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    One Was Stubborn
    One Was Stubborn
    One Was Stubborn
    Audiobook2 hours

    One Was Stubborn

    Written by L. Ron Hubbard

    Narrated by R.F. Daley

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    Things are disappearing. Parts of buildings, parts of people, parts of the whole world-they’re here today, gone tomorrow. Old Shellback-a character as crazy-smart as Christopher Lloyd in Back to the Future-thinks he needs glasses. But all he really has to do is open his eyes . . . and see the light.

    Or so says George Smiley-otherwise known as the Messiah. George claims that the reason things are vanishing is because he wants them to go away. He has no more use for the world . . . and so it goes. Say goodbye. But Old Shellback has a different idea, and since he is the most stubborn man in the universe, you might want to hear him out.

    What’s Shellback’s idea? That two can play at this game. While George is making this world disappear, Old Shellback will make another one appear. Join him on an amazing odyssey-as he heads back to a future of his own making.

    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 a genre that was new, and essentially foreign, to him-science fiction and fantasy. The rest is Sci-Fi history.

    Also includes the Science Fiction adventures, A Can of Vacuum, in which a practical joke on a space station proves that a good sense of humor is timeless, and 240,000 Miles Straight Up, the thrilling story of a race to the moon . . . and the one man who may be able to save the earth from Armageddon.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGalaxy Press
    Release dateMar 21, 2014
    ISBN9781592125074
    Author

    L. Ron Hubbard

    With 19 New York Times bestsellers and more than 350 million copies of his works in circulation, L. Ron Hubbard is among the most enduring and widely read authors of our time. As a leading light of American Pulp Fiction through the 1930s and '40s, he is further among the most influential authors of the modern age. Indeed, from Ray Bradbury to Stephen King, there is scarcely a master of imaginative tales who has not paid tribute to L. Ron Hubbard. Then too, of course, there is all L. Ron Hubbard represents as the Founder of Dianetics and Scientology and thus the only major religion born in the 20th century.

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    Reviews for One Was Stubborn

    3.5/5

    42 ratings17 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      ONE WAS STUBBORN is a collection of three short stories, the title piece plus A CAN OF VACUUM and 240,000 MILES STRAIGHT UP. All three are pulp fiction stories, like the majority of what Mr. Hubbard wrote, and as such should not be taken too much to heart. Sit back, relax, read for a while, and then set the piece aside and forget about it. There is nothing here to shake up your day.The title piece is about an old man who finds the Devil trying to destroy mankind by having the latter stop believing in the existence of everything, including the individual.VACUUM is a product of Mr. Hubbard’s military career where practical jokes are rampant, only this time the joke is on the jokester.Finally STRAIGHT UP is about the space race and the consequence of a very militant Russia secretly landing on the moon first and using it as the military high ground in an epic blackmail scheme.All are nicely written short pieces that, when compared to his best writing, seem a bit lackluster. Still, if you want to kill a couple of hours, these stories will fit the bill nicely.
    • 3/5
      Classic Sci-Fi with very good voice acting. L. Ron Hubbard is a great in the field. One of the stories was really very funny because of the assumptions that were made by the author on the power a nation would wield by being the first to the moon. I wish that more audio books would adopt the multiple cast approach to voice acting.
    • 3/5
      Interesting look at a bygone era in science fiction writing. Funny... some intentional and some not. Works originally published in the 1930's and '40's, these short stories provide insight into the ideas taking hold at the time. Good for some laughs.
    • 2/5
      I received a free copy of this CD set from the LIbraryThing Early Reviewers in exchange for an honest review. Dated technology, couldn't get into the stories. Don't recommend.
    • 3/5
      This CD set is a package of three stories: One Was Stubborn, A Can of Vacuum, and 240,000 Miles Straight Up.This is my least favorite of the various Galaxy Press releases I have received so far. One Was Stubborn is a time-travel novella that is basically just a long lead-up to a clever plot twist. That's OK, but the voice the actor chose to use grated on me and I didn't like the presentation at all.A Can of Vacuum and 240,000 Miles Straight Up are straight SF presentations. Vacuum is the tale of a space navy practical joke – very similar to pulp fiction stories set in military academies and prep schools. Straight Up is an early version of the space race.Hubbard's three space stories do not hold up as the stories set in Europe or Africa.We can imagine that Galaxy Press, publishers of these dramatizations, is a Scientologist outfit, but there is nothing that points directly to a link.I received the Galaxy Press audio dramatization of Under the Black Ensign (Stories from the Golden Age) by L. Ron Hubbard through Librarything.com. We can imagine that Galaxy Press, publishers of these dramatizations, is a Scientologist outfit, but there is nothing that points directly to a link.I received the Galaxy Press audio dramatization of Under the Black Ensign (Stories from the Golden Age) by L. Ron Hubbard through Librarything.com.
    • 3/5
      The audio drama was excellent. I just could not get into the story.
    • 4/5
      Another great CD adventure from L Ron Hubbard. It features a great story and cast and sweeps you away into another time and land. A great wst yo spend a couple of hours.
    • 3/5
      Multicast performance with music and sound effects. The production values were of the same high quality as others in the series. The three tales were all enjoyable, but felt very dated in both the technology, dialog and attitudes of the characters.
    • 3/5
      Overall I thought this audiobook was good. The story was very interesting, unique, and engaging. I enjoy listening to it but the story was not perfect. I thought the beginng was confusing I wasnt sure if he (Shellback) was in the future or in his present time or where the story starts and the ending was a bit of a very fast let down as well, I thought. What I mean by this is I think there was more story that could have been told but wasnt, so that was frustrating to me because as I said above it was a good story with lots of potential. The characters were good some were less developed than others and as I said above I think more could have been done with this story which that includes character development. Even though I think George Smiley is supposed to be the bad guy I would of like to have known how he got to this position of "messiah" or what happens to Shellback after the ending. Shellback was a very likeable character and you are rooting for him to beat the bad guy but I feel like his character who is given a great gift really goes nowhere. The other short stories were good as well but I really liked the main story the best. Narration: The narration was very good. I would have said great but the one character I think is a little mumbly at times and hard to understand in the beginning. Other than that however the narration was great. Everyone was animated and performed well. All the sound effects were well placed and appropriate as well as the music. It really felt like you were listening to one of those old time audio dramas and it was very fun and engaging to listen to.My final verdict: Despite the few issues I have with this audiobook I would reccomend it. Its an enjoyable and interesting listen. Another thing about these stories that make them worth a listen is that you can actually imagine these things happening because they are so vivid. Another plus about this audiobook is you get three stories on one audiobook for one price!
    • 5/5
      This book is one that I didn't expect to be as good as it turned out.A stubborn, irritating, old man decided he was going to question God. With all of his questioning, he ended up punished in exile with one other man. They didn't understand it be there was no food, drink or even surroundings. It was all plain.When they figure out how to maintain their sanity, it vanishes again.There is more to the story than that, but it's a really great book, either in print or in audio! It's seems easier for me to listen to audio as I'm constantly working.I did receive this through the Library Things giveaway. Thank you and love it!
    • 4/5
      This was a free offering from LibraryThing. No complaints about the price there.The books were fine for what they were, but not worth the price if I had to purchase them (currently about $10 on Amazon).The only complaint was one of the voices in the first book (One Was Stubborn) was very "mumbly" and difficult to understand. I had to back the track up and turn up the volume. I would say if one is to use multiple voice actors for an audio book the voice actors ought to be easy to listen to. There's my two cents.
    • 2/5
      It takes two and a half hours to listen to all three stories in the two CDs. Pulp fiction was writing published on cheap paper for a reason. Those stories were not supposed to be deep or intellectual, they just entertained you for a while. The more reading time you got out of it, the better.That’s the shortcoming of this audiobook. The stories are real pulp fiction, and they don’t shine with the genius of the rare gems of the genre that are worth pulling from the stack and immortalizing. Since these stories have ordinary entertainment value, I’d expect lot of them for the price, say, eight or more hours of pleasant distraction from a long road trip.“One Was Stubborn” is the first of the three stories. It has an unsophisticated mind-over-matter theme that would have special appeal only to someone looking for roots of Hubbard’s religious leanings. The second story is a “Space Navy” yarn that would make a decent half hour TV screen play, and the third story relies only on gimmicks like Cold War angst to do the job. It would be a better offering printed on pulp and sold by the inch.
    • 3/5
      I received a copy of this as a free audio book through LibraryThing Early Reviewers, I was not impressed as much with this L. Ron Hubbard title as I have been with others. I liked that this title was actually three small stories. The second story titled A Can of Vacuum was actually the best story. It was intriguing and fun to listen to. One Was Stubborn I found to be very confusing and didn't make much sense. I wouldn't advise anyone to listen to this if it is their introduction to the Stories from the Golden Age, but if they like sci-fi I would encourage them to have a listen after experiencing other L. Ron Hubbard stories.
    • 2/5
      This book was very disappointing. I usually enjoy L. Ron Hubbard and his fun yet simple stories. This book was not very interesting and I really just did not like the plot. I wish I could say otherwise but I really can't recommend this book. The other books by this author are much better.
    • 5/5
      I received a copy of this as a free audio book through LibraryThing Early Reviewers in exchange for an honest review. This book has a science fiction theme very different from the author’s stories from the Golden Age that I’ve previously read. This book consisted of three short stories all with a futuristic science fiction theme. The audio enhancements and the radio play performances of the narrators really added a great deal to each of the stories. As always another very enjoyable book by L. Ron Hubbard with fantastic sound effects and appropriate voices.
    • 4/5
      If you can put aside what L Ron Hubbard is most closely associated with now and keep in mind the age of these stories, this short anthology is quite enjoyable. I was lucky enough to get the audio book version through an Early Review Copy and the performance added to the enjoyment of the stories.Originally written in the early 1940’s, One Was Stubborn misses the mark for a lot of predictions of what the future was to bring. The performance of this story was enhanced by the radio-play style that also had audio comedy reminiscent of a performance by Firesign Theatre. If you need to ask who they are, that point may be lost on you, but it is indeed a compliment. I also found the treatment of religion in this work eerily similar to the Philip K Dick classic, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. This ended up steering my mind back to what I was trying to forget about the author, but the roots are unmistakable. Very good story and an excellent performance.A Can of Vacuum was a mediocre story saved by a better than average performance. Written in the very late 1940’s, it takes a poke at a hazing of new military personnel when the old guard does not realize the new recruit may very well be the real thing.The final story, 240,000 Straight Up also comes from the late 1940’s and is based in the very early years of the Cold War. Once again, the military is at the pointed end of this satire and you can feel the political climate of the times very clearly throughout the story. A little better than the previous story, but nowhere nearly as enjoyable as opening story or performance.I’m coming in a little high on this because of the audio quality and the radio play quality of the stories as performed. Quite a difference from the typical narrated book and very much appreciated. The stories themselves are above average, but not really gripping, but I appreciated the view into the past offered by the opening story. Putting it all together, I’m stretching a little and giving this collection four stars.PSAfter writing this review, I found that Mr. Phil Proctor was indeed part of the performing cast!
    • 3/5
      This story is part science fiction and part religious allegory. It is about the last human survivor after mankind commits existential suicide by abandoning matter. As with much of Hubbard there are multiple levels of meaning to unravel. The story was clearly ahead of its time. The theme is that technology has advanced to such a level that humans lose the desire to create and thus cease being human. The main character is a cantankerous stubborn old man who clings to humanity. Still, there is something cartoonish about the characters and confrontations. In the end, it is does not satisfy as a story. Unless the allegory moves you, this is not worth the effort. The production is first rate, more like a radio production of a play than a narration.