept dragging on with long pages of vague technical details, which is a bit ironic, considering at one point the author specifically condemns that kind of writing. The idea itself is interesting enough to have survived the other faults, if this book had been only a couple hundred pages.
Few characters are developed, including Johnny himself, making it difficult to care about them. Johnny has almost no personality other than being determined, always right, always smarter, stronger and two steps ahead at all times. Chrissie could be replaced with a lamp without really changing the story, but I can’t even call it sexist, because you could say the same for most of the other characters. Johnny seems pretty much indifferent to his wooden love interest, to the point that I assumed he was going to save her and then let her down gently, but it turns out that’s not the case.
At one point, Johnny talks Terl into letting him persuade a bunch of Scots to work the mine, rather than Terl’s preferred method of simply pressing them into service. Johnny’s real plan however, is to start a rebellion and this plan is how he gets instantaneous, unanimous agreement and more volunteers than he can take. No arguments, no questioning… because Scots have such romantic souls. Likewise, all other human ethnicities are apparently still exactly the stereotypes we have now, thousands of years in the future. Villains are nearly always a combination of ugly, deformed, dirty, delusional addicts. There is even a bit of cannibalism, Hitler worship and public fornication thrown in, in case you missed who the bad guys are supposed to be.
I read this out of curiosity, as I had always wanted to read it as a child. I loved sci-fi and at the time I thought a sci-fi book which was over a thousand pages, must surely be one of the best books of all time. It wasn’t until much later that I realized why my parents always shooed me away from the nice people in the mall booth who kept trying to tell me about it. Despite my feelings about Scientology, I tried to keep an open mind, but this book is simply terrible. I only gave it two stars, rather than one, because it would have been an amusing bit of fluff, if it had been shorter.
This could have been an entertaining science fiction story in the style of 30s-40s pulp/space opera, if only the author had stopped after the first major plot resolution. That, I could have given a three or four star review, but it goes on and on… and on. I’m no stranger to 1000+ page books, in fact I usually get quite excited at the prospect of starting a lengthy novel. However, this book kept dragging on with long pages of vague technical details, which is a bit ironic, considering at one point the author specifically condemns that kind of writing. The idea itself is interesting enough to have survived the other faults, if this book had been only a couple hundred pages.
Few characters are developed, including Johnny himself, making it difficult to care about them. Johnny has almost no personality other than being determined, always right, always smarter, stronger and two steps ahead at all times. Chrissie could be replaced with a lamp without really changing the story, but I can’t even call it sexist, because you could say the same for most of the other characters. Johnny seems pretty much indifferent to his wooden love interest, to the point that I assumed he was going to save her and then let her down gently, but it turns out that’s not the case.
At one point, Johnny talks Terl into letting him persuade a bunch of Scots to work the mine, rather than Terl’s preferred method of simply pressing them into service. Johnny’s real plan however, is to start a rebellion and this plan is how he gets instantaneous, unanimous agreement and more volunteers than he can take. No arguments, no questioning… because Scots have such romantic souls. Likewise, all other human ethnicities are apparently still exactly the stereotypes we have now, thousands of years in the future. Villains are nearly always a combination of ugly, deformed, dirty, delusional addicts. There is even a bit of cannibalism, Hitler worship and public fornication thrown in, in case you missed who the bad guys are supposed to be.
I read this out of curiosity, as I had always wanted to read it as a child. I loved sci-fi and at the time I thought a sci-fi book which was over a thousand pages, must surely be one of the best books of all time. It wasn’t until much later that I realized why my parents always shooed me away from the nice people in the mall booth who kept trying to tell me about it. Despite my feelings about Scientology, I tried to keep an open mind, but this book is simply terrible. I only gave it two stars, rather than one, because it would have been an amusing bit of fluff, if it had been shorter.
alisonvh's review
adventurous
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
This book is ridiculous and poorly written, but I still enjoyed reading it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Violence, Death of parent, and Sexual harassment
amydawn's review against another edition
adventurous
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
cjmichel's review against another edition
3.0
I won this novel in audio format from a Goodreads Giveaway contest. It is 44 cd's long. I would not normally touch something this long but the contest didn't specify the length of the novel. After the lengthy introduction stating this novel is a true science fiction, no fantasy included, I was dreading what was to come. However, once I started listening to the story, I wanted to keep on listening. Yes, it is long, and yes, it took me a long time to listen to 44 discs, but it was totally captivating at all times. If you enjoy science fiction and don't mind lengthy volumes, then this is well worth your time.
yulelogue's review against another edition
3.0
This was pretty good, all things considered.
My only gripes are that there was zero character development in 1,050 pages, which is hard to do. I assume this was not Hubbard's strength, so it didn't happen. He sets up the relationship between Chrissie and Johnnie, but at no point does he actually build it.
Two, how do a population which has devolved back to a hunter-gatherer mindset suddenly become adept at learning alien languages and technologies? By the end of the book, they're lawyers and doctors.
Anyway, it was fun.
My only gripes are that there was zero character development in 1,050 pages, which is hard to do. I assume this was not Hubbard's strength, so it didn't happen. He sets up the relationship between Chrissie and Johnnie, but at no point does he actually build it.
Two, how do a population which has devolved back to a hunter-gatherer mindset suddenly become adept at learning alien languages and technologies? By the end of the book, they're lawyers and doctors.
Anyway, it was fun.
soundertillidie's review against another edition
***Goodreads Giveaway win***
I won this book it looked interesting. But it is beginning to feel like a chore to read it. I am getting little to no entertainment value out of this book. I may give the book away. May bring it to the used book store and turn a profit on it.
I will eventually get passed this book...Move on...Find a book I enjoy. If you like long Sci-Fi novels this may be the book for you. But for me it was painfully slow.
I won this book it looked interesting. But it is beginning to feel like a chore to read it. I am getting little to no entertainment value out of this book. I may give the book away. May bring it to the used book store and turn a profit on it.
I will eventually get passed this book...Move on...Find a book I enjoy. If you like long Sci-Fi novels this may be the book for you. But for me it was painfully slow.
tashalostinbooks's review against another edition
2.0
I received this book free from Goodreads' giveaways.
I finally finished! This book feels like three separate books; it should have been a trilogy. If I were only rating the first third of this book I would have given it four stars; five if I had read it as a teen. It started out great. The psychological tension. The battle of wits. Terl learning about humans; Jonnie learning about Psychlos. Terl trying to manipulate Jonnie; Jonnie trying to outsmart Terl. Terl beginning to fracture. Jonnie piecing together Earth's past. Both of them making intricate plans, and amending them and moving forward when they go awry. It was fascinating.
Then somewhere between page 350 and 400 the book changed. It started to meander. It got repetitive. It got boring. It got repetitive. By the midway point I was actively rooting against humanity. If they got wiped out the book would at least end. More and more characters were added. Too many. All with their own plans. Things got stupidly convoluted for no apparent reason. Then just when I thought the book was done it went on for another 100 or so pages. I chewed countless saucepans of kerbango just to get through it.
The book does helpfully tell you what to think about government, psychology, medicine, lawyers, bankers, economics, taxes, and even architecture.
My edition contains an interview with L. Ron Hubbard at the end. It was interesting.
I finally finished! This book feels like three separate books; it should have been a trilogy. If I were only rating the first third of this book I would have given it four stars; five if I had read it as a teen. It started out great. The psychological tension. The battle of wits. Terl learning about humans; Jonnie learning about Psychlos. Terl trying to manipulate Jonnie; Jonnie trying to outsmart Terl. Terl beginning to fracture. Jonnie piecing together Earth's past. Both of them making intricate plans, and amending them and moving forward when they go awry. It was fascinating.
Then somewhere between page 350 and 400 the book changed. It started to meander. It got repetitive. It got boring. It got repetitive. By the midway point I was actively rooting against humanity. If they got wiped out the book would at least end. More and more characters were added. Too many. All with their own plans. Things got stupidly convoluted for no apparent reason. Then just when I thought the book was done it went on for another 100 or so pages. I chewed countless saucepans of kerbango just to get through it.
The book does helpfully tell you what to think about government, psychology, medicine, lawyers, bankers, economics, taxes, and even architecture.
My edition contains an interview with L. Ron Hubbard at the end. It was interesting.
easolinas's review against another edition
1.0
One thing that people assume about movies adapted from books is that the book is always better, despite the many classic movies adapted from mediocre and/or forgotten novels. When it comes to a legendary disaster like "Battlefield: Earth," you naturally assume that the original bestselling book must have been much, much better.
No. No, it's not.
L. Ron Hubbard's legendary magnum opus is -- no hyperbole -- one of the worst things ever committed to paper that didn't advocate genocide. His characters are flat, his writing grotesquely amateurish despite fifty years of professional authorship, the villains are reflections of his personal biases (EVIL SHRINKS!), and the story drags on about six hundred pages longer than it ever needs to. This is a book that could be used to torture enemy librarians until they agreed to give up whatever information you wanted.
The story takes place in the year 3000, a thousand years after weird bony-faced aliens known as the Psychlos invaded the Earth and wiped out most of humanity. Yes, they're named "Psychlos." That tells you the level of writing we're dealing with. The few remaining humans on Earth are eking out a miserable existence in a radioactive wasteland, including our alleged hero, Jonnie Goodboy Tyler. Yes, that is his name. Including the middle part.
But when he ventures into a vast "village" a few days from his home, he's apprehended by the hilariously villainous Terl, the Psychlo security chief, who is scheming to capture humans to mine gold for him -- and who quickly captures Jonnie as the first. But he underestimates our brave studly noble heroic blonde hero's ingenuity, and Jonnie begins gathering human "miners" as part of his plan to not only save the human race, but destroy the Psychlos forever. This is helped by the fact that all the Psychlos are backstabbing morons who are always drunk.
You'd think the plot would stop there. You would, wouldn't you? Nope, it keeps going for another six hundred pages.
Instead Jonnie becomes the most celebrated hero on a newly-united Earth (which regains much of its lost technological and medical prowess in about a month), but has to contest with an Evil Handicapped Person who hates him for... some reason. Also, a race of alien bankers are planning to repossess the Earth (not kidding), and there's a whole subplot about brain implants created by an evil cabal of evil psychiatrists that control people and turn the into sadists. Remember: L. Ron Hubbard.
I think this may be the single worst book I've ever read, and I've read some real stinkers -- abysmal vampire romances, Victorian melodramas, halfwitted high fantasies, ponderously pretentious slice-of-life drivel. But I have never read a book that failed in literally every single character, scenario, plot point, concept and rule of writing. Not a single, solitary thing about this book is good. EVERYTHING in "Battlefield Earth" is just a sea of reeking, seething sewage in every direction, with no relief except the final page.
I ground through this cinder-block sized book with an ever-increasing sense of despair about what was happening in its pages. The first four hundred pages are mostly devoted to a torturously slow mining mining operation, mingled with bureaucratic meddling and Terl's dead-end schemes against other Psychlos. But just when the book seems like it should be wrapping up... it's not even half over. It feels like Hubbard was determined to make this book the size of "Lord of the Rings," and nothing would deter him. So he piles on one new subplot after another, like manure being shoveled into a ditch -- none of them properly interlock, they just sort of spring into existence so Jonnie has a new enemy to nobly stare down or shoot.
This book would be a hard read even if it were written brilliantly. Unfortunately, Hubbard's writing is almost comically bad. His attempts at political intrigue are absolute torture because the people involved are blithering morons, his action scenes are a list of bloodlessly-described events ("It had taken too long. The leading one was almost upon him. Fangs!"), and his dialogue is the stuff of parody ("I am sure you know these myths since they are religious and you appear to be a properly, politely, religious man").
And of course, there's the racism. Hubbard unironically depicts all nationalities by their stereotypes (Scots have kilts and claymores, the Swiss make good knives, etc), and when he gets to Africa, he depicts the locals as dirty, ugly, barbaric, sexually-deviant, child-molesting cannibals... while Jonnie and his girlfriend are physically perfect blondes. Interpret that as you will. Oh, and the only handicapped person in the whole world is evil, AND named "Brown."
As the final indignity, Hubbard writes his characters with just enough dimension and depth that you can fold them into origami. Jonnie himself is held up as a naked Gary Stu -- a noble, intelligent, free-thinking natural leader who can instantly inspire hundreds to follow him into suicidal slavery, who every right-thinking person worships, and who can cow everyone with a single stare. They put him on CURRENCY. Never mind that he's an arrogant bully who ends up committing genocide, and never gives us a reason to like him. The other characters are either flat (his Barbie-doll love interest, Chrissie), offensively dumb (Terl) or ludicrous (a post-apocalyptic Nazi... no, really, he worships Hitler).
This is the worst kind of 1950s sci-fi pulp, except it was written in 1982... you know, when greats like Arthur C. Clarke, Douglas Adams, Philip K. Dick, Roger Zelazny, Gene Wolfe, Alan Dean Foster were presenting us with great, groundbreaking sci-fi. It may take place in the year 3000, but it feels like it takes a thousand years of radioactive deprivation to get there.
No. No, it's not.
L. Ron Hubbard's legendary magnum opus is -- no hyperbole -- one of the worst things ever committed to paper that didn't advocate genocide. His characters are flat, his writing grotesquely amateurish despite fifty years of professional authorship, the villains are reflections of his personal biases (EVIL SHRINKS!), and the story drags on about six hundred pages longer than it ever needs to. This is a book that could be used to torture enemy librarians until they agreed to give up whatever information you wanted.
The story takes place in the year 3000, a thousand years after weird bony-faced aliens known as the Psychlos invaded the Earth and wiped out most of humanity. Yes, they're named "Psychlos." That tells you the level of writing we're dealing with. The few remaining humans on Earth are eking out a miserable existence in a radioactive wasteland, including our alleged hero, Jonnie Goodboy Tyler. Yes, that is his name. Including the middle part.
But when he ventures into a vast "village" a few days from his home, he's apprehended by the hilariously villainous Terl, the Psychlo security chief, who is scheming to capture humans to mine gold for him -- and who quickly captures Jonnie as the first. But he underestimates our brave studly noble heroic blonde hero's ingenuity, and Jonnie begins gathering human "miners" as part of his plan to not only save the human race, but destroy the Psychlos forever. This is helped by the fact that all the Psychlos are backstabbing morons who are always drunk.
You'd think the plot would stop there. You would, wouldn't you? Nope, it keeps going for another six hundred pages.
Instead Jonnie becomes the most celebrated hero on a newly-united Earth (which regains much of its lost technological and medical prowess in about a month), but has to contest with an Evil Handicapped Person who hates him for... some reason. Also, a race of alien bankers are planning to repossess the Earth (not kidding), and there's a whole subplot about brain implants created by an evil cabal of evil psychiatrists that control people and turn the into sadists. Remember: L. Ron Hubbard.
I think this may be the single worst book I've ever read, and I've read some real stinkers -- abysmal vampire romances, Victorian melodramas, halfwitted high fantasies, ponderously pretentious slice-of-life drivel. But I have never read a book that failed in literally every single character, scenario, plot point, concept and rule of writing. Not a single, solitary thing about this book is good. EVERYTHING in "Battlefield Earth" is just a sea of reeking, seething sewage in every direction, with no relief except the final page.
I ground through this cinder-block sized book with an ever-increasing sense of despair about what was happening in its pages. The first four hundred pages are mostly devoted to a torturously slow mining mining operation, mingled with bureaucratic meddling and Terl's dead-end schemes against other Psychlos. But just when the book seems like it should be wrapping up... it's not even half over. It feels like Hubbard was determined to make this book the size of "Lord of the Rings," and nothing would deter him. So he piles on one new subplot after another, like manure being shoveled into a ditch -- none of them properly interlock, they just sort of spring into existence so Jonnie has a new enemy to nobly stare down or shoot.
This book would be a hard read even if it were written brilliantly. Unfortunately, Hubbard's writing is almost comically bad. His attempts at political intrigue are absolute torture because the people involved are blithering morons, his action scenes are a list of bloodlessly-described events ("It had taken too long. The leading one was almost upon him. Fangs!"), and his dialogue is the stuff of parody ("I am sure you know these myths since they are religious and you appear to be a properly, politely, religious man").
And of course, there's the racism. Hubbard unironically depicts all nationalities by their stereotypes (Scots have kilts and claymores, the Swiss make good knives, etc), and when he gets to Africa, he depicts the locals as dirty, ugly, barbaric, sexually-deviant, child-molesting cannibals... while Jonnie and his girlfriend are physically perfect blondes. Interpret that as you will. Oh, and the only handicapped person in the whole world is evil, AND named "Brown."
As the final indignity, Hubbard writes his characters with just enough dimension and depth that you can fold them into origami. Jonnie himself is held up as a naked Gary Stu -- a noble, intelligent, free-thinking natural leader who can instantly inspire hundreds to follow him into suicidal slavery, who every right-thinking person worships, and who can cow everyone with a single stare. They put him on CURRENCY. Never mind that he's an arrogant bully who ends up committing genocide, and never gives us a reason to like him. The other characters are either flat (his Barbie-doll love interest, Chrissie), offensively dumb (Terl) or ludicrous (a post-apocalyptic Nazi... no, really, he worships Hitler).
This is the worst kind of 1950s sci-fi pulp, except it was written in 1982... you know, when greats like Arthur C. Clarke, Douglas Adams, Philip K. Dick, Roger Zelazny, Gene Wolfe, Alan Dean Foster were presenting us with great, groundbreaking sci-fi. It may take place in the year 3000, but it feels like it takes a thousand years of radioactive deprivation to get there.
paulnm's review against another edition
4.0
All right, seriously, this book is as good as the movie is bad. At least that's how I felt about it when I was in high school. Nowadays I'd probably be annoyed at the tropey Mary Sue-ness of the main character, and of course now I know about some of the themes and how they relate (quite indirectly) to a certain unnamed cult. But at the time, it was just a great sci-fi yarn with a lot of really clever plot points.