Below The Beltway

What does it say about a potential President when their favorite novel is a piece of crap ?

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.

A spokesman said later it was one of Mr. Romney?s favorite novels.
?I?m not in favor of his religion by any means,? Mr. Romney, a Mormon, said. ?But he wrote a book called ?Battlefield Earth? that was a very fun science-fiction book.? Asked about his favorite book, Mr. Romney cited the Bible.

First, let me deal with the Bible part. Every politician says that their favorite book is the Bible.? The number of those politicians who have actually read the Bible ? I would be willing to hazard a guess that it’s less than all of them.

But this Battlefield Earth thing is just bizarre. I tried to read Battlefield Earth about 20 years ago and barely made it 1/3 of the way through before giving up. The plot is ridiculous, the writing is atrocious.

Just take a look at this summary:

In the year 3000 AD, Earth has been ruled by an alien race, the Psychlos, for a millennium. Humanity has been reduced to a few scattered tribes in isolated parts of the world while the Psychlos strip the planet of its mineral wealth. Jonnie Goodboy Tyler, a member of one such tribe, lives in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains. He leaves his village to explore the lowlands and to disprove the superstitions long held by his people involving ancient gods and monsters. However, he is captured in the ruins of Denver by Terl, the Psychlo chief of security. The Psychlos, hairy 9-foot high, 1000-pound sociopaths, originate from a planet with an atmosphere very different from that of earth. Their “breath-gas” explodes on contact with even trace amounts of radioactive metals, such as uranium. From the very beginning, the reader learns that Terl has discovered a lode of gold up in the Rocky Mountains that he wants to get his hands on “off the company books” but is surrounded by uranium deposits that make Psychlo mining impossible. Terl captures Jonnie by accident while searching for “man-animals” to train to mine where he himself cannot.

After a time, Terl captures Jonnie’s girlfriend and her little sister and uses the threat of their deaths to ensure cooperation from Jonnie. Jonnie is afterwards free to move around the mining area. Shortly thereafter, Terl and Jonnie travel to Scotland and recruit 83 Scottish youth to help with the mining. Jonnie, however, has different plans. Due to the fact that Terl does not understand English, Jonnie is able to convince the Scots to help him overthrow the Psychlo rule on Earth.

During the next several months, Jonnie and the Scots try to mine the gold as well as develop a means of defeating not only the Psychlos on Earth, but also nullify the threat of counterattack that could come from the Psychlo (the Psychlo’s home planet). During the semi-annual teleportation of personnel, goods, and coffins (all dead Psychlos are shipped home for burial on Psychlo) back to Psychlo, Jonnie and the Scots manage to pack several of the huge coffins with nuclear dirty bombs and “planet busters” in hopes of destroying the Psychlo’s home planet. After the teleportation firing, the humans use the Psychlo’s own war planes, tanks, and weapons against them and regain control of Earth.

This is, however, not the end of the story. Unsure as to whether the bombs sent even reached Psychlo and under the imminent threat of counterattack, Jonnie must now defend his newly-retaken planet against the predatory interests of several other interstellar races, including a race of intergalactic bankers seeking to repossess the Earth in lieu of unpaid debts, as well as a newly-emerging group of humans seeking to wrest control of Earth from him. He must also accomplish what no other race in 300,000 years has been able to do: uncover the secret of Psychlo mathematics and teleportation if the human race is to have a future in a galaxy full of hostile races…

Oh dear God. Governor, if you’re going to read science fiction, maybe you should check out someone who can actually write a coherent novel.