Fear and Typewriter in the Sky by L. Ron Hubbard
"Fear and Typewriter in the Sky" is a narrative that intertwines themes of existential inquiry and the blurred lines between reality and fiction. In "Fear," Professor James Lowry, an ethnologist, grapples with a troubling four-hour memory gap that coincides with his impending dismissal due to his controversial views on the existence of supernatural entities. His mental descent into paranoia raises questions about the nature of fear, belief, and the human experience, ultimately leading to a crisis of faith in both science and religion.
Conversely, "Typewriter in the Sky" follows the story of Horace Hackett, a struggling writer who, while attempting to create a plot for his new novel, inadvertently transports his friend Mike de Wolf into the narrative as a character. Mike's journey as he navigates a historical adventure set in the 1640s reveals a unique exploration of authorship and narrative control, as he attempts to alter his predetermined role within the story. This dual narrative structure allows for a rich examination of how individuals confront their own fears and desires, both within the realm of reality and fiction. Together, these stories provide a thought-provoking exploration of the complexities of the human psyche and the power of storytelling.
Fear and Typewriter in the Sky
First published: 1951 (bound together; both first appeared in Unknown, 1940)
Type of work: Novels
Type of plot: Fantasy—inner space
Time of work: The 1930s, with flashbacks, and primarily 1640, with flashbacks and flashforwards
Locale: A college town, and New York City and the Caribbean
The Plot
Fear concerns the efforts of Professor James Lowry, an ethnologist at a small college, to discover what happened during four hours for which he cannot account. After returning from one of his many field trips from the Yucatán with a recurring case of malaria, Lowry learns that he is to be fired. The cause of his dismissal is a newspaper article in which he discounted the existence of devils and demons, and thereby Christianity, calling them fabrications of witch doctors who wanted both to instill fear in their followers and to control them. Shortly after his return, he realizes that he cannot account for four hours of his life.
Tension is maintained throughout the story by the question of what caused the loss of the four hours. It may have been the shock of losing his job, coupled with his tendency to suffer malarial relapses; alternatively, devils and demons may have extracted payment for his hubris in scientifically discounting them. Both his wife and his best friend attempt to calm Lowry and ease his troubled spirit, but dark phantasms of the mind embroil Lowry in ever deepening eddies of paranoia that eventually incorporate others.
As Lowry’s relationship to reality becomes more tenuous, his belief in devils and demons undergoes a significant reversal. He lectures his college class about the inability of science to answer some of the human races more important questions. This almost religious conversion, which leads him into a nightmarish mental dialogue with numerous unseen entities, provides the foundation for an otherwise bizarre and horrifying ending.
Typewriter in the Sky opens in the Greenwich Village basement apartment of Horace Hackett, a writer of popular melodramas. Hackett, who has spent his advance on revelry without having so much as a rough draft outlined for his publisher, is trying to convince his publisher, Jules Montcalm, that he will meet the deadline. Also present is Hacketts friend, Mike de Wolf.
As Montcalm presses Hackett for at least a plot for the story, titled “Blood and Loot,” Hackett sheepishly constructs a swashbuckling adventure of derring-do and romance. Montcalm, unsatisfied, wants to know who the villain is. Hackett, who has been extemporizing all along, points to his friend, Mike, and describes the villain as being exactly like him.
Mike finds himself transported back to the 1640s, washed up on the shores of a Caribbean island. He has taken on the persona of Spanish fleet admiral Miguel Saint Raoul de Lobo. Mike realizes that he is a character in “Blood and Loot” and that he can hear Hackett’s typewriter banging away somewhere up in the sky. Adjusting himself quickly to these unusual circumstances, Mike proves to be more of a character than Hackett anticipates, especially when he falls in love with the heroine, the beautiful Lady Marion. Knowing that he is cast in the role of the villain and that the hero, Captain Bristol, is destined to win the hand of the fair Lady Marion, Mike decides to see if he can change the clichéd plot to something that ends more in his favor.