Mission: Earth "Black Genesis" (53 page)

Read MISSION EARTH

Volume 3 THE ENEMY WITHIN

About the Author L. Ron Hubbard

Filled with a dazzling array of other-world weaponry and systems, L. Ron Hubbard's Mission Earth is a spectacular cavalcade of battles, of stunning plot reversals, with heroes and heroines, villains and villainesses, caught up in a superbly imaginative, intricately plotted invasion of Earth—as seen entirely and uniquely through the eyes of the aliens that already walk among us.

An unprecedented event in publishing history, so momentous that a new word—dekalogy (meaning a group of ten volumes)—had to be coined to adequately describe Mission Earth's sheer magnitude and mastery: 1.2 million words in ten epic volumes that surpass even his last triumphant, internationally acclaimed best-selling masterpiece, Battlefield Earth.

Born in 1911, the son of a U.S. naval officer, L. Ron Hubbard grew up in the great American West and was acquainted early with the rugged outdoor life before he took to the sea. The cowboys, Indians and mountains of Montana were balanced with an open sea, temples and the throngs of the Orient as Hubbard travelled through the Far East as a teen-ager. By the time he was nineteen, he had travelled over a quarter of a million sea miles and thousands on land as he prodded and asked and recorded his experiences in a series of diaries mixed with story ideas.

Returning to the United States, Hubbard's insatiable curiosity and demand for excitement sent him into the

sky as a pilot where he quickly earned a reputation for his skill and daring before he turned his attention again to the sea. This time it was four-masted schooners and voyages into the Caribbean as Hubbard mixed adventure with an education that was to serve him later at the typewriter.

While Hubbard's first articles were nonfiction and based upon his aviation experience, he soon began to draw from his travels to produce a wide variety of stories: adventure, mysteries, travel through the Far East, westerns, detective, and finally, science fiction.

In 1938, Hubbard was already established and recognized as one of the top-selling writers of the field, but a new magazine wanted new blood. Hubbard was urged to try his hand at science fiction. The red-headed author protested that he did not write about "ray guns and rockets" but that he wrote about people. "That's just what we want," he was told.

The result was a barrage of stories from Hubbard that changed the face of science fiction and excited intense critical comparison—then as now—with the best of H. G. Wells and Edgar Allan Poe. Today, Hubbard is recognized as one of the "founding fathers" of the great Golden Age of Science Fiction who, like Robert Heinlein and a few other grand masters, continues to develop and significantly enlarge the contemporary literature genre he helped to create.

At the same time, Hubbard's prodigious and continuing creative output over more than half a century as a professional writer has assumed the proportions of a true publishing phenomenon—with more than a hundred novels and novelettes, more than two hundred short stories (published under his own name and such no-less-celebrated pen names as Rene Lafayette, Kurt Von Rachen and Winchester Remington Colt, among others),

and more than twenty-two million copies of his fiction, in a dozen languages, sold throughout the world.

To celebrate his golden anniversary as a professional writer, L. Ron Hubbard wrote Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000. The epic quickly moved onto every national best-seller list with the author and book receiving critical acclaim.

Publisher's Weekly described Mr. Hubbard as "a superlative storyteller with total mastery of plot and pacing."

The Buffalo Evening News said Battlefield Earth was "vintage hard science fiction, done by a master storyteller."

Kirkus Review said Battlefield Earth was "a huge (800+ pages) slugfest. Mr. Hubbard celebrates fifty years as a pro writer with tight plotting, furious action, and have-at-'em entertainment."

Now, with the Mission Earth series, readers get a brilliantly conceived fusion of high science fiction adventure, rich comedy-satire and hilarious social commentary in the great, classic tradition of Voltaire, Swift, Verne, Wells and Orwell.

Unlike anything in the annals of science fiction, Mission Earth is told with the distinctive pace, artistry and humor that is the inimitable hallmark of L. Ron Hubbard, one of the most prolific and influential authors of the twentieth century.

"I am always happy to hear from my readers."

L. Ron Hubbard

These were the words of L. Ron Hubbard, who was always very interested in hearing from his friends and readers. He made a point of staying in communication with everyone he came in contact with over his fifty-year career as a professional writer, and he had thousands of fans and friends that he corresponded with all over the world.

The publishers of L. Ron Hubbard's literary works wish to continue this tradition and would very much welcome letters and comments from you, his readers, both old and new.

Any message addressed to the Author's Affairs Director at Bridge Publications will be given prompt and full attention.

BRIDGE PUBLICATIONS, INC.

4751 Fountain Avenue Los Angeles, California 90029