Frank Herbert’s Dune Saga, a six-book series considered by many to be one of the best ever written, has completely overshadowed many of his other works. But by the time he died in 1986, Herbert had written more than 26 novels and, unsurprisingly, that includes a wealth of hidden treasures. Here are five Frank Herbert novels, other than The Dune Saga, that you definitely need to read.
main illustration by john berkey, who produced the cover art for the frank herbert novels.
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1. destiny: empty (1966)
Written in 1966 and revised by Herbert in 1978, Destiny: Void began a four-book series that included The Jesus Incident (1979), The Lazarus Effect (1983), and The Ascension Factor (1988) (the last books writings with invoice payment).
This highly underrated series, the most important outside of the Dune Saga, is definitely worth a read, especially the second book, the imaginative Darwinian-infused Jesus Incident, a novel featuring a population of spiced humans living alongside to intelligent beings. seaweed in a predominantly aquatic world (I guess Herbert got tired of writing about deserts all the time).
But the book that launched the series, Destiny: Void, is a remarkably prescient work: an early attempt to tackle the problem of contention as it applies to higher-than-human artificial intelligence. Set in the near future, it chronicles the tribulations of a society that recently experienced a catastrophe while working to develop an AI, an effort that resulted in the catastrophic destruction of the Puget Sound region.
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Determined to learn from their mistake and keep AI development as far from Earth as possible, a group of scientists clone themselves and relocate their doppelgangers to an isolated colony on the moon. the clones are deceived that they are going to be sent on a mission to tau ceti where they are going to establish a colony. But in reality, the crew is there to serve the needs of the ship, a spacecraft controlled by a charged human brain called the organic mental core (OMC). unexpectedly, the omc fails, along with its backups, leaving the clones with only one choice: they must develop an ai that allows the ship to continue, or it will perish.
2. heisenberg’s eyes (1966)
A precursor to Gattaca, Herbert’s the Eyes of Heisenberg explores the struggles of a society that has become deeply stratified along genetic and biotechnological lines. the story takes place 80,000 years from now and addresses a number of themes familiar to many of today’s transhumanists and futurists.
herbert combines both Orwellian and Huxleyian elements to create a dystopian vision in which humanity finds itself divided into two genetic reproductive classes: the radically improved, dictatorial “optimen” and the subservient “folk.” in this world, all humans must undergo genetic testing and modification before birth. At the same time, sterile Optimen have achieved immortality through the use of special enzymes. social control is maintained through propaganda, the promise of longer life, and the quasi-religious myth of optimal superiority. Furthermore, the population is controlled by a hormone addiction that affects both people and Optimen.
But things are not what they seem, and the story culminates in the rise of an underground revolt of cyborgs, the result of an earlier attempt to improve humanity by merging flesh with machines.
3. scourge star (1969)
In what is probably his most conceptual work, Herbert’s Scourge Star takes place in the distant future after humanity has made contact with other extraterrestrial civilizations. Together, they form the Consciousness, a kind of intergalactic government similar to the united federation of planets in Star Trek. but this system proves to be too efficient for its own good, enacting knee-jerk laws that ignore their own downstream consequences. in turn, a shadow organization is created to disrupt the system and slow it down. the protagonist, jorj x. mckie, is a saboteur extraordinaire, a sabotage bureau agent who excels at his job, but eventually gets involved with the calibans, a strange and mysterious species.
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But as the story unfolds, the Calibans begin to disappear one by one, each disappearance coinciding with the death of millions of other sentient beings and the onset of incurable madness.
In 1977 a sequel to the spanking star called the dosadi experiment was released.
4. the godmakers (1972)
A cross between Dune and the Consentiency series, The God Makers is a novel that Herbert pieced together from four short stories he wrote between 1958 and 1960. And indeed, the story contains several elements near and dear to fans of dune, including the practice of “religious engineering” and the conversion of a character into a divine being. It’s not his best work, but it’s a must-read for any fan curious to see how Herbert’s ideas evolve as he progresses toward his latest masterpiece, Dune.
Just as the Bene Gesserit proactively embed religious beliefs within a society they seek to control, the godmakers involve a government agency that troubleshoots and rehabilitates “lost planets,” that is, potentially threatening civilizations that are not enlightened and warlike. The main character, Lewis Orne, travels to these planets and “fixes” them so that order can be maintained throughout the galaxy, a galaxy that is still recovering from a devastating war. but as orne’s tasks become increasingly complex, he soon discovers that he has extrasensory abilities and is asked to join the company of “gods”, which would require life-threatening rites of passage. /p>
5. hellstrom’s hive (1973)
Apart from Dune, this is probably Frank Herbert’s most accessible novel. Sci-fi fans who enjoy dystopian stories about hive minds and totalitarian collectives (such as the Borg) will enjoy what this novel has to offer.
Set in the Pacific Northwest, a government agency is investigating a curious filmmaker named Nils Hellstrom. Suspecting that he is a communist or cult leader, and alarmed that he might be developing a superweapon by the name of Project 40, the investigators descend on his hidden farm. but what they find is beyond horror; hellstrom has created an underground insectoid-human collective. the ant colony consists of hundreds of miles of underground tunnels and thousands of workers, each a product of breeding and genetic modification, chemical injections, and mental conditioning. but the colony runs (disturbingly) smoothly; everyone works for the benefit of the larger group, and there is no social strife or inequality. But, as investigators will soon discover, there is a larger plan at work, one that extends beyond the hive itself.
herbert was inspired to write the novel after seeing david l. Wolper’s movie, The Hellstrom Chronicle (now available on DVD and Blueray), which features a character of the same name. That said, the story is quite a different one, with human evolution coming up against the potential for insect dominance.
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