Typewriter in the Sky

L. Ron Hubbard

Mike de Wolf is planning on attending an audition the next day. But this evening he is at home with his roommate and his roommate's editor. Horace Hackett churns out novels at this time in the 1940's America. He has promised a novel that is due in a few weeks. He has spent the advance. He has not written a word. He starts spinning the story for his editor. He looks at Mike and decides his friend would be a great pirate villain.

Mike needs to change a light bulb. He falls electrocutes himself, and vanishes. When he wakes up, he is in the Caribbean a few hundred years earlier. After a period of confusion, he finally realizes he is now Horace's book character. When Mike concentrates, he can hear the far off sound of a typewriter. And he is the bad guy! Horace's bad guys always die in the end. He has to figure a way to either change into a hero or , preferably, get out of the book before Horace ends.

L. Ron Hubbard was already writing during the 40's and was able to bring the pressures of writing the rote turned-out-regularly novel to life. (It was during this time this book was written.) This is a fun book, showing Hubbard's early wit and imagination. Long before he got into scientology, he was writing great science fiction. This one is a gem, and still makes me laugh even upon re-reading.