Whipping Star [Paperback]

Frank Herbert (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 15, 1978

In the far future, humankind has made contact with numerous other species-Gowachin, Laclac, Wreaves, Pan Spechi, Taprisiots, and Caleban (among others)-and has helped to form the ConSentiency to govern between the species. After suffering under a tyrannous pure democracy that had the power to create laws so fast that no thought could be given to the effects, the sentients of the galaxy found a need for the Bureau of Sabotage (BuSab) to slow the wheels of government, thereby preventing it from legislating recklessly.In Whipping Star, Jorj X. McKie, a "Saboteur Extraordinary," is a born troublemaker who has naturally become one of BuSab's best agents. As the novel opens, it is revealed that Calebans, who are beings visible to other sentient species as stars, have been disappearing one by one. Each disappearance is accompanied by millions of sentient deaths and instances of incurable insanity.Ninety years prior to the setting of Whipping Star, the Calebans appeared and offered jump-doors to the collective species, allowing sentients to travel instantly to any point in the universe. Gratefully accepting, the sentiency didn't question the consequences. Now Mliss Abnethe, a psychotic human female with immense power and wealth, has bound a Caleban in a contract that allows the Caleban to be whipped to death; when the Caleban dies, everyone who has ever used a jump-door (which is almost every adult in the sentient world and many of the young) will die as well.The Calebans have attempted to remedy the error, but Mliss Abnethe refuses to cancel the contract, and the Caleban sense of honor makes breaking the contract from their side unthinkable. To save themselves, all the Calebans are handing over the time-like history lines of the sentients who used jump-doors to one Caleban, Fannie Mae, and withdrawing from ConSentiency space. McKie has to find Mliss and stop her before Fannie Mae reaches, in her words, "ultimate discontinuity," but he is constrained by the law protecting private individuals by restricting the ministrations of BuSab to public entities.

--This text refers to the MP3 CD edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Herbert is one of the most thought-provoking writers of our time; by focusing on ‘alien’ culture, he makes us examine what the true definition of ‘human’ is.”
—The Pacific Sun

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Frank Herbert's speculative fictions have taken the grand themes and questions of politics, ecology, overpopulation, and much more and applied them to the human drama. His most popular works are the well-known Dune books: Dune, Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, and the extraordinary bestseller God Emperor of Dune. He wrote more than twenty other works of fiction and nonfiction, including a book on home computers, before his death in 1986. Scott Brick has recorded over five hundred audiobooks, has won over forty AudioFile Earphones Awards, and has twice received Audie Awards for his work on the Dune series. He has been proclaimed both a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine and Publishers Weekly's 2007 Narrator of the Year. Scott has recorded Frank Herbert's Hellstrom's Hive, Whipping Star, The Dragon in the Sea, and The White Plague for Tantor Audio.

--This text refers to the MP3 CD edition.

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Berkley (September 15, 1978)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0425041166
• ISBN-13: 978-0425041161
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,550,172 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Frank Herbert (1920-86) was born in Tacoma, Washington and worked as a reporter and later editor of a number of West Coast newspapers before becoming a full-time writer. His first sf story was published in 1952 but he achieved fame more than ten years later with the publication in Analog of Dune World and The Prophet of Dune that were amalgamated in the novel Dune in 1965.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best of Herbert after first 3 Dune books, November 25, 2008

By 

M. D Schneider "Scram's master" (Corvallis, OR USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Whipping Star (Paperback)

Once the Dune series reached the fourth book it was apparent that the main goal was to exploit the success of the first three. I sought out other Herbert works and found Whipping Star, (As well as the Dosadi Experiment), to be the equal of the classic series. The creative energy behind the beings, worlds and storylines here was so engaging that I reached a level of absorption in the story I rarely experience. Although the scope is certainly not equal to the Dune universe, the vivid imagery and peculiar characters make for escapism at it's best. This book is due for re-release in January. Buy it new or used and be prepared for some highly persistent images in your mind.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars GREAT READ, June 20, 2009

By 

Christopher Z. Dodds (NY, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Whipping Star (Paperback)

This story picks up the life of saboteur extraordinary Jorj X. Mckie. He is sent on a mission to save all sentient life in the universe. On this mission he meets and befriends a calaban, a strange multi-dimensional creature who radiates emotion and bleeds purple sparks.
Most of the story is taken up with jumbled conversations between Mckie and the calaban named Fannie Mae. It is at times confusing and for some is enough to put the book down forever, but the diligent reader will be rewarded with a downright heartwarming tale.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not One of His Best, but a Good Story, March 28, 2010

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Whipping Star (Paperback)

This book is the first book, though third story, in the ConSentiency Universe. In this Universe, the wheels of democratic-government run so efficiently, so well, that laws are created, discussed, and passed in a matter of hours. You could imagine where this could be a bad thing (James Madison sure did, this is the ultimate Madisonian-nightmare). In lieu of the bureaucratic red tape to prevent society from doing ill-thoughtout things like passing bad laws, the ConSentiency created the Bureau of Sabotage (BuSab). It's best agent? Jorj X. McKie, Saboteur Extraordinaire, and the main character.

This book, in particular, is about the Caleban. A race that offered the other sentient races a means of travel through a "jumpdoor" to virtually anywhere in the galaxy. Without thinking of any consequences, the government agreed. This had the unknown effect of essentially linking everyone to the Caleban. So if one Caleban died (they are apparently immortal otherwise)... everyone who had used that Caleban's jumpdoor dies or goes utterly insane. Through some social norms, legal contracts, and other contractual issues, a Caleban comes under the control of the main villain. This contracts allows the Caleban to be whipped to death.

McKie needs to find a way to save the last Caleban. Unfortunately, this falls beyond the scope of BuSab's stated mission. While it can take action to stop government... it cannot take action against a private citizen. Therein lies of the dilemma.

So, it's a story about bureaucracy, the need for checks and balances, and laws. Very different from Herbert's other works. There's a strange emotional plot involved between McKie and the last Caleban (which is essentially a star as that is their visible manifestation) that makes for more intrigue. It's intriguing but not nearly as serious as Herbert's later work in the ConSentiency Universe: The Dosadi Experimet (Mass Market Paperback)