Mission Earth - Fortune of Fear

The paperback version of this book shows a roulette wheel, as a way of hinting at the episode in this book where the star, Jettero Heller, ends up winning ownership of all of Atlantic City. That's better than the original cover to the book, which can be seen on the hardcover edition (easy to find for one dollar at any used-book store). The original cover had a picture of the Countess Krak (one of the stars of the book), painted in a style that suggests it was originally painted as a naked woman, than colored over to make the suggestion of sex more "subtle" – and to entice you to buy the book. The original cover was indeed appropriate, because this particular book in the Scientology-influenced Mission Earth series reduces sex to a hateful weapon.

After coming into possession of a ton of pure gold (the "fortune" of the book's title), Soltan Gris settles down into a happy lifestyle in which he rapes women, night after night after night. Upon returning to the United States after recovering from the injuries inflicted upon him in book 4 of the series, he gets his revenge on the two women who tortured him – and he rapes them, thereby "curing" them of their lesbianism. After that, he greets the Countess Krak as she arrives on Earth to help Jettero Heller accomplish his mission…and the only thing that keeps him from raping her is the fact that he's terrified of her. Oh, that's not enough? Also in this same book, there is a bizarre and nearly incomprehensible scene in which Jettero Heller's girlfriend, the Countess Krak, uses hypnosis to implant a false memory of being raped into the the frigid female college professor from book 2 (Black Genesis); and this thereby releases her from her cold, man-hating ways. This is an exact quote from the book, and I am not making this up:

Miss Simmons stood back triumphantly. And then she stood in a humbled pose. "But who do I have to thank for this?" She turned to Wister [Jettero Heller's assumed name on Earth] and went over to him and knelt before him. "Oh, Wister, thank you, thank you, thank you. I am eternally grateful to you for letting me be raped. The orgasms were GLORIOUS! Time after time and right here on this very hallowed spot. I never dreamed such joy and ecstasy could exist. And TIME after TIME!"

There have been some "ecstatic" reviews of the Mission Earth books by the users of Amazon.com saying that the reader feels sorry for "poor Soltan" – before you're halfway through with this book (if you manage to make it that far through this sorry mess), you'll be sorry for yourself for attempting to read L. Ron Hubbard's sadistic fantasies.

As for the plot of the series, it continues to drag on here. Jettero Heller is stymied by the plots of J. Walter Madison…though why a super-genius like Heller would be dumbfounded by a gang of idiots like Soltan Gris and Madison is left up in the air. Somewhere along the way, in order to combat the evil media campaign being played against him, Heller tracks down the secret love child of Delbert John Rockecenter, mastermind behind the evil Rockecenter corporation…and the kid turns out to be a redneck pig farmer from midwestern America. Fortunately, Countess Krak arrives to bail Heller out of his dilemma, and a sizable part of the book is spent observing her as she accustoms herself to the primitive and corrupt society of Earth. Countess Krak demonstrates herself to be a cold-hearted and even sadistic woman, which again shows how Hubbard, the author, hated women and could not cast any female character as likable in any way.

And we somehow make it to the halfway point in this godawful series. Oh, and of course we can't forget the portrayal of psychiatry as the most sinister weapon in the arsenal of John D. "Rockecenter" – after all, this wouldn't be an L. Ron Hubbard book if it didn't pronounce psychiatry as evil.

• Continue to Mission Earth Volume 6: Death Quest
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