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That work was Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000. Described by science fiction legend A. E. van Vogt as an unqualified masterpiece, the 450,000 word epic was not only a sensational international bestseller, but the recipient of numerous international literary awards. In addition to both the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films’ Golden Scroll and Saturn Awards, a special Gutenberg Award as an exceptional contribution to the genre, the work has earned Italy’s Tetradramma D’Oro Award in recognition of the story’s inherent message of peace. It has since been published in some thirty nations, and serves as a model work in several colleges and universities.
No less acclaimed was Ron’s next and last work of fiction, his ten-volume magnum opus, Mission Earth. An unprecedented publishing event for the fact that each and every successive volume appeared on international bestseller lists, that ten-volume series, or dekalogy, led one critic to declare, “I don’t know anything in publishing history to compare with it.” Given its massive impact, Mission Earth was also the recipient of numerous literary awards, including France’s coveted Cosmos 2000 Award and Italy’s Nova Science Fiction Award. (Mr. Hubbard, incidentally, was the first non-Italian to receive the Nova.)
But if Mission Earth constitutes the final L. Ron Hubbard novel, it by no means constituted the end of his lifelong contribution to the art of writing. Years earlier, as president of the American Fiction Guild’s New York chapter, he had ceaselessly lobbied on behalf of new writers: working to see them admitted as novices into the Guild’s professional ranks, generating instructional articles for the various professional journals, and otherwise helping the new or unpublished author take his place in what has traditionally been a closed marketplace.
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