Customer Reviews

Destination Void

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Having glanced at the reader reviews "Destination: Void" has collected so far, I cannot pass by on the other side. True, it is 30 years since I read it in college. But it is still among the best ten books I have ever read - and I have read many thousands since then. The difficulty is that it is deliberately aimed at a rather limited audience. In a world of commercialism run wild, this is refreshing indeed.

Herbert does not complicate matters wilfully, but on the other hand he makes no concessions whatsoever to his readers' ignorance. He assumes that they are interested both in technology and in the problems of existence, consciousness and religion. There should be plenty of people like that out there, right? Maybe they are all too busy doing useful work to read SF novels!

The upside is that Herbert is a real expert, and even allowing for the 30 years that have elapsed (a huge chasm in terms of technical progress) this book is vastly superior to the schlock that passes for SF today. The Tin Egg has the authentic feel of an experimental interstellar spaceship, whereas starship Enterprise is basically a flying playpen.

As for the science, it isn't too clear just where the facts leave off and the fiction sets in - and that is good, too. Suffice it to say that we still aren't any closer to cracking artificial intelligence yet, let alone artificial consciousness. (See Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" for another approach to the latter). So Herbert's speculations have hardly dated at all.

Personally, I rate "Destination: Void" as Herbert's best book, ahead of Dune, The Dragon in the Sea (Under Pressure), Dune Messiah, and The Dosadi Experiment. A matter of taste, I guess.

I wasn't entirely sure what to expect when I picked up "Destination: Void" from a seedy little used book store. I'd been a huge Herbert fan for years (one read of "Dune" is all it took for that), but I'd heard very mixed reviews of this particular novel. This is different from a lot of his other works, in that the plot is completely secondary to the philosophical/technical issues he raises. Usually Herbert weaves an intricate plot around his ideas that keeps the pages turning, but that just wasn't the case here. In some areas it becomes a tad tedious to read, but if you pay attention, it's a very insightful novel, even if the technology that's discussed is a tad dated.

One of his favorite themes has always been consciousness, how we define it, what levels can be attained by humans, and is there something more that we're lacking. In "Destination: Void", the characters are forced to attempt the creation of artificial intelligence for their very survival, and all of these questions are called in to play, not to mention the ethical ramifications of their "playing God". Eventually they succeed in creating "Ship", and thereby set the basis for the entertaining, if bizarre Pandora series.

This is not the best book for someone hoping to read a story, but if you love Herbert and have an interest in philosophy, then he will take you on a great ride and share his perspective with you in "Destination: Void".

I happened to come upon a yellowed, 75 cent copy of Destination: Void while browsing through a used book store. The title intrigued me and I was familiar with Herbert's writings so I bought it. When I finally got around to reading it-- I was amazed! It followed a storyline that seemed, at first, to be a cliche sci-fi plot of colony-ship-meets-computer-intelligence, but emerged as an incredible tale. It is, I must admit, a bit technical. Jargon and concepts from computer programming and other areas of science were prevalent, but could be understood from context without an extensive scientific background. Aside from all that, the dialogue between the four primary characters developed into a discussion on the nature and origin of intelligence, religion, and life itself. No new age factless speculation here: arguments were carried out on a firm and cogent level palatable to academics of all sorts. I firmly recommend this book to any mature person who wishes to investigate what it is we mean when we say we are 'conscious'.

Premise:
Voidship Earthling, 7th serial spaceship on a mission from Unified Moon Base, is on its way to colonize in the Tau Ceti star system. The members on the ship are clones who a programmed to certain orientations and duties. Bickel is the frontier pusher who is programmed to refuse turning back from the mission, Timberlake the life systems engineer, Flattery the chaplain-psychiatrist with orders to destroy the ship if he feels it is necessary, and Prudence, who is directed to prod Bickel.

Central to the operation of the ship is the OMC, or organic mental core, a specialized brain that coordinates ship functions. After the original OMC and two backups fail, the crew has to manually direct many gross ship functions. This is extremely difficult for them and it becomes apparent that they will have to devise another approach to ship operation.

The arrived at alternative is to take the ship's computer as a basis and attempt the creation of an AI using inorganic components available in ship stores. This attempt is the crux of the novel.

It becomes apparent that the difficulties that confront the ship (failure of 3 OMCs and other incidents) were orchestrated by the project team back at UMB. Why? To put the crew into survival mode, forcing them into hyper-alertness in order to create the artificial consciousness. If they don't successfully create the consciousness, they die. Also, having the attempt take place on a ship far away from UMB is a safety measure, as there is some concern that the consciousness created by the crew could be dangerous.

What's cool about the book:
-It's Frank Herbert
-to an extent the discussions about the ethicality of building the consciousness and about the details of consciousness
-the idea that the people in the hibernation tanks on the ship will constitute the unconscious of the artificial consciousness
-Bickel's white box-black box procedure that allowed the consciousness to obtain an ancestry via Bickel
-the subtext of the characters having unspoken motives, drives and missions
-the mystery of the UMB project team's ultimate motives in placing the ship and crew in peril

What's not:
-The laborious, labyrinthine technical topography associated with the consciousness project (you overplayed your hand Herbert)
-the entire book taking place on the ship
-the pace was fairly leaden
-lack of details on the OMCs

Summation: Readable, but noteworthy mostly as the first book in a series of four (D:V, The Jesus Incident, The Lazarus Effect, and The Ascension Factor). I understand Herbert's place in SciFi as a "thinking" and philosophical writer, but this story would have been much better served with less technical-ese, less rumination about the nature of consciousness (though some of it was cool) and more action.

I have already purchased the rest of the books in the series and I am very much looking forward to reading them. Here are the review pages for those books:

The Jesus Incident: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0441385397/qid=1134089668/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-5585497-8774440?n=507846&s=books&v=glance

The Lazarus Effect:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0399128158/qid=1134089754/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/002-5585497-8774440?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

The Ascension Factor:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0441031277/qid=1134089830/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-5585497-8774440?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

This novel is by far what I consider to be Frank Herbert at his best.
The novel revolves around what the different characters think constitutes consiousness and those ideas are manifested in their attempts to build the necessary artificial intelligence that is required for their survival.
The novel does have a tendency to be rather hard to read during the technilogical sections however the discussions on ethics and other questions of conciousness are absoulutely priceless.
This novel should not be read quickly. I should be read slowly, carefully contemplating and pondering upon each of the chapters main topics.
Frank Herbert is a purposful writer. There is no sentence or word that does not have signicance. So my advice is to read it slowly and enjoy.

Unlike Dune, this series has been out of print for some time. Shame! No one does it better than Herbert but Dune-Mania has left too much of his best work unread and unknown. Dune was a masterpiece, no question. But the series devolved into action novels - the work of creating his universe did not have to be re-done so the rest was just what happens next (and as Brian continues the series, what happened before). The Voidship series is different. Beginning with Destination: Void, which establishes the premise, each novel must reestablish the world in which it is set. Each set of characters has very new hurdles and new forms of intelligent life(? at least self-awareness) to deal with, each with their own world view. A good marketing bet would be to reintroduce these novels in paperback, capitalizing on the popularity of the Dune series. Let the new generation of sf readers discover the other worlds of Frank Herbert. This review refers to the series - Destination: Void, The Jesus Incident, The Lazarus Effect, and The Ascension Factor

I love Herbert, my favorite book of his being Dune with none of his others coming anywhere close. That being said, D: Void is my second favorite of his books. I love it that Herbert's characters seem to almost psychically be able to interpret each other's body language. I love the pacing of Herbert's prose, and I love the concept of this book. I like being walked through, step by step, what is necesarry to create an intelligence. It's like getting a crash course on the inner workings of the brain. It's fun, it makes you think, and the writing is so classically Herbert.

This book is obviously not for everybody. It's skewed to ideas rather than a narrative story (such as Dune), but the ideas are interesting, fun to think about, and I believe, still timely.

(8 out of 10)

Destination: Void centers on man's attempts to create an artificial mind, and the consequences its birth. The book has its strong points, and its failings, however small they may be. The most striking downside is how much computer technology has advanced since the writing of the novel. (A great deal of time is spent on detailed specifics of the characters' computer system, and it is central to the story.) There were a couple of leaps of logic in the plotline that seemed a little tenuous as well. However, overall the upside outweighs the downside. The most exciting thing for me in reading this novel was that it provided a fascinating view into Herbert's creative process. It felt to me as though Herbert was trying his hand at certain writing techniques, certain technologies, etc. There are also some very intriguing references to Axlotl tanks. Makes you wonder if Herbert may have had in mind an even wider sweeping expanse to the Dune Chronicles. This book is best appreciated by the devout Herbert fan.

If you didn't get the plot/motives in this novel then you missed alot. Yes, Herbert had a penchant for technical jargon, but the ideas are intriguing, the dialog is great, and the characters' interactions are true Herbert.

Some of the unique premises of this novel:

How can you push man to the higher state of consciousness necessary to see past his conscious limitations and achieve a breakthrough of creation, yet do so in a controlled, manufactured environment?

Where would you get the human/lab-rat stock to repeat such an experiment again and again until some objective is reached?

Herbert recognized the most fundamental and basic force that drives man's intellectual evolution is, indeed, the drive for survival. The novel presents an organization who's mandate is to create an autonomous AI but has so far failed. Only by placing brilliant people (actually, clones of brilliant people) in a senario where their very survival *depends* on that objective do they have a hope of reaching their goal. However, the outcome is more that what they expected...

I credit Herbert for being among the first sci-fi authors to explore the possible nature/creation of artificial intelligence. However, countless authors have explored them since, to the point of embedding such "Frankensteinian" themes into our pop-culture and watering-down the effect of a classic novel such as Destination: Void.

If for nothing else, this novel is the required lead-in to The Jesus Incident. Now THAT is some work!

Destination: Void is perhaps my favorite Frank Herbert novel. Mind-blowing dialog discusses the nature of consciousness while the action unfolds at a lively pace. The description of computer circuits seems at once arcane (reflecting the 1966 publish date) but strangely fresh and compelling. Somehow, Herbert's extrapolation from 1960's computing machinery makes the computers more entertaining and more tangible (there are lots of wires and flashing lights instead of chips, for instance). Additionally, Herbert's characters have their own realistic-sounding mathematical jargon that makes it fun to try to understand what they are saying. In this respect, it reminds me of the descriptions of the math of "psychohistory" in Asimov's Foundation.

The real strength of the book, though, is the constant narrative and ruminations on thoughts of artificial intelligence and consciousness (and fortunately Mr. Herbert only indulged himself with an expected but brief discussion of "consciousness-expanding" drugs in a subplot!)