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Rating: 
Summary: The only halfway decent book in the whole dreadful series
Review: Book #8 of this ten-book "decalogy" is the best part of the whole "Mission Earth" series. After spending seven (SEVEN!) ridiculously long, boring books building up subplots after subplots after subplots (while interlacing the story with Scientology-influenced ranting against psychiatry, and including descriptions of every sexual perversion I've ever heard of), L. Ron Hubbard FINALLY gets down to the business of wrapping up those long, meandering subplots with fast and furious action. The entire first half of this book is a series of action scenes, because the plot is so convoluted it takes a couple of hundred pages to get through the various events..BUT, just as things are getting interesting, Hubbard suddenly STOPS the action and throws the whole story for a loop! Suddenly the character Soltan Gris is no longer the narrator, and we have to go through a confusing sequence of "Huh? What's going on?" before finally realizing that *another* character has taken over the narration of the story, and is completing the whole thing. The change of "authors" doesn't improve the quality of Hubbard's writing, however. "Disaster" is full of action, but almost immediately after this book ends and the ninth book, "Villainy Victorious" begins, we return once again to boring, plodding subplots involving Teenie Whopper the teenage nymphomaniac, and J. Warbler Madman the PR genius. Fortunately, these characters aren't seen at all in book #8, which is one reason why this book is worth reading.Of course, the only way you can possibly understand what's going on in this eighth volume of the series is to work your way through the first seven books. If you manage to accomplish that, then you deserve some kind of award. This book isn't the award you deserve, but at least it's easier to handle than the others.
Rating: 
Summary: Funny, Satirical Wit Meets Action Psi-Fi
Review: Halfway through volume 8, 'Disaster', the narrator of the previous 7 1/2 volumes, Gris, finishes his story. Why does Mission Earth continue for another 2 1/2 books? Beats me. There's a new narrator now, and the author's voice is astonishingly different. The reader can catch him using passive tense in several points, and the writing isn't as fluent as Hubbard's was. Say what you will about this series, it's remarkable readable. All this leads me to believe it wasn't really Hubbard finishing up the series. Hubbard died in 86 or so, supposedly after he finished this series. With no evidence whatsoever, I believe the final 2 1/2 books were ghostwritten. This volume is entertaining. Gris finally gets what he deserves. It's fun to see Heller cleaning up the galaxy.
Rating: 
Summary: Hubbard...or not?
Review: Halfway through volume 8, 'Disaster', the narrator of the previous 7 1/2 volumes, Gris, finishes his story. Why does Mission Earth continue for another 2 1/2 books? Beats me. There's a new narrator now, and the author's voice is astonishingly different. The reader can catch him using passive tense in several points, and the writing isn't as fluent as Hubbard's was. Say what you will about this series, it's remarkable readable. All this leads me to believe it wasn't really Hubbard finishing up the series. Hubbard died in 86 or so, supposedly after he finished this series. With no evidence whatsoever, I believe the final 2 1/2 books were ghostwritten. This volume is entertaining. Gris finally gets what he deserves. It's fun to see Heller cleaning up the galaxy.
Rating:
Summary: Funny, Satirical Wit Meets Action Psi-Fi
Review: I loved all of these stories. I could not stop once I started them. The pacing is great. The satire is great. Hubbard has a fantastic and witty sense of humor. These stories also really they get you thinking. Love them all.
Rating: 
Summary: Not my favorite volume so far, but stil compelling!
Review: In this book, it really seems like the story is coming to an end, instead here's still so much to read!!! Gris, the bad guy, who has been narrating so far, is now now longer in the right position to keep narrating, nor does he know certain aspects of how the story develops, so the writer, very surprisingly, switches narrator! It's hard to get accustomed to a new one, after having read 7 and half book narrated by Soltan Gris, with his dark humor and so on, this narrator is completely different... but I don't want to spoil the surprise. Let's just say that this narrator, thought in a different way and with a different writing style, can still tell you what happened! and keep you glued to the book! I cannot wait to get the next 2 volumes in the mail!
Rating:
Summary: Finally Gris is toast!
Review: In this book, the assasin Apparatus agent Soltan Gris gets what he deserves! The action in this one makes for a fast read. It is by far the fastest moving book in the series. The hero Jettero Heller is under fire, and caught in a dangerous death plummet from a high-rise office building in Manhatten. The New York Mafia are under aerial assault. The United States is about to declare war. The world's oil supply is declared radioactive and owned by an alien! At the same time there is now a black hole now in orbit around the Earth and a mountain of ice is plunging toward Earth! This book 8 of the Mission Earth Series is non-stop! It takes off and keeps rocketing! I loved this one the best of all to this point in the series, because finally things start to go better for Heller and horrible for the villian Soltan Gris. If you read to this point in the series you will be delighted with the outcome of this one, and the mystery of the next two novels will compel you to read on! I found this one to be a lot of good classic action!
Rating:
Summary: Finally Gris is toast!
Review: In this book, the assasin Apparatus agent Soltan Gris gets what he deserves! The action in this one makes for a fast read. It is by far the fastest moving book in the series. The hero Jettero Heller is under fire, and caught in a dangerous death plummet from a high-rise office building in Manhatten. The New York Mafia are under aerial assault. The United States is about to declare war. The world's oil supply is declared radioactive and owned by an alien! At the same time there is now a black hole now in orbit around the Earth and a mountain of ice is plunging toward Earth! This book 8 of the Mission Earth Series is non-stop! It takes off and keeps rocketing! I loved this one the best of all to this point in the series, because finally things start to go better for Heller and horrible for the villian Soltan Gris. If you read to this point in the series you will be delighted with the outcome of this one, and the mystery of the next two novels will compel you to read on! I found this one to be a lot of good classic action!
Rating:
Summary: One of my favorite sci-fi books, and I've read a LOT!
Review: The 10 volume Mission Earth series ranks as one of my favorite sci-fi stories. Reading Hubbard's books really taught me what a "page-turner" was. I lost a lot of sleep over his merciless cliffhanger chapter endings. Let me also add that his books are very easy to read--he never lets the writing get in the way of the story in Mission Earth. I had read a lot of Burroughs, Heinlein, Herbert and Asimov before I ever encountered Hubbard, and though his writing style and tone did not strike me as being as profound as those authors, his subject matter is just as deep, and he is perhaps even more entertaining. I avoided Mission Earth and Battlefield Earth for years after they came out because of a poorly understood link between Hubbard and Scientology. I assumed that the novels would be somehow strange and "cultish," whatever that means. Now I wish I would have read his books while he was still alive, so I could have sent him fan mail. Please excuse me while I get to work on that letter to Dan Simmons!
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