Customer Reviews

Whipping Star

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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)

A Celedon has entered into a bizzare contract with a female sadist in order to understand life in our demension. The sadist has been brainwashed by the authorities not to inflict pain. The Celedon has no concept of pain and therefore is a perfect victim for the sadist. However, these sadistic actions will cause it to cease to exist. The Celedon has asked for Mckie's help to find loophole in the ironclad contract before the it and our universe cease to exist.

"whipping Star" by Frank Herbert was first published in 1970 to great acclaim. The republication in 2009 is just as notable.

Herbert writes a novel that is stunning in its' presentation. This is my first read of the classic, and I loved the book! I sped through the book, reveling in the efforts by Jorj X McKie to communicate with the lone Caleban. Just how do you communicate with a being who has a different frame of reference and the survival of life forms in the ConSentiency hangs in the balance? Not to mention, the existence of jumpdoors that the Bureau of Sabotage uses to great advantage.

If any Herbert book is a must read, this is one of them. The Trade paper sports a new cover by Stephen Youll.

Check out [...] for more Herbert books.

In the future mankind has met several alien species; forging the ConSentiency alliance to govern interrelationships. However, to control the dictatorship of perfect democracy run by bureaucrats, a top secret agency was formed. The mission of the Bureau of Sabotage (BuSab) is to cause problems for the ConSentiency government and its bureaucracies to fumble in reaction to their tossed figurative hand grenades with exclusions granted to individuals and to those agencies considered critical to everyone's well being.

Someone is whipping stars; killing them. Now this sadist is targeting a star whose death will have consequences throughout the galaxy and probably the universe. When a Caleban beach ball lands on a remote planet, BuSab sends its best troublemaker Agent Jorj X. McKie to communicate with the life essence living inside; no sentient race has been able to communicate with the Caleban. Likewise the Caleban have tried also. They need help to save the universe from a bad legally bound contract they signed with a human sadist Miss Abnethe. The Caleban have become her victims of pain and death based on the contract. They need McKie to find a way out of the binding contract before the universe is whipped to death by Miss Abnethe.

This is a reprint of a 1970 science fiction thriller that seems so timely with the economy freefall while extracting moral objectivism to the extreme. Amusing and satirical, fans will enjoy McKie's efforts to save the universe in between his divorce proceedings while trying not to become a masochistic victim of the wealthy sadist destroying the universe one Caleban whip at a time.

Harriet Klausner

This book is one more proof of Herbert's mastery. The effort and difficulties in communication between a human and a being that perceives our dimension only as a "wave" is wonderfully laid out. The issue of communication between intelligent beings of different kinds (non-human) and cultures is one that Herbert plays a lot in his books, but in this one it was taken to another level.

( With the Dosadi Experiment ) one of the best books I have ever read! If you can manage to find a copy of this book, get it.

The Dune series by Frank H. is probably my favorite read. I've read through the entire series several times since 1977. Whipping Star is fun, but it doesn't go into the intimate detail as Dune and maybe I was expecting too much of this book. For me, it was almost predictable. I did enjoy how he explained time and space.

One of Frank Herbert's lesser known science fiction works, Whipping Star is a cautionary tale about unknown technology and communication lapses set in humanities distant future.

Having been a Star Trek geek myself, I recently decided to reread Whipping Star after watching a Next Generation episode (#102) in which Captain Pickard was taken hostage onto a planet with the Captain of another vessel where neither of them understood the other's language (episode title "Darmok"). Again, a language barrier caused significant problems and even death, and with Whipping Star Frank Herbert gets a bit more serious by placing all of humanity in peril.

The most intriguing part of Whipping Star is that the title is exactly what is happening within the story. No analogy needed. Stars have been beaten to death, and a final star that has forces beyond reckoning is about to be sadistically snuffed out. But when a Caleban beach ball washes ashore on a distant planet, BuSab (Bureau of Sabotage) agent Jorj X. McKie gets called in to help save the day and to find a way to communicate with the Caleban that lives within the ball.

Legal maneuvering and faster than light dispatches flood the story but always lead the reader back to the difficulties surrounding the lack of communication McKie has with the Caleban.

Short, fast, complex and sometimes funny (McKie getting a subconscious interruption during his divorce proceedings is laugh-out-loud fun), Whipping Star is an old Frank Herbert title that came out about four years post-Dune, but still shows a science fiction master at the height of his career.

Highly recommended.