The Mission Earth series is a big, bloated, fun and funny dekalogy* of pulp and satire and non-stop action. It's not a serious work, nor was it intended to be; I believe Hubbard wrote it simply out of fondness for the field, the way it was when he was beginning his career. He surely didn't need the money. It lampoons everything from economics to law enforcement to crime to space opera to science and all stops in between. It's not a particularly well-written work of literature, but is engaging and interesting and, despite the length, fairly fast-paced throughout. It was de rigueur in the publications of the field when it first appeared to vilify it entirely, I suspect both because of who Hubbard was and the old-fashioned themes and tropes of the work... not to mention the ubiquitous advertising campaign that surrounded the publication with the ever-present asterisk definition that I just couldn't resist reproducing here. However, I decided to see what all the fuss had been about and gave it a shot, thought it was fun, and read the whole thing straight through one summer. It was fun; I liked it. *A series of ten books.
Not to knock L Ron because I absolutely loved but this one was definitely not my cup of tea. I didn't find it funny in the least and I think that was what it was trying to be. It failed and I quit the series.
What do You think about The Enemy Within (2005)?
Absolute drivel. I am wondering if I can be bothered to go write this on all the books of the series that I actually managed to slog through, and I might. Been reading sci-fi since I remember myself and almost never have I dropped a book halfway through. I really tried with this "epic" series, really did. On book 4 now and have decided that there is no way I am devoting another precious minute of my life to this.The story has something in it, but there are so many unnecessary twists and turns, totally pointless and adding nothing to the narrative. The weird is too crazy, the strange is stupid, in short - avoid this book.Cannot believe it is written by the author of Battlefield Earth!
—Reading
