Fear, however, was by no means the only L. Ron Hubbard work to merit that classic adjective. After a 30-year absence from fiction to devote himself to the development of Dianetics and Scientology, Mr. Hubbard returned in the 1980s with two monumental bestsellers, Battlefield Earth, science fiction’s largest epic to date, and the ten volume, 1.2 million word, Mission Earth. Heralded as a “huge rollicking saga,” with what A. E. van Vogt called, “the great pulp music in every line,” Battlefield Earth soon earned both the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films’ Golden Scroll Award and the Academy’s Saturn Award. The work was also the recipient of Italy’s Tetradramma d’Oro Award (for the story’s inherent message of peace), and a special Gutenberg Award as an exceptional contribution to the genre.
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