“A man-animal getting leverage over a Psychlo?”
Ohhh…how I love political stories like this :
When asked his favorite novel in an interview shown yesterday on the Fox News Channel, Mitt Romney pointed to “Battlefield Earth,” a novel by L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology. That book was turned into a film by John Travolta, a Scientologist.
Here’s a painting of Johnny Goodboy Tyler, the main character in Mitt Romney’s “favorite novel” :
An excerpt from Mitt Romney’s “favorite novel” :
“The probe and the pictures were on a metal that was rare everywhere and worth a clanking fortune. And Intergalactic paid the Psychlo governors sixty trillion Galactic credits for the directions and the concession. One gas barrage and we were in business.”“Fairy tales, fairy tales,” said Char. “Every planet I ever helped gut has some butt and crap story like that. Every one.” He yawned his face into a huge cavern. “All that was hundreds, maybe thousands of years ago. You ever notice that the public relations department always puts their fairy tales so far back nobody can ever check them?”
“I’m going to go out and catch one of these things,” said Terl.
“Not with any of my crews or equipment you ain’t,” said Char.
Terl heaved his mammoth bulk off the seat and crossed the creaking floor to the berthing hatch.
“You’re as crazy as a nebula of crap,” said Char.
Seriously? Battlefield…Earth. By L. Ron Hubbard. Mitt Romney’s favorite novel? How many books has this guy read?
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It could be worse. He didn’t name My Pet Goat or The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
Comment by Gary Kleppe — May 2, 2007 @ 12:18 pm
Will Mitt Romney Take Battlefield Earth to the Whi…
It’s easy to why Battlefield Earth might appeal to someone like Romney and his choice reassures me that he would make a great President….
Trackback by Jon Swift — May 2, 2007 @ 12:47 pm
Is there anything wrong with that book? Have you guys even read it?
It’s my favorite book too. Fantastic story, even if I don’t agree with the author himself, he still wrote a darn fine book.
Comment by Nick — May 2, 2007 @ 12:51 pm
“How many books has this guy read?”
My guess is less than one.
Comment by Kamachanda — May 2, 2007 @ 3:59 pm
I made myself read it when I was eighteen. All of it. There are a few decent bits in it that you can imagine a better writer than Hubbard (if, in fact, Hubbard wrote it) polishing up into a good few hundred pages of space opera. But instead Hubbard runs his thin tale over twice that length and throws in some truly insane plot twists, especially in the second half.
Ironically the Travolta movie managed to take what few things were good in the book and fuck up every last one of them.
But in a funny way I respect Romney for his answer. Vapid questions like these asked of political candidates nearly always produce vapid answers, no doubt carefully tailored to offend the fewest and establish the candidates’ pretensions of being simple men of simple tastes. I remember in 2004 how the Democratic candidates were asked about their favourite songs and we were told that they loved ClearChannel oldies station pablum like John Cougar Mellencamp’s “Ain’t That America” and John Lennon’s “Imagine” (urgh.)
For Mitt Romney, in admitting his favourite book is a third-rate chunk of pulp sci-fi, takes either guts or a touching lack of guile. Hats off to you, Mitt, for not citing the Bible or a biography of Lincoln or The Purpose-Driven Life or any other safe, synthetic choice of book.
Comment by Ernest Tomlinson — May 2, 2007 @ 4:33 pm
I’ve read it.
The writing can barely, charitably, be called hackwork.
The ideas are stale — reworked pulp.
But it’s damn-all popular among Scientologists.
You been pre-paying for any blocks of intensives, Nick?
Here’s a clue — the secret password is “Be three feet in back of your head.” No wait …. it was “I mock up my reactive mind.”
Comment by joel hanes — May 2, 2007 @ 4:55 pm
Welcome to the First Church of Appliantology. The white zone is for loading and unloading only. If you gotta load or unload, go to the white zone.
I’ll give him this: it does have more polysyllabic words than My Pet Goat.
Comment by Gershowitz — May 2, 2007 @ 5:36 pm
So, is that some cryptic nod to Romney’s Scientologist masters?
Bishop Tom Cruise will be pleased, perhaps even to the point of jumping up and down on a couch….
does this mean that the one of the LEAD candidates in the effin Republican party is an effin Scientologist?!?!
they really are a joke party, aren’t they. too bad it ain’t funny anymore…
Comment by joe mama — May 2, 2007 @ 7:23 pm
Mitt is a uniter, not a divider. Through him, our nation’s crazies may now find each other… or rather through his Myspace page.
Comment by E-Rock — May 2, 2007 @ 9:58 pm
It’s nice that he answered honestly(unless courting members of the only cult crazier than his own is part of his campaign strategy), but if you were going to admit to a guilty pleasure like a crappy sci-fi book why wouldn’t you name something like Robert Heinlein?
I guess being a conservative, he’s idealogically opposed to enjoying good sci-fi stuff from “liberal” writers like Douglas Adams, Neil Gaiman, George Orwell, etc. I bet his favorite movies are all Chuck Norris movies, too.
Comment by Scott — May 2, 2007 @ 10:25 pm
It could be a good book, and I’ve heard from a couple of non-scientologists that it’s a good book. I admire the guy for being honest.
Comment by steve — May 2, 2007 @ 11:42 pm
[…] Mitt Romney’s favorite novel? Battlefield Earth […]
Pingback by Mitt Romney: As crazy as a nebula of crap — May 3, 2007 @ 5:06 am
I’m really surprised at all who dislike the book. It’s been my favorite book for years, and yet I still have disbelief in scientology (Maybe it’s the South Park in me, but I can’t believe they listen to that crap).
But then, I like many different books. Douglas Adams Hitchhiker’s trilogy, Hubbard’s Battlefield Earth and Mission Earth series, Alan Dean Foster’s Spellsinger series, Piers Anthony’s Blue Adept, etc…
I never really see your choice of books as being even remotely related to your religion/party-affiliation. Take me, a Democrat (well, mostly anti-Repub) LDS in Utah.
Comment by Nick — May 3, 2007 @ 5:27 am
Comment by briantologist — May 3, 2007 @ 7:30 am
Well, what’s good to one person may be crap to another. This is the first time I’ve met others who have actually read the book, and everyone seems to hate it or think of it as just a cheesy sci-fi, so I am just surprised. I respect people’s hatred of it.
But what gets me is that everyone is picking up on the NAME of the book, and assume that it perfectly reflects his ideaology. If anyone actually read the book, they see it has nothing to do with mankind-led conflict.
Comment by Nick — May 3, 2007 @ 7:36 am
This was the worst piece of crap I ever read in my life, and that’s saying quite a lot. The writing was so ridiculously bad, I literally threw this book in the trash after getting halfway through. Now I love books in general, and always have a high regard for the printed word, so I would normally take a used book to a used bookstore, or donate it to the library or goodwill. But I was so worried that someone else might actually *read* this trash, that I buried it in the bottom of a trash bin.
It’s not just a cheesy bit of sci-fi. I love sci-fi, and even take in the old pulp stuff with interest, because it reflects the politics and social mores of the early-to-mid 20th century quite well. To read pulp sci-fi is to explore the history of our culture. I don’t always like the stories, but I respect them, and their authors. Hubbard was not a writer. The above excerpt is a good reflection of this statement. He was a profound manipulator of the gullible, to be sure, but he had no talent for prose.
The only thing I can’t figure out is how I also managed to take in the movie, which also stank. I’ve been mulling this one over for years. Surely one would have steered me away from the other?!? I can’t recall specifically, but I believe I saw the movie first. Maybe I was hoping the book would be better.
And Nick, no offense, but as religions go, LDS is no better than Scientology. Both involve brainwashing via an invented mythology, by a cryptic elder “prophet” whose main agenda was control of the masses. Joseph Smith and L. Ron Hubbard could have been pals, had they been contemporaries.
Comment by Dave — May 3, 2007 @ 10:08 am
*shrug* no problem.
Comment by Nick — May 3, 2007 @ 11:12 am
Okay, so I’ll admit it, I’ve read it. And even more embarrassingly, when I was younger and less well read, I thought it wasn’t half bad. Nowadays, I think it has one, and exactly one, redeeming quality (which also happens, almost, to be somewhat of an original idea): In the second half of the book, the earthlings, having utterly annihilated the bad guys, and earth being the last remaining property owned by the bad guys, the earthlings assume all of the bad guys’ debts. Suddenly, a group of intergalactic bankers and loan managers show up and attempt to foreclose on earth and force the population into debt slavery in compensation for the lost credit. It’s actually an interesting idea.
Unfortunately, as Greg’s excerpt shows, it’s an interesting idea buried under a swamp of hackneyed, 3rd rate shite. I hate to break it to the Scientologists, but L. Ron Hubbard was not a good writer, not even remotely. His technique was, essentially, to date rape the English language and then convince himself afterward that he made sweet love to it. It’s a terrible thing to see, all the worse because his followers in the Church of Scientology constantly laud his literary powers as if he was the second coming of H.G. Welles.
Then again, I suspect even they know what a terrible writer he is. At the L. Ron Hubbard Life Exhibition in Hollywood, (which every single one of you ought to see once before you die. it’s easily the single most hilarious thing in the entire world,) during the part of the tour that discusses his writing career, it discusses his attempt to break into screenwriting. Long Story short, he came out and got paid shit wages for a couple of shitty movies, couldn’t make a living, called it a success and quit. That’s an easy enough story to tell, right? Hell, no one’s perfect after all.
Except, unfortunately for sanity and reason, the Cult of Scientology considers L. Ron to be the one exception the nobody’s perfect rule. (He is the “friend of Mankind, after all,) They have no choice but to depict his every experience as the casual display of godly perfection. Unfortunately, there’s too much documentary evidence for them to lie about his screenwriting career like they do about his Military Career and Childhood, so they’re forced to give what I consider to be the most amazingly lame praise in the history of sycophancy. At the end of this section of the tour, after the brief description of L. Ron’s stillborn career as a screenwriter, the VO narrator says, quote:
“Yes, Hollywood Screenwriting. One of the many areas in which L. Ron. Hubbard was a true professional!”
Anyhoo, you want my opinion? He didn’t write this, or, he was halfway through it when he died and one of the ghostwriters took over for him. Because there are striking differences in tone and prose style throughout. Of course, it could just be that L. Ron. was a crazy, drug addled sociopath. Of course, I only say this as a joke because I’d hate to be sued by the Scientologists. I’m just kidding guys, I swear!
One last thing:
“But then, I like many different books. Douglas Adams Hitchhiker’s trilogy, Hubbard’s Battlefield Earth and Mission Earth series, Alan Dean Foster’s Spellsinger series, Piers Anthony’s Blue Adept, etc…”
Please don’t Put Adams in with those hacks. Please.
Comment by Ross Lincoln — May 3, 2007 @ 12:23 pm
Piers Anthony? I haven’t liked his books since I was a horny 12-year old nerd.
Comment by Gershowitz — May 3, 2007 @ 7:49 pm
Maybe Mr. Romney thought that sounding like a person of superior intellect would dash to pieces any chance to become what the network chatterers breathlessly and constantly call “themostpowerfulmanintheworld”. After all, the current owner of that dubious title didn’t obtain it by appearing intelligent.
Comment by Rex Osborne — May 6, 2007 @ 9:21 am
Hey, I like that book too. I think of it as mind candy. The movie, by the way, sucks, but I don’t think most people have the attention span to keep up with the book. Then again, most people don’t have the attention span to keep up with Stephen King’s longer books either. (Which are better-written, but BE is still a decent book for all that.)
Comment by Dana — May 9, 2007 @ 6:32 am
Even political officials fall for this confidence game run by a totalitarian group. Search Google for $cientology front groups, a primary source of income, they change the name to scam good-natured people.
Watch for those stress test and e-meter tables - Look how do this!
Comment by Lermanet.com — June 5, 2007 @ 9:38 pm
Its a book damn it, leave it at that. And it reads, period.
Comment by Hunter — July 28, 2007 @ 10:22 am