• rockSlayer@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Ok but the book is actually really good though. It’s hilarious that they never explain how they learned how to fly and operate the machinery

    • hydroptic
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      8 months ago

      The book is fucking terrible but it’s great pulp scifi. It’s obvious that by the time he wrote it nobody dared edit him, so there’s multiple parts of the book that repeat but worded slightly differently, and in general the plot etc just aren’t great and the whole thing is thinly veiled Scientology propaganda (“Psychlo catrists” – psychiatrists, ie. 'ol Ron’s worst enemy). But if you take it for the pulpy weird mess it is, it’s fun.

      • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        That’s what happened for me, I read the book as a teenager and didn’t know anything about Ron or scientology so when I read it, all I saw was a piece of scifi

    • DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe
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      8 months ago

      I don’t know that I’d call it really good, but it made more sense. At least until they nuke the alien home world and the whole thing blows up because it’s hollow and filled with explosive gas for some reason.

      Still, you can always tell illiterate motherfuckers when they trash talk a novelist, even a pulp novelist, based on a movie adaptation.