Customer Reviews

Frank Herbert: 4 Complete Novels

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While Frank Herbert is justly famous for the Dune series of novels, which are some of the greatest science fiction ever written, he also wrote a number of other shorter novels.

The four included here have odd titles: Whipping Star, The Dosadi Experiment, The Santaroga Barriet and Soul Catcher.

Whipping Star has a strange concept: Calibans, strange, communicative but confusing creatures have given star gates (called S'Eyes) to the galaxy. But they are disappearing amid waves of madness and death. One Caliban is left, and has been hired by the world's richest and kinkiest woman to be flogged. How do you flog an energy being? Jorg X McKie must communicate with the cryptic Caliban and find the connection between the whippings and the disappearance of the other Calibans and a threat to the entire world.

The Dosadi Experiment brings McKie back again, this time to find out the secret of a Gowachin (froglike sentient being) experiment on the brutal and toxic planet Dosadi. The Gowachin seek to control McKie and manipulate the Dosadi situation, but McKie makes some unexpected moves.

In The Santaroga Barrier, psychologist Gilbert Dasein is sent to Santaroga in Northern California. Why has every company that set down a chain store in Santaroga failed to succeed? Why did previous investigators die in seemingly innocent and coincidental accidents? Dasein finds out much more than anyone ever else did, but can he ultimately escape Santaroga?

The Soul Catcher is set in contemporary times, and is the story of a native American who undergoes a frightening transformation as Katsuk, the avenging spirit who purifies the world. Is it madness or is it the spirit world intruding into modern reality?

All four are different novels, and quite different from Dune. All four are some of the best non-Dune writing Herbert ever did.

I would love to tell you all about the surprise on my husbands face when I presented him with Frank Herbert stories he had never read before, and how we snuggled up that night to begin reading them together right away . . . but sadly I never received my package. I got a refund instead. My husband continues to insist on reading Michael Moorcock at me. It's all very unnerving.

This book contains four complete novels by Frank Herbert:

1. Whipping Star

2. The Dosadi Experiment

3. The Santaroga Barrier

4. Soul Catcher

I found it at a local used book store for $6.98... Not bad for a hardback book... Four novels for less than seven bucks... Great bargin, great novels..

I've read them individual a long time ago. I've found them in one I could read them anytime.