Fear by L. Ron Hubbard

"The state of being 'grown up' was a state beset by as many worries, and just as false, as those of childhood." - from Fear by L. Ron Hubbard

Fear is a psychological thriller-horror novella written by L. Ron Hubbard in 1940. Soon after a university professor writes an article mocking the existence of devils, demons, and other superstitions, he loses four hours out of his day. He also loses his hat. He starts meeting strange figures and he starts seeing something out of the corner of his eye. He’s warned that if he finds his hat, he’ll find his four hours, but if he finds his four hours he’ll die.

I had never taken L. Ron Hubbard seriously enough to want to read any of his work, but then as I was re-reading Harlan Ellison’s introduction to Angry Candy, I came across a quote where he talks about Hubbard after his death:

“...and despite the looneytunes scene his Dianetics and Scientology had become, he was always still just Ron Hubbard, who’d written To the Stars and Final Blackout and Fear and Typewriter in the Sky and Slaves of Sleep, all of which great pulp fiction I can still still reread with pleasure…”

I looked up more information about the book. It turns out that Fear is considered a pioneer of modern psychological thrillers. Authors who have praised it include Robert Silverberg, Algis Budrys, Robert Bloch, Ray Bradbury, and Stephen King.

So I decided to give it a try and I enjoyed it. It’s atmospheric and creepy in a pulpy way. Some parts felt like an episode of the Twilight Zone, other parts felt like an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. The ending hits hard. It puts something that kept coming up throughout the book in a new perspective. While it has a great ending it took a little too long to get there. I think it would have worked better as a short story. 

L. Ron Hubbard had quite the writing career before Dianetics and Scientology. He wrote science fiction, horror, westerns, mystery, and adventure. I liked Fear enough that I’ll check out the other books Ellison mentioned. 

Addendum:

The black and white artwork above is by Edd Cartier. It's from the July 1940 issue of Unknown Fantasy Fiction in which Fear was first published.