Mission Earth - The Invaders Plan Pt. 3

Mission Earth Pt. 3 When Krak Attacks

“In my room, Heller got my clothes off me and put me in the bath and when he had the mesh washed away he got me into bed.”

(beginning of chapter 4, when I read that I was sure I was reading gay erotica)

        Every time I felt like reading something my hand would pass over this book and it started to tremble a little.  Needless to say every time I felt like reading I played video games or goofed off on the internet for a little while instead.  That’s how bad the last part of this book was.  With that said I was shocked when I found out how easy this 100 pages was to read.

There’s a lot of reasons why I struggled so much with the first 100 pages, poorly conceived characters, bull(bleep) technology, juvenile writing, bad narration, but the biggest reason I had so much trouble was that nothing was happening.  That’s changed quite a bit now.  When I picked up the book again I was expecting the same ole (bleep) but instead Hubbard chose to focus more on the characters this time and while they’re still poorly conceived(all of them, there are no exceptions) it grabbed my attention enough to actually enjoy what I was reading for a while.

Once again Jettero Heller is more immaculate than Jesus himself as he fraternizes with guards, flirts with inmates, impossibly maps the prison, and wins a fixed game of dice(another Hubbard invented Voltarian game).  I feel that this statement might contradict itself, but Jettero Heller’s flawlessness makes him a very flawed character.  It’s just very aggravating and tiring and gets worse the more I read.  No character I’ve ever read in any other book fails to make mistakes, always says or does the right things, or never comes into conflict with anyone.  Is this what Hubbard meant when he said satire?  There’s a reason I’ve never read a book or story with a character like Heller, anyone reading it would become uninterested and stop reading.  I feel like a broken record here but every time Heller is presented with a challenge or problem I know he’s going to glide through it without so much as a bump in the road.

As we start with this part Jettero has charmed the platoon commandant, Snelz, and they’re chatting and eating sweet buns and drinking sparkle water(I figure it champagne in this world).  Next it’s off to Countess Krak(god I feel like giggling every time I have to write that name) supposedly to learn earth languages and how to be a better spy.  Countess Krak was briefly introduced last time but gets elaborated on more now.  While Countess Krak was a school teacher she trained children to be assassin thieves.  Countess Krak possesses an uncanny ability to train people.  Kind of a lame super power but if I was to create a superhero(or villian) named Countess Crack her superpower would be every time she saw someone with low riding underwear or visible cracks she could mysteriously give them a wedgie.

Instead of take the elevator(or tubes) Heller insists they walk all the way to Krak’s training room.  Using the soles of his clunky boots and his watch he’s able to map out the entire complex that goes from the depths of the earth to the clouds in the sky.  Now let’s focus on why he does this.  I HAVE NO (BLEEPING) CLUE!!!  Trust me after I read this I pondered this for a while and every scenario I came up with didn’t make any logical sense.  I figured it might be foreshadowing an escape but it turns out this scene was just written to display Hubbard’s love for Jettero Heller.  He even tells Soltan he knew when the temperature dropped half a degree and I’m sure not even the most hypersensitive animal can feel that.

Inside Krak’s training room(that sounds like an all-male bathhouse) she’s yelling and whipping apparatus agents as they flee for their lives from both her and a large angry catlike animal.  This is a really bad and confusing transition.  Just to get idea of what I’m talking about one minute we’re outside with Heller and Gris talking about how he mapped the entire prison using just his boots, watch, and a hypersensitivity to temperature change, and the next we’re inside Krak’s training room where all hell is breaking loose.  I haven’t read a transition this bad since The Dresden Files Blood Rites where the book starts off with him running from flying poop throwing monkeys with no explanation of what he’s doing or why he’s there.  I guess Hubbard was trying to establish Countess Krak as a strong, independent, woman before he turned her into a stupid, drooling, love struck, slut by the time she meets Heller.

Countess Krak runs a circus and freak show for the apparatus and Lombar Hiist sent her lepertige that’s been declawed.  She explains that is more difficult to train injured animals and tells them to tell their boss if he sends her another damaged animal she’ll train it to kill him.  Countess Krak is described as a beautiful but deadly and extremely temperamental woman and yet Jettero Heller manages to charm without the slightest of difficulty, big surprise.  I don’t know why he’s so attracted to her after all his first impression of her she’s yelling, tossing guys around, and threatening people not to mention she’s in prison for training young children how to kill for her.  Does that sound like someone you’d want to take home to meet your mom?  This romance seems even more plotted and ludicrous when you consider Heller is a marine and hero.  That’s like Captain America shacking up with the Black Widow.  Once again is this the satire Hubbard was talking about?  If so it’s not very clever.

Heller woos her with the oldest line in the world(the book even says this as he asks why a beautiful thing like her is doing in a place like this.  I don’t know women at all but has that seriously ever worked?!) and actually succeeds as she breaks down crying for no reason.  From this point on Countess Krak will make up any flimsy excuse to see Heller. 

The next time we see her she’s cleaning up her dingy training room so she can impress Heller.  When Sultan Gris sits on a chair she’s assigned for Heller she freaks and jerks him out of the chair.  We also see a personality shift in Countess Krak, rather than beat and berate her servants she’s patient, understanding, and polite.

So in the small amount of time since she’s met Jettero Heller she’s gone from an antisocial, psychotic, dominatrix to a blubbering, diplomatic, matron.  I’ve never seen a character take such a dramatic change so quickly.  This must be another example of Hubbard’s misplaced idea of satire but at least she’s a fun character and her presence throughout this part makes the pages fly by a little faster.

At this point it should be obvious that Countess Krak and Jettero Heller start an artificial and forced romance.  Because she’s still a prisoner she has to smuggle herself in boxes up to Gris’ room.  The book isn’t clear about this but I believe they’re having sex because they ask Gris to excuse himself.  Sultan Gris takes this time to dig up dirt on Heller and finds that not only is he rich but has a weakness for gambling and yep you guessed it he never loses.

In an effort to financially break Heller Gris acquires some fixed dice and the help of Snelz.  It’s believed by Soltan Gris if Heller has no money to bride guards to bring up Krak every night he’ll be more likely to immerse himself in mission earth.  As soon as this plan was hatched I knew it was going to fail and here’s why: it’s Sultan Gris’ idea and even though he’s got a surefire way to win it was destined to fail simply because he’s Soltan Gris, it’s a plan from an entirely flawed character against a godlike one of course it’s going to fail, this book has become painfully predictable.

I’m not one of those smug jackasses who always says they saw the plot twist or ending coming but this book has become more see thru than a ziplock bag.  Snelz agrees to help(but only because Gris threatens to kill him) and Soltan advances a year’s pay of 5,000 credits.  Gris is unable to watch as he is summoned by the geneticist Lombar Hisst ordered them to go to so they could breath,  move, and look more like humans.  Soltan Gris has been avoiding him because for some reason every time he’s around him he gets violently ill.  Professor Crobe threatens to tell Hisst about Gris avoiding him unless he bribes him 200 credits.

      When Gris gets back somehow Snelz has lost every bit of his money.  Heller offers to let Snelz have it back but he refuses.  The next time we see Gris he’s on a mountain contemplating suicide when Snelz shows up, now he’s contemplating a murder/suicide.  I can’t say I blame him either Snelz shows up like nothing’s wrong is chatty, pleasant, and jovial.  If someone lost $5,000 of my own money and came over to me like nothing happen I’d toss their dumbass right over that (bleeping) cliff.

        Snelz explains to Gris the reason the dice failed was because the gel inside them melted every time they threw the dice so the ball bearings wouldn’t stay in place.  He offers Gris 10 credits he had someone snatch from someone else and that give Gris just enough money to bribe Crobe.  Thus ends part 4.

I know I’m being generous here but I score this 80 –B.  I was and still am surprised how quickly this 100 pages went by.  That’s not to say it’s still bad.  The writing is still very poor and clichéd at times, nothing interesting happens to the uninteresting characters, and no matter what everything always goes Jettero Heller’s way.  Because of all these things, but in particular the last one, this book is still bland, boring, and predictable.   Also I was hoping by the time I got this far in the book they might already be on earth.  At this pace I doubt they’re going to get there by the end of this book.