I fear we must agree to disagree…

Updated on May 15, 2009 By Ken Begg 7 Comments

I ran this down after reading a seemingly unbelievable key quote in an ad pushing a comprehensive series of deluxe L. Ron Hubbard pulp reprints. Ah, that tax-free church money.

Yes, this was an actual (albeit unsigned) review that appeared in a January 2009 issue of the respected trade magazine Publishers Weekly, in their audio book review section. See if you can find the exact line that made me roll my eyes, just a little:

[Starred Review] Orders Is Orders L. Ron Hubbard, read by Brooke Bloom and a full cast. Galaxy Audio, unabridged, two CDs, 2 hrs., $9.95 ISBN 978-1-59212-233-2

Hubbard’s tale, originally published in a pulp magazine in 1937, takes listeners to the war-torn Chinese city of Shunkien, where the Japanese have launched an assault of epic proportions. The lone building left standing among the piles of flaming rubble is the American consulate, where innocent refugees are trying to stave off hunger and a deadly flu epidemic. Demonstrating his unique ability to relate even the most complicated story with a keen eye for detail and realism, Hubbard’s stunning writing ability and creative imagination set him apart as one of the greatest literary figures of the 20th century. The recording, as usual, is stunning and well directed by Jim Meskimen. Featuring brilliant performances by Brooke Bloom, R.F. Daley and Meskimen himself, the story captivates thoroughly. A Galaxy paperback. (Dec.)

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  • Ericb

    “Demonstrating his unique ability to relate even the most complicated story with a keen eye for detail and realism, Hubbard’s stunning writing ability and creative imagination set him apart as one of the greatest literary figures of the 20th century”

    I died a little when I read that.

  • I read Slaves for Sleep when I was a teenager. That was a pretty good swords-and-babes story in which a loser from our world enters a magical fantasy universe every tmie he sleeps. i doubt it makes Hubbarsd one of the greatest literary figures of the century but I enjoyed it.

  • Nick

    Wow, that sounds incredibly offensive. Who would have thought he did to to the Rape of Nanking what he did to sci-fi with Battlefield Earth.

  • [IMH]

    Three thoughts.

    1. I am not really familiar with Wade-Giles transliteration (which was the standard for writing Chinese in the Roman alphabet until the last 20-30 years), but “Shunkien” does not look like an actual Chinese word to me. It’s closer than most pulp hacks got, but it just looks wrong. “K” was often used for the phoneme denoted by “Q” in pinyin (it’s a variant of what we write as “ch”), and “qien” just isn’t a word. The “q” sound is not, to my knowledge, ever followed by “-ien”.

    2. Yeah, that sentence on L-Ron’s “unique ability” is just a tad purple, ain’t it?

    3. Still, he wrote a few very good pieces. Final Blackout was pretty darned good, or so I thought when I read it years ago.

  • Eric

    I began rolling my eyes at: ‘Listeners’ I would have written ‘Victims’ or ‘Victimized listeners’ or ‘the moron that paid $9.95 for this piece of Crap’.

  • I rolled my eyes so hard at the line in question that it hurt my brain. All these books should be in a landfill.

  • Blackadder

    Hubbard’s 1940 book Fear isn’t too bad; it’s a bit like a Twilight Zone episode. Ray Bradbury liked it, and I do see a certain resemblence to Bradbury’s work.

    I can’t say that I’ve read anything else by Hubbard.