Audiobook edition (abridged)

A land ravaged by war without end.

Cities gutted by weapons of mass destruction.

Countries laid waste by biological warfare.

Governments ruined by greed, violence, and corruption.

This is a world in the throes of economic decay and at the mercy of terrorists.

This is Asia. This is Europe. This is America. This is Final Blackout.

Across this devastated, post-apocalyptic landscape marches one extraordinary soldier and his band of brothers. He is the Lieutenant, a hardened military strategist and a charismatic leader of men. The narrow-minded high command may have relieved the Lieutenant of duty, but not of his honor—and his crack unit of warriors remains fiercely loyal to him.

Now, in a time of deception, desperation, and betrayal, they are headed into the ultimate battle against the ultimate enemy—their own treacherous leaders. But for the Lieutenant, a hero at the crossroads of history, it is time to do what is best for his country and for his men—to undertake one last act of courage and sacrifice … the Final Blackout.

Read by Roddy McDowall

“As perfect a piece of science fiction as has ever been written.” —Robert A. Heinlein

“Compelling … riveting … Hubbard’s best.” —Publishers Weekly

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

In Final Blackout, first published in 1940, L. Ron Hubbard gave us a larger-than-life, combat-wise, principled protagonist. Known only as “the Lieutenant,” his deep moral concern for his brigade of irregulars—“The Unkillables” (Mr. Hubbard’s work-in-progress title for Final Blackout)—became the measure of the quintessential leader. In the end, it is up to this band of survivors, led by a man whose very anonymity symbolizes a transcending clarity of purpose and the conviction that the individual can make a difference, to salvage what they can of their lives and their civilization.

Later, in 1948, after Ron Hubbard return from four years of active duty in World War II as a US naval officer in the Pacific theater, he wrote a preface and a new dedication to the book—“To the men and officers with whom I served in World War II, first phase, 1941-1945.”

Consistently ranked as one of the ten greatest novels of “The Golden Age of Science Fiction” and arguably L. Ron Hubbard’s most famous and most controversially apocalyptic science fiction novel before Battlefield Earth, it is also widely seen by contemporary critics as his defining classic of “survivalist” fiction.