I was originally really excited to review Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 by L. Ron Hubbard. However, my excitement began to wane around halfway through the book.
Summary
Battlefield Earth started out strong for me. The year is 3000 and aliens called Psychlos are in control of Earth after they wiped out the vast majority of the population. Terl, one of the Psychlos, believes that there may be a use for the humans: mining Earth's resources.
Jonnie Goodboy Tyler seeks to better the lives of the people in his village. Their population is dwindling, children are born with birth defects, and no one else seems to care. He rides out with the hope of finding a new location for them to settle.
Man has seemingly reverted to a primitive state. There are few left and most cities are merely ruins, even something as common as glass is mysterious to Jonnie. Unfortunately for Jonnie, he is spotted by Terl who uses his species' advanced technology to capture him.
Jonnie begins to learn Psychlo while he is Terl's prisoner, he learns to read and write, fly airships, and gather information on the Psychlos.
There are several events that take during and after Jonnie's struggle to escape, however I do not want to spoil this aspect for future readers.
Review
Battlefield Earth is just over 1000 pages and includes some of L. Ron Hubbard's notes, expanded content, lyrics, an interview with Hubbard, and an introduction.
L. Ron Hubbard comes across as arrogant in the introduction, especially after I went back to reread it after finishing the book for this review.
As someone who loves vivid descriptions, I found that this book came across as too wordy. Hubbard repeats himself several times. This became tedious when reading.
Several characters are introduced but never really developed, different aliens are introduced but their motives are never really clear, and Jonnie never really became a likable hero for me.
It was frustrating that gender roles and stereotypes are tossed about so frequently in Battlefield Earth where I became bored attempting to read certain sections. I found that you knew nothing exciting was going to happen when female characters were around.
L. Ron Hubbard's interview at the end gave some insight to his writing style; this interview once again painted him as arrogant in my eyes.
Overall, I really liked the first half of the book, but I started to lose interest after the halfway point. Battlefield Earth could have ended several times before it actually ended.
Find it here: Battlefield Earth
I received the book for free in exchange for my honest review, all opinions are my own.
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