Typewriter in the Sky
Encyclopedia
Typewriter in the Sky is a science fiction
novel
written by Scientology
founder L. Ron Hubbard
. The protagonist Mike de Wolf finds himself inside the story of his friend's book. He must survive conflict on the high seas in the Caribbean
during the 17th century, before eventually returning to his native New York
. Each time a significant event occurs to the protagonist in the story he hears the sounds of a typewriter in the sky. At the story's conclusion, de Wolf wonders if he is still a character in someone else's story. The work was first published in a two-part serial format in 1940 in Unknown Fantasy Fiction
. It was twice published as a combined book with Hubbard's work Fear. In 1995 Bridge Publications
re-released the work along with an audio edition.
Typewriter in the Sky was well-received. The Philadelphia Inquirer
called it "swashbuckling fun", and John Clute and John Grant in The Encyclopedia of Fantasy characterized the work as the best of Hubbard's stories from the Arabian-fantasy theme. Writers have compared plot points from the 1951 science fiction book What Mad Universe
by Fredric Brown
and the 2006 film Stranger than Fiction by Zach Helm
to Hubbard's tale.
in New York
. His friend, Horace Hackett, is an author and popular pulp fiction
writer, who writes about Mike as the villain in his book, a swashbuckling adventure story. The story begins in Hackett's basement-level apartment in Greenwich Village
. Mike enters the bathroom of Hackett's apartment, and hears the sound of someone typing on a typewriter. After electrocuting himself, Mike loses consciousness
. He subsequently awakens to find himself on a beach in the year 1640, as a character within his friend's novel.
Mike learns he is regarded in this world as the villain, Spanish Admiral Miguel de Lobo, a "pirate potboiler". He knows that the villains in stories written by Hackett often do not come to a favorable end, and is therefore eager to safely leave the realm to which he was transported. Mike recognizes the specific work into which he has been transported: "he had no doubt at this was 'Blood and Loot', by Horace, and that the whole panorama was activated only by Horace's mind. And what Horace said was so, was so. And what Horace said people said, they said."
The story takes place on the high seas in the Caribbean
during the 17th century with a conflict among colonists. When a major event occurs, Mike hears the sound of a typewriter in the sky. Mike's reality literally changes each time the author makes a change to the story. Hackett writes under pressure, as he is facing a deadline. He falls in love with a woman in the story, but grows frustrated after realizing that she is just another of Hackett's fictional creations. At the end of the work, Mike returns to New York, but questions whether he is still a character in someone else's story. He muses whether or not there exists a "typewriter in the sky", which is in effect creating the world. Mike looks up into the sky in search of this mystical device or its controller, "Abruptly Mike de Wolfe stopped. His jaw slackened a trifle and his hand went up to his mouth to cover it. His eyes were fixed upon the fleecy clouds which scurried across the moon. Up there – God? In a dirty bathrobe?"
. In 1951 it was published by Gnome Press
as a combined work with Hubbard's Fear, and again in 1977 as Fear & Typewriter in the Sky, published by Popular Library. In the UK, the combined work was first published in 1952 as number 409 in the Cherry Tree Book series by Kemsley Newspapers Limited. Typewriter in the Sky was republished in 1995 by Bridge Publications
, along with an audio edition read by Jim Meskimen
. In 2008 Heritage Auctions, Inc. valued a rare combined copy of Typewriter in the Sky and Fear at between US$
100 and $200.
are categorized among classics in science fiction
. In his book The Witching Hour, author James Gunn
placed Typewriter in the Sky among "classics" in science fiction published in Unknown. Francis Hamit of Daily News of Los Angeles characterized Typewriter in the Sky and Fear as "classics" in science fiction. Roland J. Green of the Chicago Sun-Times
also described the work as a "classic". Daniel Cohen wrote in Masters of the Occult that works including Typewriter in the Sky, Fear, and Slaves of Sleep "moved Hubbard into the front rank of science fiction writers of the late 1940s." Writing in Dream makers: The Uncommon Men and Women Who Write Science Fiction, Charles Platt called the book, "one of Hubbard's most well-known and playful pieces". The St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture described Typewriter in the Sky and Fear as Hubbard's "most famous stories" in the genre of science fiction.
In the book Resnick at Large, authors Mike Resnick and Robert J. Sawyer cited Typewriter in the Sky as an example of the subgenre of science fiction – "Recursive Science Fiction
", described as "science fiction about science fiction". In the work, The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy: Themes, Works, and Wonders, Gary Westfahl
commented, "Recursive fantasy fiction – that is, a fantasy about writing fantasy – is scarce. Luigi Pirandello's play Six Characters in a Search of an Author (1921) offered a non-genre model." Westfahl noted that Hubbard's book was "an early genre example, perhaps inspired by Pirandello".
Typewriter in the Sky is well regarded within the genre of fantasy
; it is listed in Fantasy: The 100 Best Books, by James Cawthorn and Michael Moorcock. Robert E. Weinberg, Stefan R. Dziemianowicz, and Martin Harry Greenberg write in Rivals of Weird Tales: 30 Great Fantasy and Horror Stories from the Weird Fiction Pulps that Typewriter in the Sky is classed among stories published in Unknown which "still rank as some of the best fantasy produced in this century". Author David Wingrove noted in The Science Fiction Source Book, "His [Hubbard's] best work is outstanding within the pulp tradition: "Typewriter in the Sky" is a fine fantasy about a man who gets trapped within a story written by a pulp writer". Writing in A Short History of Fantasy, authors Farah Mendlesohn and Edward James characterized the book as "The best of Hubbard's stories" and noted that it "is better seen as a rationalized fantasy".
In their work Encyclopedia of New Age Beliefs, authors John Ankerberg and John Weldon observed, "compare Scientology
theory with L. Ron Hubbard's science-fiction works, e.g., Ole Doc Methusala, Slaves of Sleep, Death's Deputy, The Final Blackout, The Dangerous Dimension, The Tramp, Fear, King Slayer, and Typewriter in the Sky." Author Harriet Whitehead made a similar comparison in her study of Scientology, Renunciation and Reformulation: a Study of Conversion in an American Sect.
termed it "a silly idea inexpertly carried out." New York Times reviewer Villiers Gerson found Typewriter to be "an ironic and jaunty adventure story." George Malko noted in Scientology: The Now Religion
that Typewriter in the Sky was "eagerly welcomed by devoted fans". In a biography of Hubbard written by Kent State University
professor Donald M. Hassler in The New Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, he noted, "Typewriter in the Sky (1940/1951), which anticipates plot gimmicks now popular among experimental metafictionists, ought to be taken seriously by the critics who will evaluate his strange genius". Everett F. Bleiler
, however, found it to be "a routine adventure story carried through competently, with a good central idea."
Peter Haining wrote in The Classic Era of American Pulp Magazines, "Typewriter in the Sky, which first appeared in Unknown in 1940, is widely considered to be one of his best works." Michael Ashley wrote in Who's Who in Horror and Fantasy Fiction, "Typewriter in the Sky (1940) is a rollicking farce of a man written into another's story". Sandy Bauers of The Philadelphia Inquirer
called the 1995 audio publication of the work "swashbuckling fun". Janrae Frank of The Washington Post
commented, "Much of his best work of the '40s and '50s, Fear, Slaves of Sleep, Typewriter in the Sky, is written in exactly the same style and won reader polls at the time." Pulp Culture: The Art of Fiction Magazines by Frank M. Robinson and Lawrence Davidson, listed Typewriter in the Sky among Hubbard's "best work". In his biography
of the author, Bare-Faced Messiah
, Russell Miller
characterized Typewriter in the Sky as one of Hubbard's works which "would come to be regarded as classics", along with Fear and Final Blackout. Damon Knight
gave the book a mixed review, commenting, "The problem [of how de Wolf can 'change the story and avert his doom'] is a tough one, and Hubbard does not so much solve it as slide around it.... This weakness is more than compensated for by the ending of the story itself – Three immortal lines".
(1949), Paul Di Filippo of Sci Fi Weekly posits that the book's author Fredric Brown
may have been influenced by Hubbard's story. Gary Westfahl
quoted Hubbard's work in a book of noteworthy science fiction quotations. In a fictional recounting of Hubbard's accomplishments, followers of Scientology cite Typewriter in the Sky among works which "inspired millions", in the Obie Award
-winning satirical
musical
written by Kyle Jarrow
, A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant
. In the book Harlan Ellison's Watching
, by Harlan Ellison
, Typewriter in the Sky is compared to Purple Rose of Cairo, "I bet if L. Ron Hubbard had written Purple Rose of Cairo they'd have given it a Hugo ... I mean, it is sort of a hip, updated version of Typewriter in the Sky."
Writing for Locus Online, Gary Westfahl compared the screenplay of the 2006 film Stranger than Fiction to Hubbard's story, and commented, "In taking its premise into this unlikely territory, the film provides a fascinating contrast to a classic fantasy novella with a similar theme, L. Ron Hubbard's 'Typewriter in the Sky' (1940). A lawsuit alleging that screenwriter Zach Helm improperly stole his story from Hubbard could accurately state that both works have the same basic plot." In a review of Stranger than Fiction for Cinematical, Jette Kernion also compared the film's plot to Hubbard's story, noting that the two stories share "some strikingly similar plot elements".
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
written by Scientology
Scientology
Scientology is a body of beliefs and related practices created by science fiction and fantasy author L. Ron Hubbard , starting in 1952, as a successor to his earlier self-help system, Dianetics...
founder L. Ron Hubbard
L. Ron Hubbard
Lafayette Ronald Hubbard , better known as L. Ron Hubbard , was an American pulp fiction author and religious leader who founded the Church of Scientology...
. The protagonist Mike de Wolf finds himself inside the story of his friend's book. He must survive conflict on the high seas in the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
during the 17th century, before eventually returning to his native New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. Each time a significant event occurs to the protagonist in the story he hears the sounds of a typewriter in the sky. At the story's conclusion, de Wolf wonders if he is still a character in someone else's story. The work was first published in a two-part serial format in 1940 in Unknown Fantasy Fiction
Unknown (magazine)
Unknown was an American pulp fantasy fiction magazine, published from 1939 to 1943 by Street & Smith, and edited by John W. Campbell. Unknown was a companion to Street & Smith's science fiction pulp, Astounding Science Fiction, which was also edited by Campbell at the time; many authors and...
. It was twice published as a combined book with Hubbard's work Fear. In 1995 Bridge Publications
Bridge Publications (Scientology)
Bridge Publications, Inc. is a Californian 501 non-profit corporation. It is based in Los Angeles, California, and is the Church of Scientology's North American publishing corporation. It publishes the Scientology and nonfiction works of L. Ron Hubbard...
re-released the work along with an audio edition.
Typewriter in the Sky was well-received. The Philadelphia Inquirer
The Philadelphia Inquirer
The Philadelphia Inquirer is a morning daily newspaper that serves the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, metropolitan area of the United States. The newspaper was founded by John R. Walker and John Norvell in June 1829 as The Pennsylvania Inquirer and is the third-oldest surviving daily newspaper in the...
called it "swashbuckling fun", and John Clute and John Grant in The Encyclopedia of Fantasy characterized the work as the best of Hubbard's stories from the Arabian-fantasy theme. Writers have compared plot points from the 1951 science fiction book What Mad Universe
What Mad Universe
What Mad Universe is a science-fiction novel, written in 1949 by the American author, Fredric Brown.-Synopsis:Keith Winton is a journalist for a science-fiction review. With his glamorous co-worker girlfriend, Betty, he visits his friends one day in their elegant estate in the Catskills,...
by Fredric Brown
Fredric Brown
Fredric Brown was an American science fiction and mystery writer. He was born in Cincinnati.He had two sons: James Ross Brown and Linn Lewis Brown ....
and the 2006 film Stranger than Fiction by Zach Helm
Zach Helm
Zachariah "Zach" Helm is an American writer and film director. He is an alumnus of DePaul University.As a playwright Helm has had two plays produced; Last Chance for a Slow Dance and Good Canary, the latter having its 2007 world premiere in Paris under the direction of John Malkovich...
to Hubbard's tale.
Plot
The main character, Mike de Wolf, is a struggling pianistPianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...
in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. His friend, Horace Hackett, is an author and popular pulp fiction
Pulp magazine
Pulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...
writer, who writes about Mike as the villain in his book, a swashbuckling adventure story. The story begins in Hackett's basement-level apartment in Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
. Mike enters the bathroom of Hackett's apartment, and hears the sound of someone typing on a typewriter. After electrocuting himself, Mike loses consciousness
Consciousness
Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...
. He subsequently awakens to find himself on a beach in the year 1640, as a character within his friend's novel.
Mike learns he is regarded in this world as the villain, Spanish Admiral Miguel de Lobo, a "pirate potboiler". He knows that the villains in stories written by Hackett often do not come to a favorable end, and is therefore eager to safely leave the realm to which he was transported. Mike recognizes the specific work into which he has been transported: "he had no doubt at this was 'Blood and Loot', by Horace, and that the whole panorama was activated only by Horace's mind. And what Horace said was so, was so. And what Horace said people said, they said."
The story takes place on the high seas in the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
during the 17th century with a conflict among colonists. When a major event occurs, Mike hears the sound of a typewriter in the sky. Mike's reality literally changes each time the author makes a change to the story. Hackett writes under pressure, as he is facing a deadline. He falls in love with a woman in the story, but grows frustrated after realizing that she is just another of Hackett's fictional creations. At the end of the work, Mike returns to New York, but questions whether he is still a character in someone else's story. He muses whether or not there exists a "typewriter in the sky", which is in effect creating the world. Mike looks up into the sky in search of this mystical device or its controller, "Abruptly Mike de Wolfe stopped. His jaw slackened a trifle and his hand went up to his mouth to cover it. His eyes were fixed upon the fleecy clouds which scurried across the moon. Up there – God? In a dirty bathrobe?"
Publication history
Typewriter in the Sky was first published in 1940 as a two-part serial in Unknown Fantasy FictionUnknown (magazine)
Unknown was an American pulp fantasy fiction magazine, published from 1939 to 1943 by Street & Smith, and edited by John W. Campbell. Unknown was a companion to Street & Smith's science fiction pulp, Astounding Science Fiction, which was also edited by Campbell at the time; many authors and...
. In 1951 it was published by Gnome Press
Gnome Press
Gnome Press was an American small-press publishing company primarily known for publishing many science fiction classics.The company was founded in 1948 by Martin Greenberg and David A. Kyle. Many of Gnome's titles were reprinted in England by Boardman Books...
as a combined work with Hubbard's Fear, and again in 1977 as Fear & Typewriter in the Sky, published by Popular Library. In the UK, the combined work was first published in 1952 as number 409 in the Cherry Tree Book series by Kemsley Newspapers Limited. Typewriter in the Sky was republished in 1995 by Bridge Publications
Bridge Publications (Scientology)
Bridge Publications, Inc. is a Californian 501 non-profit corporation. It is based in Los Angeles, California, and is the Church of Scientology's North American publishing corporation. It publishes the Scientology and nonfiction works of L. Ron Hubbard...
, along with an audio edition read by Jim Meskimen
Jim Meskimen
Jim Ross Meskimen is an American comedian and actor, perhaps best known for his work on the improvisation show Whose Line Is It Anyway? and as the voice of President George W. Bush and other politicians for the internet Jib Jab animated shorts...
. In 2008 Heritage Auctions, Inc. valued a rare combined copy of Typewriter in the Sky and Fear at between US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
100 and $200.
Genres
In the biographical entry on L. Ron Hubbard in The Houghton Mifflin Dictionary of Biography, Typewriter in the Sky and Slaves of SleepSlaves of Sleep
Slaves of Sleep is a science fiction novel by author L. Ron Hubbard. It was first published in book form in 1948 by Shasta Publishers; the novel originally appeared in 1939 in an issue of the magazine Unknown. The novel presents a story in which a man travels to a parallel universe ruled by Ifrits...
are categorized among classics in science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
. In his book The Witching Hour, author James Gunn
James Gunn (author)
- Further reading :James E. Gunn The Listeners, BenBella Books, ISBN 1-932100-12-1 -External links:*...
placed Typewriter in the Sky among "classics" in science fiction published in Unknown. Francis Hamit of Daily News of Los Angeles characterized Typewriter in the Sky and Fear as "classics" in science fiction. Roland J. Green of the Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
also described the work as a "classic". Daniel Cohen wrote in Masters of the Occult that works including Typewriter in the Sky, Fear, and Slaves of Sleep "moved Hubbard into the front rank of science fiction writers of the late 1940s." Writing in Dream makers: The Uncommon Men and Women Who Write Science Fiction, Charles Platt called the book, "one of Hubbard's most well-known and playful pieces". The St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture described Typewriter in the Sky and Fear as Hubbard's "most famous stories" in the genre of science fiction.
In the book Resnick at Large, authors Mike Resnick and Robert J. Sawyer cited Typewriter in the Sky as an example of the subgenre of science fiction – "Recursive Science Fiction
Recursive science fiction
Recursive science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction, which itself takes the form of an exploration of science fiction within the narrative of the story.-Analysis:...
", described as "science fiction about science fiction". In the work, The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy: Themes, Works, and Wonders, Gary Westfahl
Gary Westfahl
Gary Westfahl is a scholarly author and reviewer of science fiction. He has written reviews for the Los Angeles Times, Internet Review of Science Fiction and Locus Online. He is a professor at the University of California in Riverside....
commented, "Recursive fantasy fiction – that is, a fantasy about writing fantasy – is scarce. Luigi Pirandello's play Six Characters in a Search of an Author (1921) offered a non-genre model." Westfahl noted that Hubbard's book was "an early genre example, perhaps inspired by Pirandello".
Typewriter in the Sky is well regarded within the genre of fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
; it is listed in Fantasy: The 100 Best Books, by James Cawthorn and Michael Moorcock. Robert E. Weinberg, Stefan R. Dziemianowicz, and Martin Harry Greenberg write in Rivals of Weird Tales: 30 Great Fantasy and Horror Stories from the Weird Fiction Pulps that Typewriter in the Sky is classed among stories published in Unknown which "still rank as some of the best fantasy produced in this century". Author David Wingrove noted in The Science Fiction Source Book, "His [Hubbard's] best work is outstanding within the pulp tradition: "Typewriter in the Sky" is a fine fantasy about a man who gets trapped within a story written by a pulp writer". Writing in A Short History of Fantasy, authors Farah Mendlesohn and Edward James characterized the book as "The best of Hubbard's stories" and noted that it "is better seen as a rationalized fantasy".
Themes
Writing in The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, John Clute and John Grant characterized the work as the best of Hubbard's stories in the Arabian-fantasy theme. Authors Lionel Fanthorpe and Patricia Fanthorpe wrote in The World's Most Mysterious People that Hubbard accomplished a difficult task of writing about two different worlds at the same time, "even through the medium of fiction Hubbard succeeds in posing deep metaphysical questions about the mind's interpretation of experiential data, and its response to the questions about the nature of being." In their book Mysteries and Secrets of Time, Fanthorpe and Fanthorpe place the book within the sub-topic of "the idea of being caught inside someone else's dream". Alexei Panshin and Cory Panshin wrote in The World Beyond the Hill: Science Fiction and the Quest for Transcendence, "Typewriter in the Sky can be understood as an old-fashioned alien exploration story, but with a new basis of transfer from one world to another – the thoughts of an outside intelligence."In their work Encyclopedia of New Age Beliefs, authors John Ankerberg and John Weldon observed, "compare Scientology
Scientology
Scientology is a body of beliefs and related practices created by science fiction and fantasy author L. Ron Hubbard , starting in 1952, as a successor to his earlier self-help system, Dianetics...
theory with L. Ron Hubbard's science-fiction works, e.g., Ole Doc Methusala, Slaves of Sleep, Death's Deputy, The Final Blackout, The Dangerous Dimension, The Tramp, Fear, King Slayer, and Typewriter in the Sky." Author Harriet Whitehead made a similar comparison in her study of Scientology, Renunciation and Reformulation: a Study of Conversion in an American Sect.
Reception
Writing in the October 1951 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas wrote favorably of Typewriter in the Sky, and characterized it as "an entertaining adventure-farce badly in need of editing". Reviewing the same edition, Groff ConklinGroff Conklin
Edward Groff Conklin was a leading science fiction anthologist. He edited 40 anthologies of science fiction, one of mystery stories , wrote books on home improvement and was a freelance writer on scientific subjects as well as a published poet...
termed it "a silly idea inexpertly carried out." New York Times reviewer Villiers Gerson found Typewriter to be "an ironic and jaunty adventure story." George Malko noted in Scientology: The Now Religion
Scientology: The Now Religion
Scientology: The Now Religion is a non-fiction book on Scientology, written by George Malko. The book was the first full length analysis of the history surrounding the founding of the Church of Scientology, and L. Ron Hubbard. The author conducted interviews with members, and provides analysis...
that Typewriter in the Sky was "eagerly welcomed by devoted fans". In a biography of Hubbard written by Kent State University
Kent State University
Kent State University is a public research university located in Kent, Ohio, United States. The university has eight campuses around the northeast Ohio region with the main campus in Kent being the largest...
professor Donald M. Hassler in The New Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, he noted, "Typewriter in the Sky (1940/1951), which anticipates plot gimmicks now popular among experimental metafictionists, ought to be taken seriously by the critics who will evaluate his strange genius". Everett F. Bleiler
Everett F. Bleiler
Everett Franklin Bleiler was an editor, bibliographer, and scholar of science fiction, detective fiction, and fantasy literature. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he co-edited the first "year's best" series of science fiction anthologies, and his Checklist of Fantastic Literature has been called...
, however, found it to be "a routine adventure story carried through competently, with a good central idea."
Peter Haining wrote in The Classic Era of American Pulp Magazines, "Typewriter in the Sky, which first appeared in Unknown in 1940, is widely considered to be one of his best works." Michael Ashley wrote in Who's Who in Horror and Fantasy Fiction, "Typewriter in the Sky (1940) is a rollicking farce of a man written into another's story". Sandy Bauers of The Philadelphia Inquirer
The Philadelphia Inquirer
The Philadelphia Inquirer is a morning daily newspaper that serves the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, metropolitan area of the United States. The newspaper was founded by John R. Walker and John Norvell in June 1829 as The Pennsylvania Inquirer and is the third-oldest surviving daily newspaper in the...
called the 1995 audio publication of the work "swashbuckling fun". Janrae Frank of The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
commented, "Much of his best work of the '40s and '50s, Fear, Slaves of Sleep, Typewriter in the Sky, is written in exactly the same style and won reader polls at the time." Pulp Culture: The Art of Fiction Magazines by Frank M. Robinson and Lawrence Davidson, listed Typewriter in the Sky among Hubbard's "best work". In his biography
Biography
A biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. More than a list of basic facts , biography also portrays the subject's experience of those events...
of the author, Bare-Faced Messiah
Bare-faced Messiah
Bare-faced Messiah: The True Story of L. Ron Hubbard is a posthumous biography of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard by British journalist Russell Miller. First published in 1987, the book takes a critical perspective, challenging the official account of Hubbard's life and work promoted by the...
, Russell Miller
Russell Miller
Russell Miller is an award-winning British journalist and author of fifteen books, including biographies of Hugh Hefner, J. Paul Getty and L. Ron Hubbard.-L. Ron Hubbard biography:...
characterized Typewriter in the Sky as one of Hubbard's works which "would come to be regarded as classics", along with Fear and Final Blackout. Damon Knight
Damon Knight
Damon Francis Knight was an American science fiction author, editor, critic and fan. His forte was short stories and he is widely acknowledged as having been a master of the genre.-Biography:...
gave the book a mixed review, commenting, "The problem [of how de Wolf can 'change the story and avert his doom'] is a tough one, and Hubbard does not so much solve it as slide around it.... This weakness is more than compensated for by the ending of the story itself – Three immortal lines".
Influence
In a review of the book What Mad UniverseWhat Mad Universe
What Mad Universe is a science-fiction novel, written in 1949 by the American author, Fredric Brown.-Synopsis:Keith Winton is a journalist for a science-fiction review. With his glamorous co-worker girlfriend, Betty, he visits his friends one day in their elegant estate in the Catskills,...
(1949), Paul Di Filippo of Sci Fi Weekly posits that the book's author Fredric Brown
Fredric Brown
Fredric Brown was an American science fiction and mystery writer. He was born in Cincinnati.He had two sons: James Ross Brown and Linn Lewis Brown ....
may have been influenced by Hubbard's story. Gary Westfahl
Gary Westfahl
Gary Westfahl is a scholarly author and reviewer of science fiction. He has written reviews for the Los Angeles Times, Internet Review of Science Fiction and Locus Online. He is a professor at the University of California in Riverside....
quoted Hubbard's work in a book of noteworthy science fiction quotations. In a fictional recounting of Hubbard's accomplishments, followers of Scientology cite Typewriter in the Sky among works which "inspired millions", in the Obie Award
Obie Award
The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards given by The Village Voice newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City...
-winning satirical
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
musical
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
written by Kyle Jarrow
Kyle Jarrow
Kyle Jarrow is a New York City-based writer and rock musician. His plays include A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant, Gorilla Man, Whisper House , Hypochondria, Trigger, Hostage Song and Love Kills...
, A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant
A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant
A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant is a satirical musical about Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard, written by Kyle Jarrow from a concept by Alex Timbers, the show's original director. Jarrow based the story of the one-act, one-hour musical on Hubbard's writings and Church of...
. In the book Harlan Ellison's Watching
Harlan Ellison's Watching
Harlan Ellison's Watching is a 1989 compilation of 25 years worth of essays and film reviews written by Harlan Ellison for Cinema magazine, the Los Angeles Free Press, Starlog magazine, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction among others.In the book, Ellison explains, in an entertaining...
, by Harlan Ellison
Harlan Ellison
Harlan Jay Ellison is an American writer. His principal genre is speculative fiction.His published works include over 1,700 short stories, novellas, screenplays, teleplays, essays, a wide range of criticism covering literature, film, television, and print media...
, Typewriter in the Sky is compared to Purple Rose of Cairo, "I bet if L. Ron Hubbard had written Purple Rose of Cairo they'd have given it a Hugo ... I mean, it is sort of a hip, updated version of Typewriter in the Sky."
Writing for Locus Online, Gary Westfahl compared the screenplay of the 2006 film Stranger than Fiction to Hubbard's story, and commented, "In taking its premise into this unlikely territory, the film provides a fascinating contrast to a classic fantasy novella with a similar theme, L. Ron Hubbard's 'Typewriter in the Sky' (1940). A lawsuit alleging that screenwriter Zach Helm improperly stole his story from Hubbard could accurately state that both works have the same basic plot." In a review of Stranger than Fiction for Cinematical, Jette Kernion also compared the film's plot to Hubbard's story, noting that the two stories share "some strikingly similar plot elements".