Monday, November 21, 2011

Intermission - The Story Thus Far And Why It Doesn't Make Me Want To Read Any Further

Well, The Invaders Plan is finished, but Mission Earth is only just begun.  And rather than dive right on into Black Genesis (I'm still deciding whether or not that should be a blind run or if I need to skim through it real quick), now's as good a time as any for some reflection, reminiscing, and complaining.

I'm not sure where to start, though.  The book had a lot of problems.  There's Hubbard's clunky sentence structure, dubious grasp of science, strange obsession with his main character's wardrobe, one-dimensional characters... but if Battlefield Earth was any indication, those are not so much problems with Mission Earth as they are Hubbard's writing in general.

I guess the main... well, a primary issue with The Invaders Plan is that it isn't a stand-alone story.  "Dekalogy" notwithstanding, Mission Earth was penned as a single corpulent manuscript over a million words long, which was then chopped up by its unfortunate editors into individual books.  It isn't a true series, it was a book so bloated that there was no way it could be printed in its entirety without falling apart the minute you cracked its spine.

Take Harry Potter or Harry Dresden, pick a random book from the series.  If you handed Chamber of Secrets or Dead Beat to someone unfamiliar with Rowling or Butcher, they'd probably stumble along for a bit, since they missed out on the backstory providing context for the current adventure.  But eventually they'd catch on, especially since the authors are nice enough to give little reminders of who characters are and what happened in previous volumes, and in the end the reader will probably be left with a positive literary experience and a sense of closure.  This is because the Harry Potter septette and the ongoing Dresden Files saga, though written with an overarching plot in mind, were also intended to be stand-alone stories.  The books each have their own story arc, climax, denouement, all that Literature 101 stuff.

Now, take Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, tear out chapters one through five, and call it a book.  That's The Invaders Plan.  It's the rising action of a larger story trying and failing to stand on its own.  It is structurally unsound, narratively unfulfilling.  There's hints of a larger plot (something's fishy at Hogwarts / we've gotta get to Earth), an obstacle of sorts (we've missed the train! / Heller won't get on the damn spaceship!), and a sad "resolution" (we'll fly the car to Hogwarts / we've finally taken off), but it doesn't work as a real story.

I mean, where's The Invaders Plan's climax?  Is it the launch party?  Gris stealing the bugging devices?  The riot at the Artists' Club?  Gris figuring out his brainwashing?  The attempt on Gris' life in the mountains?  Who's the villain?  Lombar Hisst is pretty evil, but he's not really opposing Gris so much as being a psychotic boss.  Heller is the (hero) antagonist, but he's not opposing Gris either, just being a goody two-shoes while Gris struggles to get him to do what he wants.  The Countess?  The nameless assassins Gris pays shockingly little attention to?

And that's just the structural problems with the plot.  The story itself is just bad, an endless series of delays and distractions until Mission Earth can haul its lazy ass into orbit.  Heller needs to pick out a ship because he won't use the one supplied by the Apparatus.  The ship needs refitting, which will take weeks.  Heller is getting close to the Countess, what can Gris do to drive them apart?  Why is Gris puking at the thought of Heller in danger?  Gris is broke and hungry.  Gris is in the mountains.  The Artists' Club incident.  Gris needs a doctor, operating room, and surveillance equipment.  And so on.  The introduction promises aliens invading Earth, and we get six hundred pages of a guy packing for a trip.

And all of this happens for two reasons: firstly, that Jettero Heller doesn't follow orders.  The Apparatus just can't tell him to get on the prepared mission ship and leave already.  For a military man, Heller seems to do his own thing regardless of what anyone else wants.  You'd think at some point the Apparatus would appeal to the Fleet to get Heller to cooperate, but mostly they're helpless in the face of his rugged individuality.

Secondly, Soltan Gris has to do everything himself.  There's nobody else able to rustle up vital supplies.  He can't delegate his blackmailing and schemes to get the specialists he needs to anybody else.  The Apparatus does not have a secure operating room, or a competent doctor, or the surgical bugs Gris needs to keep an eye on Heller, which is utterly inexplicable for an organization of morally-bankrupt spies trying to take over the galaxy.  Mission Earth threatens the Apparatus' survival and they leave its success entirely up to a guy who can't balance his checking account.

It's mind-boggling idiocy that serves no purpose other than to delay the plot proper.  Months and months ago, near the start of this blog, I wondered about this book's title: The Invaders Plan.  I complained that it needed an apostrophe somewhere, to make it The Invader's Plan or The Invaders' Plan.  But now I know that the title is perfectly accurate.  In the book, the invaders plan.  They scheme.  They plot.  They prepare.  And other than that they don't do much of anything.  They certainly don't accomplish much besides the much-delayed launch of a spaceship.  It's nothing but set-up to a payoff that we'll have to buy another book to enjoy.

So I guess it's the exact opposite of Battlefield Earth.  With that I complained that Hubbard had packaged a series into a single volume because he wasn't sure anyone who bought the first episode would pay for the next.  But even if you'd chopped Battlefield Earth into two or three books, it would've turned out much better than Mission Earth, because there were multiple story arcs, climaxes, and resolutions in it.  You could've ended Battlefield Earth after the human uprising and had a perfectly functional, if flawed, sci-fi story.  Sure, the sequels would have been underwhelming at best, but each entry in Battlefield Earth the Series could stand on its own.

Mission Earth: The Invaders Plan takes six hundred pages and it doesn't even get the main characters to the planet in its title.  It's a drawn-out prologue that doesn't give the reader much incentive to learn what happens next.  We're supposed to be all pumped and excited now that Gris and Heller are finally on their way, eager to see what adventures await them next.  I don't know about you, but I mostly feel tired.  If someone had picked up the book eager to see an alien invasion of Earth, I bet they'd be feeling pretty cheated at the end of The Invaders Plan, and not too eager to spend any more money on the series.

Really, if it took this much trouble and this many pages to get the main characters off the starting planet, what can we look forward to on Earth?  A section trapped in traffic?  Gris trying to get a bank loan?  Heller refusing to leave a hotel because it has a nice pool and free cable?  And all this is assuming they even reach Earth before the end of Black Genesis.  For all I know the next book could be nothing but meteor showers and engine failures and cooking disasters in the Prince Caucalsia's mess hall.  If this book was any indication, Black Genesis will end with them finally arriving in orbit over Earth, with an order to buy the next installment in the series to see how long it will take for them to land.

I really hope I'm wrong about this.


Back to Part Eleven, Chapter Nine

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