Today I finished the book "Battlefield Earth - A saga of the year 3000" by L. Ron Hubbard. The story in the edition I bought, second hand, is 1066 pages long. Quite a read, but was it worth it? I would say yes, although I think the story was a bit too long. Or maybe, the book could have been split into two, with part 15 starting in the second book.
The story is about Jonnie (Goodboy) Tyler, a member of a small community of humans living in the mountains. Unhappy with his harsh life in the small village he decides after the death of his father to investigate the valley. Hoping to find a better place for the community, despite the warnings of monsters living in the valley.
When he arrives in an abandoned city in the valley he is captured by a monster! The monsters are actually aliens called Psychlos, who invaded Earth over a thousand years ago, and killed almost the entire population to make their mining business easier.
Terl, his captor, wants Jonnie the "animal" for his private agenda. He first provides ways for Jonnie to get educated, and after some time he manages to get a huge amount of leverage to make Jonnie follow close this agenda.
Jonnie studies as hard as he can, because he wants revenge on Terl for all the hardship, and more, he wants to get rid of the Psychlos and return Earth back into the hands of the small human population that is left.
Despite being a bit too long in my opinion, I did like the book despite it being not really good science fiction. I can't recall if I have other stories written by L. Ron Hubbard, but I certainly want to check out more of his books.
The cover also mentions: "Soon to be a Major Motion Picture!". To be honest, despite the moving being made, I had never heard about it. I read the review on the Internet Movie database, and it doesn't sound promising. On the other hand, the book is way too long to be put into a movie, and probably not even good movie material.
Finally, the name L. Ron Hubbard might set off alarm bells with some people, as he is the founder of Scientology and Dianetics. Don't worry, I have not been brainwashed. But I do consider Battlefield Earth a nice read if you do enjoy reading pulp science fiction.