L. Ron Hubbard bibliography
[1] He is perhaps best known for his self-help book, the #1 New York Times bestseller Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health (first published in 1950), and as the founder of the Church of Scientology.
L. Ron Hubbard was a prolific writer; according to the church, his written teachings make up approximately 500,000 pages and 3,000 recorded lectures, totaling about 65 million words.
[2] Although he was best known for his pulp fantasy and science fiction, Hubbard also wrote adventure, aviation, travel, mystery, western and romance.
His other pen names included "Winchester Remington Colt" (rather obviously reserved for Westerns), Lt Jonathan Daly, Capt Charles Gordon, Bernard Hubbel, Michael Keith, Legionnaire 148, Legionnaire 14830, Ken Martin, Scott Morgan or Lt Scott Morgan, Barry Randolph and Capt Humbert Reynolds.
"[3] Hubbard's first short story, "Tah", was published in the Literary Supplement of The Hatchet, George Washington University's campus paper, in February 1932.
However, despite efforts by later supporters to assign to Hubbard a central role in the creation of modern science fiction, he was not a member of the small group of prime movers—L Sprague de Camp, Robert A Heinlein and Isaac Asimov—in the genre.
[3] Hubbard's first major financial success came with the publication of Dianetics in 1950, after which he departed the field of science fiction writing for many years.
As a writer of fantasy, however, [Hubbard] wrote with an occasionally pixillated fervour that is still pleasing, and sometimes reminiscent of the screwball comedies popular in the 1930s cinema.
This was followed by the Mission Earth 'dekalogy,' a ten-volume sequence whose farcical over-egging of a seriously thin narrative thread fails to disguise a tale that would have been more at home in the dawn of the Pulp magazines, though its length would not have been tolerated.
War-ravaged Europe is the setting of Final Blackout, which Pau Walker described as "a bleak, harsh novel of hopeless conflict and an idealistic lieutenant who fights it to its ironic end."
The short novels Typewriter in the Sky and Fear are horrific fantasies which many critics consider to be classics of the science fiction's golden age.
Fear, which relates the existence of a man who alternates between psychosis and sanity, is considered among Hubbard's finest works.
Hubbard's last book of this period, Return to Tomorrow, is a "space opera" which anticipates future science fiction themes in its story about intergalactic traders from whom one month equals a century of Earth time.
Hubbard's stories written under the pseudonym of Rene Lafayette and collected in Ole Doc Methuselah (1970) relate the tales of a medical doctor who traverses time and space while opposing criminals and enemies for his profession.
Written in the style of the pulp fiction era (during which Hubbard began his writing career), the novel is over 750 pages in hardcover and 1000+ in paperback.
The fantasy author Neil Gaiman wrote, "For value for money I have to recommend L. Ron Hubbard's massive Battlefield Earth - over 1000 pages of thrills, spills, vicious aliens, noble humans.
Publishers Weekly said about the novel, "This has everything: suspense, pathos, politics, war, humor, diplomacy and intergalactic finance..." Science fiction author A. E. van Vogt stated, "Wonderful adventure ... great characters ... a masterpiece."
The New York Times stated that, "Mr. Hubbard has reversed a time-honored formula and has given a thriller to which, at the end of every chapter or so, another paleface bites the dust .
"[18] Some sources state that as a young man, Hubbard became a blood brother to the Piegan Blackfeet Native American tribe while living in Montana,[19][20] though this claim is disputed.
"[22] This is possibly Hubbard's most critically acclaimed novel, receiving positive reviews from the likes of Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury.
"[22] Chuck Moss of Daily News of Los Angeles called the book "extremely good science fiction".
[23] The ten volumes of the Mission Earth series, all bar the first of which were published posthumously, comprise The Invaders Plan (1985), Black Genesis: Fortress of Evil, The Enemy Within, An Alien Affair, Fortune Of Fear, Death Quest (1986), Voyage Of Vengeance, Disaster, Villainy Victorious, and The Doomed Planet (1987).
