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Loading... The Great Secret (English and English Edition) (original 2008; edition 2008)by L. Ron Hubbard, Mr. Bruce Boxleitner (Reader)
Work InformationThe great secret by L. Ron Hubbard (2008)
   None No current Talk conversations about this book.   ) AliceAnna | Oct 4, 2019 |  Behind a veil of science fiction trappings come four stories from pulp fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, a collection of shorts that originally appeared in various magazines of the 1930s and 1940s, when kids during the Great Depression and WWII took some comfort in these fanciful stories. I've collected or read these kinds of stories for some time now, and found that both Hubbard's and Heinlein's stories teach us lessons of the human condition, each with its own themes of redemption or honor -- or in some cases defeat! What's In Here? « The title story The Great Secret was not super exciting but did give a lot of description of one Fanner Marsten, an amoral thief and adventurer, who apparently has killed for the honor of discovering a lost city on a distant planet. Dying of hunger and thirst, he treks cross desert wastes and finds the ancient city. The city with the great secret. « The "great secret" is on a huge poster, cut into metal. What it says was quite a surprised to me. And to a greedy bastard like Marsten! Cute video of the first story, interviewing the main character. Liquor! Women! Power! LOL! « The second story dealt with a skirmish in a war between Saturn and Earth. Clearly a juvenile story, a captain with a love for his vessel, his pride for it, his grief for the loss of it, and his eventual redemption was interesting, but is the weakest of the four stories. Who the enemy was, why the war, and so on is not covered. What's covered is personality and grit and determination. « The third story I enjoyed the most of all: The Beast! A cocky hunter on Venus, aka the great white hunter (the natives call him), yet he runs into an impossible animal that fights him at every turn, beats him mercilessly and he barely escapes. The natives stop worshipping him and stop following his commands, as the beast kills men, women and children of the village. Here's a story of what courage is based, and that courage is not based on cocky over-confidence. Interesting twist ending I didn't see coming. « The last tale is about a subjugated Earth called 'Slaver.' A slave ship lands on Earth and collects many men, women and children -- and an elite man by the name of Kree Lorin. As in the other story, he too was arrogant, proud and self-assured -- and stepping his heel on the lower classes -- until captured by the slaver and found out what it was like to be beaten and ground into the nearest slave hole! Hubbard could have easily made this into a novelette -- such potential at the end to continue Kree's adventure. I was disappointed when it was done. Throughout these four stories are the themes of overconfidence, fear of losing and eventual or potential salvation of the protagonists. The stories are typical pulp -- not heavy drawn-out plots, no complex characterization. Great for a quick tale while waiting for a bus or having some time to kill at a doctor's office. Galaxy Press has reprinted dozens of these -- I'd take advantage. Other Galaxy Press Books: The Professor Was a Thief (Stories from the Golden Age) The Iron Duke (Stories from the Golden Age) And the Writers of the Future anthology series: L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future, Vol. 22 (  ) James_Mourgos | Dec 22, 2016 | Behind a veil of science fiction trappings come four stories from pulp fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, a collection of shorts that originally appeared in various magazines of the 1930s and 1940s, when kids during the Great Depression and WWII took some comfort in these fanciful stories. I've collected or read these kinds of stories for some time now, and found that both Hubbard's and Heinlein's stories teach us lessons of the human condition, each with its own themes of redemption or honor -- or in some cases defeat! What's In Here? « The title story The Great Secret was not super exciting but did give a lot of description of one Fanner Marsten, an amoral thief and adventurer, who apparently has killed for the honor of discovering a lost city on a distant planet. Dying of hunger and thirst, he treks cross desert wastes and finds the ancient city. The city with the great secret. « The "great secret" is on a huge poster, cut into metal. What it says was quite a surprised to me. And to a greedy bastard like Marsten! Cute video of the first story, interviewing the main character. Liquor! Women! Power! LOL! « The second story dealt with a skirmish in a war between Saturn and Earth. Clearly a juvenile story, a captain with a love for his vessel, his pride for it, his grief for the loss of it, and his eventual redemption was interesting, but is the weakest of the four stories. Who the enemy was, why the war, and so on is not covered. What's covered is personality and grit and determination. « The third story I enjoyed the most of all: The Beast! A cocky hunter on Venus, aka the great white hunter (the natives call him), yet he runs into an impossible animal that fights him at every turn, beats him mercilessly and he barely escapes. The natives stop worshipping him and stop following his commands, as the beast kills men, women and children of the village. Here's a story of what courage is based, and that courage is not based on cocky over-confidence. Interesting twist ending I didn't see coming. « The last tale is about a subjugated Earth called 'Slaver.' A slave ship lands on Earth and collects many men, women and children -- and an elite man by the name of Kree Lorin. As in the other story, he too was arrogant, proud and self-assured -- and stepping his heel on the lower classes -- until captured by the slaver and found out what it was like to be beaten and ground into the nearest slave hole! Hubbard could have easily made this into a novelette -- such potential at the end to continue Kree's adventure. I was disappointed when it was done. Throughout these four stories are the themes of overconfidence, fear of losing and eventual or potential salvation of the protagonists. The stories are typical pulp -- not heavy drawn-out plots, no complex characterization. Great for a quick tale while waiting for a bus or having some time to kill at a doctor's office. Galaxy Press has reprinted dozens of these -- I'd take advantage. Other Galaxy Press Books: The Professor Was a Thief (Stories from the Golden Age) The Iron Duke (Stories from the Golden Age) And the Writers of the Future anthology series: L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future, Vol. 22 ( ) jmourgos | Sep 12, 2014 | I don’t usually get much satisfaction from short stories, although they’re ok for an occasional quick read. This collection wasn’t any different -- the stories just didn’t contain much substance. They were too short for any real character development, and each story provided little more than a snapshot of a key moment in a character’s life. I liked some of the stories better than others. The third story, The Beast, was my favorite. It had more character development and it felt more like a full story complete with an interesting ending. I’ve had this collection on my Kindle for years. I think I probably got it from the Baen free library way back when. For such a quick read, it was worth reading if only for the historical perspective of seeing what was considered popular science fiction back in this era. (  ) YouKneeK | Jan 20, 2014 | no reviews | add a review
Fiction.
Science Fiction.
Thriller.
HTML: Women. Liquor. Power... Women. Liquor. Power... That is Fanner Marston's mantraâ??his reason for beingâ??and while he knows a little about the first and a lot about the second, he may well be on the verge of learning everything there is to know about the third. Power. He may, in fact, be about to uncover the key to gaining absolute control over the entire universe. The only problem is, Fanner is certifiably insaneâ??a crazed Peter Lorre on a power trip.... His starship has crash-landed, and he's the sole survivor, which doesn't matter to him. Driven by greed and lust for power, wracked by thirst, hunger and pain, all he cares about is reaching the ancient city of Parva and making himself at home. Because there lies The Great Secret to universal dominationâ??and what's a little suffering on the road to becoming God? Does Fanner have a prayer? The writing's on the walls of Parvaâ??and you won't believe what it says. . . . By the spring of 1938, Hubbard's stature as a writer was well established. As author and critic Robert Silverberg puts it: he had become a "master of the art of narrative." Hubbard's editors urged him to apply his gift for succinct characterization, original plot, deft pacing and imaginative action to genres that were new, and essentially foreign, to himâ??science fiction and fantasy. The rest is SciFi history. Also includes the Science Fiction adventures, The Space Can, in which a decrepit space battleship is a civilian fleet's only defense; The Beast, the tale of a hunter in the jungles of Venus, chasing an immoral beast; and The Slaver, in which an alien race has enslaved the human race, but can't repress the power of human love. "Serves as a wonderful introduction to the breadth of Hubbard's output." â??Co No library descriptions found. 
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage: (3.25)
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