The point is both crucial and ironic; for remembering that greater end of all LRH fiction–the funding of research towards a definitive understanding of human behavior–one suddenly finds an L. Ron Hubbard called upon to bring his grasp of behavior to the shaping of characters and designing of plots. And while the actual elements of his research remained another matter, what ultimately followed in literary terms is still broadly described as defining the whole of modern speculative fiction.


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L. Ron Hubbard, center second row, with members of the New York chapter of the American Fiction Guild when this shot was taken in 1936.

      The classic case in point is Fear. Drawn directly from Ron’s examination of human belief systems, Fear tells of a clash between science and superstition that is regularly compared to the best of Edgar Allan Poe. Indeed, writes literary historian David Hartwell, here is a work that stands among “the foundations of the contemporary horror genre,” a work of profound “moral complexity that helped to transform horror literature from an antiquarian or metaphysical form into a contemporary and urban form with the gritty details of everyday realism.” In that regard, Hartwell concludes, “From Ray Bradbury to Stephen King, a literary debt is owed to L. Ron Hubbard for Fear.” Representing no less to science fiction proper was Final Blackout–consistently ranked among the ten greatest works of the genre’s golden age, and just as consistently compared to George Orwell’s 1984... or even more succinctly, as Robert Heinlein declared, “as perfect a piece of science fiction as has ever been written.”

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“Having published 15,000,000 words between 1929 and 1941, I was not unacquainted with the arts.”
 
      One could cite many another title–To The Stars, for example, was the first work of fiction to address effects of time dilation from speed-of-light travel or Slaves of Sleep of which Frederik Pohl declared, “became part of the language in ways that very few other writers imagined.” But let us move beyond those golden years of science fiction with this: having left a truly indelible stamp upon the genre, Ron took a necessary and extended leave from literary circles after the 1950 publication of Dianetics. Not that he ceased writing; his articles, essays and Dianetics and Scientology texts amount to millions of words and, when totaled with his recorded lectures, constitute the largest single body of work in existence on the human mind and spirit. But given the extraordinary demands of continuing research and administration, it was not until 1982 that fans of L. Ron Hubbard’s fiction saw another novel.




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