salt horse: the sailor’s name for salted beef.→ to text
sampan: any of various small boats of the Far East, as one propelled by a single oar over the stern and provided with a roofing of mats.→ to text
scud: to run before a gale or strong wind with little or no sail set.→ to text
scupper: an opening in the side of a ship at deck level which allows water to run off.→ to text
sea artist: a ship’s navigator.→ to text
Seal of Sulayman: according to legends, a magic ring supposedly given to King Sulayman (Solomon), ruler of the Kingdom of Israel (971 BC to 931 BC), which gave him power over demons. King Sulayman is portrayed in the Bible as great in wisdom, wealth and power and is the subject of many later references and legends. A story in the Arabian Nights describes a jinni who had displeased King Sulayman and was punished by being locked in a bottle and thrown into the sea. Since the bottle was sealed with Sulayman’s seal, the jinni was helpless to free himself, until freed many centuries later by a fisherman who discovered the bottle.→ to text
seventy-four: a type of two-decked sailing ship carrying seventy-four guns. Originally developed by the French Navy in the mid-eighteenth century, the design proved to be a good balance between firepower and sailing qualities and was adopted by the British Royal Navy as well as other navies. Crew size on such a ship was around 500 to 750 men, depending on circumstances and nationality. Seventy-fours were a mainstay of the world’s fleets into the early decades of the nineteenth century.→ to text
Shaitan: (Arabic) Satan.→ to text
sheet: a line that regulates the angle at which a sail is set in relation to the wind.→ to text
shrouds: supporting ropes or wires that extend down from the top of a mast.→ to text
skys’l: skysail; the sail next above the royals in a square-rigged vessel. Normally it is the fifth sail in ascending order from the deck.→ to text
slatting: violent shaking of flapping in the wind, as of a sail.→ to text
slipping cable: allowing the onboard end of the anchor cable to run out of the ship and go overboard when there is not enough time to raise the anchor. When time cannot be spared, the cable is let go (slipped), with a buoy attached to its inboard end to enable it to be located and the anchor recovered after the emergency has subsided.→ to text
smack: a sailing vessel used for fishing, usually for carrying the catch to market.→ to text
Sound: Puget Sound, deep inlet of the Pacific Ocean, in northwestern Washington State.→ to text
sough: a sighing, rustling or murmuring sound.→ to text
spars: strong poles, especially those used as masts to hold the sails on ships.→ to text
spitkit: small, ramshackle vessel; derisive term for small, unseaworthy vessel.→ to text
spoonin’ up: spooning; courting, especially in an excessively sentimental or effusive fashion. Used figuratively.→ to text
sprit: a small pole running diagonally from the foot of a mast up to the top corner of a fore-and-aft sail, to support and stretch it.→ to text
sprits’l: spritsail; sail that is extended by being mounted on a sprit.→ to text
sprit to poop: to run the bowsprit (a spar projecting from the upper end of the bow of a sailing vessel, for holding and supporting a sail) of one vessel into the poop (stern or rear deck of a ship) of another.→ to text
square rig: a sailing ship having four-sided sails suspended at the middle on yards. Most of the tall ships are square rigs.→ to text
sta’b’d: starboard; the right-hand side of a vessel when facing forward.→ to text
staysail: a triangular fore-and-aft sail which is set by attaching it to a stay (a stout cable or rope used to support a mast fore and aft). Such a sail takes its name from the stay on which it is set.→ to text
steer small: to keep a vessel on course with only small movements of the steering gear.→ to text
sterncastle: raised deck serving as the ship’s command center during most actions. The pilot guides the ship from a large wheel here, while the captain looks over and directs the crew working above deck.→ to text
stern chaser: a cannon mounted on the stern of a ship for firing at a pursuing vessel.→ to text
stern sheets: the after part of a boat where the passengers sit.→ to text
stow that: slang term telling someone to be quiet; cease talking.→ to text
stuns’ls: studding sail; a light sail set at the side of a principal or square sail of a vessel to increase her speed.→ to text
Sulayman: King Sulayman (Solomon), ruler of the kingdom of Israel (971 BC to 931 BC). He is portrayed in the Bible as great in wisdom, wealth and power. According to legends, Sulayman’s realm extended over angels, demons and spirits as well as the inhabitants of Earth.→ to text
swell: a socially prominent person.→ to text
swith, by: by Saint Swithun; used as an oath. Saint Swithun (800? –862), English bishop of Winchester and royal counselor. He is best known for the opular English weather lore that if it rains on Saint Swithun’s day, July 15, it wil rain for 40 days and 40 nights.→ to text
tack: direction a ship goes in relation to the position of the sails. Also, to change the course of a ship.→ to text
taff, from stem to: through the whole ship; from the stem of the ship to the taffrail at the stern.→ to text
taffrail: a rail above the stern of a ship.→ to text
talisman: an object marked with magic signs and believed to confer on its bearer supernatural powers or protection. Talisman comes from the Greek word talein which means “to initiate into the mysteries.”→ to text
t’g’l’nt: topgallant sail; square-rigged sail or sails immediately above the topsail or topsails.→ to text
Thebes: an ancient city of Upper Egypt on the Nile River in present-day central Egypt. It flourished from the mid-twenty-second to the eighteenth century BC as a royal residence and a religious center for the worship of the Egyptian deity, Amen. Its archaeological remains include many splendid temples and the tomb of Tutankhamen in the nearby Valley of the Kings.→ to text
Time: a weekly American newsmagazine.→ to text
toe the mark: to shoulder responsibilities; do one’s duty.→ to text
topmen: sailors who work on the sails. From the top which is a platform usually located at the juncture of the lower mast and the topmast for the sailor to stand upon while handling the sails.→ to text
topping lift: a line or wire rope used to support the yards or booms when a boat is anchored or moored.→ to text
trade winds: any of the nearly constant easterly winds that dominate most of the tropics and subtropics throughout the world, blowing mainly from the northeast in the Northern Hemisphere, and from the southeast in the Southern Hemisphere.→ to text
trim: to adjust (the sails or yards) with reference to the direction of the wind and the course of the ship.→ to text
trick: a period or turn of duty, as at the helm of a ship.→ to text
truck: a piece of wood fixed at the top of a mast, usually having holes through which ropes can be passed to raise or lower the sails.→ to text
tub: match tub; a small tub for burning matches placed between guns on a ship half filled with sand or water. The matches were fixed in notches in the rim of the tub, so that their burning ends overhung the sand or water.→ to text
tumblehome: the inward curve of a ship’s sides near the deckline, from tumble, meaning “to slope inward.” Tumblehome on a boat makes it easier to row as the oarsman doesn’t have to reach as far, but too much tumblehome can make a boat easily capsize.→ to text
Tunisian: of or relating to Tunisia or its inhabitants. Tunisia, officially the Tunisian Republic, is a country situated on the Mediterranean coast of North Africa. It is the northernmost African country and the smallest of the nations situated along the Atlas Mountain Range. Around 40 percent of the country is composed of the Sahara Desert, with much of the remain
der consisting of particularly fertile soil. Tunisia played an important role in ancient times, first with the famous Phoenician city of Carthage, and later, as the Africa Province, which became known as the breadbasket of the Roman Empire.→ to text
under weigh: in motion; underway.→ to text
van: vanguard; the forefront.→ to text
Veda: any of the oldest and most authoritative Hindu sacred texts, composed in Sanskrit. Veda in Sanskrit means “knowledge.”→ to text
waist: the central part of a ship.→ to text
wallow: (of a ship) to roll from side to side; to sail with a rolling motion; to roll helplessly in the trough of the waves.→ to text
water sail: small sail set low down below another sail and reaching nearly to the water.→ to text
weather gauge: the position of a ship to the windward of another. From this position, a ship’s guns could fire at the enemy hull. Nautical slang, to possess an advantage.→ to text
weigh anchor: take up the anchor when ready to sail.→ to text
windward: facing the wind or on the side facing the wind.→ to text
wore ship: to cause a ship to turn away from the wind in order to change direction. The action is called “to ware ship” because all the rigging turns and rubs during the maneuver, causing the gear to ware or wear.→ to text
writ of habeas corpus: Latin “(we command) that you have the body.” Prisoners often seek release by filing a petition for a writ of habeas corpus which is a judicial mandate to a prison official ordering that an inmate be brought to the court so it can be determined whether or not that person is imprisoned lawfully and whether or not he should be released from custody.→ to text
yard: a long rod, mounted crosswise on a mast and tapering toward the ends, that supports and spreads a sail.→ to text
About the Author
L. Ron Hubbard’s remarkable writing career spanned more than half-a-century of intense literary achievement and creative influence.
And though he was first and foremost a writer, his life experiences and travels in all corners of the globe were wide and diverse. His insatiable curiosity and personal belief that one should live life as a professional led to a lifetime of extraordinary accom-plishment. He was also an explorer, ethnologist, mariner and pilot, filmmaker and photographer, philosopher and educator, composer and musician.
Growing up in the still-rugged frontier country of Montana, he broke his first bronc and became the blood brother of a Blackfeet Indian medicine man by age six. In 1927, when he was 16, he traveled to a still remote Asia. The following year, to further satisfy his thirst for adventure and augment his growing knowledge of other cultures, he left school and returned to the Orient. On this trip, he worked as a supercargo and helmsman aboard a coastal trader which plied the seas between Japan and Java. He came to know old Shanghai, Beijing and the Western Hills at a time when few Westerners could enter China. He traveled more than a quarter of a million miles by sea and land while still a teenager and before the advent of commercial aviation as we know it.
He returned to the United States in the autumn of 1929 to complete his formal education. He entered George Washington University in Washington, DC, where he studied engineering and took one of the earliest courses in atomic and molecular physics. In addition to his studies, he was the president of the Engineering Society and Flying Club, and wrote articles, stories and plays for the university news-paper. During the same period he also barnstormed across the American mid-West and was a national correspondent and photographer for the Sportsman Pilot magazine, the most distinguished aviation publication of its day.
Returning to his classroom of the world in 1932, he led two separate expeditions, the Caribbean Motion Picture Expedition; sailing on one of the last of America’s four-masted commercial ships, and the second, a mineralogical survey of Puerto Rico. His exploits earned him membership in the renowned Explorers Club and he subsequently carried their coveted flag on two more voyages of exploration and discovery. As a master mariner licensed to operate ships in any ocean, his lifelong love of the sea was reflected in the many ships he captained and the skill of the crews he trained. He also served with distinction as a U.S. naval officer during the Second World War.
All of this—and much more—found its way, into his writing and gave his stories a compelling sense of authenticity that has appealed to readers throughout the world. It started in 1934 with the publication of “The Green God” in Thrilling Adventure magazine, a story about an American naval intelligence officer caught up in the mystery and intrigues of pre-communist China. With his extensive knowledge of the world and its people and his ability to write in any style and genre, he rapidly achieved prominence as a writer of action adventure, western, mystery and suspense. Such was the respect of his fellow writers that he was only 25 when elected president of the New York Chapter of the American Fiction Guild.
In addition to his career as a leading writer of fiction, he worked as a successful screenwriter in Hollywood where he wrote the original story and script for Columbia’s 1937 hit serial, “The Secret of Treasure Island.” His work on numerous films for Columbia, Universal and other major studios involved writing, providing story lines and serving as a script consultant.
In 1938, he was approached by the venerable New York publishing house of Street and Smith, the publishers of Astounding Science Fiction. Wanting to capitalize on the proven reader appeal of the
L. Ron Hubbard byline to capture more readers for this emerging genre, they essentially offered to buy all the science fiction he wrote. When he protested that he did not write about machines and machinery but that he wrote about people, they told him that was exactly what was wanted. The rest is history.
The impact and influence that his novels and stories had on the fields of science fiction, fantasy and horror virtually amounted to the changing of a genre. It is the compelling human element that he originally brought to this new genre that remains today the basis of its growing international popularity.
L. Ron Hubbard consistently enabled readers to peer into the minds and emotions of characters in a way that sharply heightened the reading experience without slowing the pace of the story, a level of writ-ing rarely achieved.
Among the most celebrated examples of this are three stories he published in a single, phenomenally creative year (1940)—Final Blackout and its grimly possible future world of unremitting war and ultimate courage which Robert Heinlein called “as perfect a piece of science fiction as has ever been written”; the ingenious fantasy-adventure, Typewriter in the Sky described by Clive Cussler as “written in the great style adventure should be written in”; and the prototype novel of clutching psychological suspense and horror in the midst of ordinary, everyday life, Fear, studied by writers from Stephen King to Ray Bradbury.
It was Mr. Hubbard’s trendsetting work in the speculative fiction field from 1938 to 1950, particu-larly, that not only helped to expand the scope and imaginative boundaries of science fiction and fantasy but indelibly established him as one of the founders of what continues to be regarded as the genre’s Golden Age.
Widely honored—recipient of Italy’s Tetra-dramma D’Oro Award and a special Gutenberg Award, among other significant literary honors—Battlefield Earth has sold more than 6,000,000 copies in 23 languages and is the biggest single-volume science fiction novel in the history of the genre at 1050 pages. It was ranked number three out of the 100 best English language novels of the twentieth century in the Random House Modern Library Reader’s Poll.
The Mission Earth dekalogy has been equally acclaimed, winning the Cosmos 2000 Award from French readers and the coveted Nova-Science Fiction Award from Italy’s National Committee for Science Fiction and Fantasy. The dekalogy has sold more than seven million copies in 6 languages, and each of its 10 volumes became New York Times and international bestsellers as they were released.
The first of L. Ron Hubbard’s original screenplays Ai! Pedrito! When Intelligence Goes
Wrong, novelized by author Kevin J. Anderson, was released in 1998 and immediately appeared as a New York Times bestseller. This was followed in 1999 with the publication of A Very Strange Trip, an original L. Ron Hubbard story of time-traveling adventure, novelized by Dave Wolverton, that also became a New York Times bestseller directly following its release.
His literary output ultimately encompassed more than 250 published novels, novelettes, short stories and screenplays in every major genre.
For more information on L. Ron Hubbard and his many works of fiction visit
www.GalaxyPress.com and www.LRonHubbard.org
L. Ron Hubbard, Slaves of Sleep & the Masters of Sleep
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