The White Plague [Audiobook, MP3 Audio, Unabridged] [MP3 CD]

Frank Herbert (Author), Scott Brick (Narrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 22, 2008

A warm day in Dublin, a crowded street corner. Suddenly, a car-bomb explodes, killing and injuring scores of innocent people.From the second-floor window of a building across the street, a visiting American watches, helpless, as his beloved wife and children are sacrificed in the heat and fire of someone else's cause.From this shocking beginning, the author of the phenomenal Dune series has created a masterpiece.The White Plague is a marvelous and terrifyingly plausible blend of fiction and visionary theme. It tells of one man's revenge, of the man watching from the window who is pushed over the edge of sanity by the senseless murder of his family and who, reappearing several months later as the so-called Madman, unleashes a terrible vengeance upon the human race. For John Roe O'Neill is a molecular biologist who has the knowledge, and now the motivation, to devise and disseminate a genetically carried plague-a plague to which, like those that scourged mankind centuries ago, there is no antidote, but one that zeros in, unerringly and fatally, on women. As the world slowly recognizes the reality of peril, as its politicians and scientists strive desperately to save themselves and their society from the prospect of human extinction, so does Frank Herbert grapple with one of the great themes of contemporary life: the enormous dangers that lurk at the dark edges of science.The White Plague is a prophetic, believable, and utterly compelling novel.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A tale of awesome revenge."--The Cincinnati Enquirer on The White Plague

"A speculative intellect with few rivals in modern SF."--The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

--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.

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Product Details

• MP3 CD
• Publisher: Tantor Media; Unabridged,MP3 - Unabridged CD edition (December 22, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400155657
• ISBN-13: 978-1400155651
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,365,431 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #9 in Books > Books on Cassette > Authors, A-Z > ( H ) > Herbert, Frank

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

40 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Science Fiction, Deserves to be in Print, September 17, 2002

By 

718 Session (Brooklyn, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The White Plague (Hardcover)

If you're looking for another "Dune", be warned: This book takes place on Earth, albiet an Earth that is about to go through some huge changes.

Our story opens with the death of the wife and children of brilliant biochemical researcher John O'Neill at the hands of terrorists. O'Neil is driven mad with grief and unleashes a biochemically engineered plague on the world, one that is 100% fatal to women.

While not Herbert's best book, it is still fantastic. Frank paints a horrific picture of governments racing first against each other to be the first to find a cure, and soon realilsing that a cure will only come with cooperation. Each country deals with the plague differently and the sweep of the story stretches around the world and back to the beginning as O'Neil admires his handiwork.

The story is quite action driven for a Herbert book. With most women dying off, the planet soon becomes unrecognizable. Will a cure be found in time? What form will it take? How will humanity survive? Herbert's trademark philosophical ruminations are there, just below the surface for plucking if you're interested. I will say, though, that the irony of thousand-year-old cultures having to re-write themselves overnight in the name of survival wasn't lost on me.

Even more tantalizing is the ending which will leave you wondering what will happen next. Not that there's a cliffhanger, but the world is so different you imagine a sequal would have done very well.

This is a really good book. It may drag a bit in spots and some of the science involved is a bit dated, but it is still very enjoyable. There's something wrong when a book as good as this one written by a author as popular as Herbert is out of print. Surely there must be some publishing company out there willing to cash in on the writings of a man whose works have been brought to the screen twice (soon to be three times, with "Children of Dune"). Anyone?

Until that happens, pick up a copy at a used bookstore. You won't regret it.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Readable, April 18, 2005

By 

Russell C. Longmire (Houston, Texas United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The White Plague (Hardcover)

I read the first 5 reviews before writing this. I read this book quite some time ago and thought it was great. I waded through the original "Dune" and thought that this book was much more readable. I read all the criticism written about this book and I will tell you this. I leant this book to 5 different people and each of them read it straight through and could hardly put it down (myself included). Now I ask you, does that sound like an over rated book or a good book. I thought the book was very literary with one of the main characters being a catholic priest. The story is set in Ireland and has a strong Irish flavor. I have read a number of books by this author, I thought this story was one of his best!

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A chilling story of loss and revenge gone amuck, May 22, 2000

By 

Alan R. Holyoak - See all my reviews

This review is from: The White Plague (Hardcover)

Herbert weaves a wonderfully chilling tale of loss and revenge in this biotech centered sci-fi offering.

In the book, the main character (a molecular biologist) loses his wife to a random terrorist bombing in Ireland. Fed up with the endless violence and loss of innocent life due to chronic IRA-British conflicts in Ireland, the scientist uses methods of genetic engineering to develop a virus that he plans to release in Ireland. He sends notice to the world of his intentions, and releases the virus.

The virus kills only women. Ireland is devastated, but, of course, the virus escapes and the white plague becomes a pandemic.

The technology certainly exists to develop genetically engineered viral vectors (i.e., viruses that carry genetically engineered DNA or RNA). Is such a plague possible? Technically, yes. That's what makes the tale so chilling.

The spread of the disease in the book and efforts to protect uninfected women are described as effort after effort to stop the virus fail.

This is great summer time reading for anyone who enjoys techno-sci-fi books. The story line is convincing, the scientific premises of the book are within the reach of feasibility, and the potential consequences of such an act are mind boggling.

Please re-issue this book. There are certainly people out there who would enjoy it.

5 stars!

Alan Holyoak