Currently a little over halfway through Dune Messiah, and I'm definitely going to read Children of Dune later this year and then maybe the rest of his Dune books. But I saw that he wrote other novels and was wondering which ones people enjoyed. I know tastes are different, but I would like to read one of his other works this year.
Ive liked everyrhing I read of his. Especially the *Pandora* series starting with Destination:void and then The Jesus Incident
My user name comes from there!
I think my favorite parts are the (bad) spoken word poetry, which I read in William Shatner's voice.
To be honest, I read both Hellstrom's Hive and The Eyes of Heisenberg for grad school and they were both so bad it made me question whether I had overestimated Dune as a kid.
What! Hive is good! That's the kind of paranoid freak shit we need!
Thank you i had the same experience with the white plague and the jesus incident
I read Hellstrom's Hive a few years ago. Weird, TV horror sci-fi feel to it. Much weaker than Dune, and the treatment of women is awful. I sometimes think he was a writer who had three great books in him, but got to play with his ideas in print because of the first three.
Whipping Star and Dosadi Experiment
It's been many years since I've read them, but I actually enjoyed Dosadi more than Dune. Kind of sadly underrated, in my opinion. Whipping Star I don't remember as much.
+1 for Whipping Star!
love, love LOVE the Bureau of Sabotage and Jorj X McKie!
I really remember one of his short stories called Seed Stock, from a paperback anthology of his short stories. I read several of his other books and wasn't greatly impressed tbh
I love The Santaroga Barrier. There's mystery and intrigue and insight into society.
Came here to say this!
it has been years, but Dosadi prefigures Dune and is is direct dialog with Zelazny in the era. Worth a read.
The White plague
Agreed. Great “what if” scenario and potential consequences.
I enjoyed the White Plague. Terrorist kill the main character’s wife and daughter, and he unleashes a plague in Ireland that only kills women. I thought the end of it might be the beginnings of the Bene Gesserit.
The Green Brain
I enjoyed White Plague far more than Dune.
Herbert actually has a lot of little known books completely unrelated to Dune. I haven’t found one that is nearly so great, but so far they are all worth reading. Dosidi (sp?) Experiment seems to be the least obscure one. I dont really have a fave, they are quite different .
*The Green Brain*. Total pulp silliness about insects growing to giant size and an insect intelligence directing them to attack humans as a sort of ‘nature fights back’ scenario,
The Dosadi Experiment I remember as being great, but outside of this sub, it has been rare to hear anyone mention it.
This is one of my all time favourites and I mention it whenever it fits.
The White Plague
Dragon of the Sea is really good.
The White Plague I thought was great. Interesting idea but I didn’t expect the consequences.
They are all decent for what they are and when they were written. White Plague is amazing as is Dosadi Experiment and Under Pressure/dragon of the sea
Destination: Void and The Jesus Incident.
I didn't care for the The Jesus Incident but I LOVE Destination: Void! It's like a real-time stage play thriller about philosophy.
Santaroga Barrier. Mysterious town full of fulfilled people. Spoiler: >!They're all on shrooms.!<
I enjoyed Soul Catcher a long time ago, I’d be curious to hear anyone else’s thoughts on it because I suspect it hasn’t aged well for modern sensibilities.
The Godmakers.
Soooo many. All the Dosadi stuff, The Eyes of Heisenberg, The Green Brain, The Godmaker, Hellstrom's Hive, the Jesus Incident stuff .
I can remember the name but the one where people lived on giant lilly pads stands out the most in my memory, just for being almost as weird as Dune
I really enjoyed Destination:Void, the claustrophobic premise and all the rambling by the main character, good stuff It's been a while tho and haven't checked the other books so memory could be warped
I just picked up The Godmaker - I really enjoyed Dosadi Experiment so have a good feeling about this one….a gem found at a used book store…
In hindsight Frank Herbert isn’t that good to me, I remember how heavily occupied I was with the Dune series but its sequels degraded into more and more fantasy elements that just seemed out of place. Telepathy, future visions and so on. I think his best book was the original first dune, it was also one of his first books.
IMHO, Nothing matches God Emperor of Dune (book 4). You should at least try it. But if the books after that aren't doing it for you, it's OK to stop.
Herbert caught lightning in a bottle with Dune. He was a great world builder, ok writer. I’ve read two of his non-Dune books: Hellstrom’s Hive & The White Plague. I’d recommend the latter out of those two, especially as the bio-terrorism plot was ahead of its time.
I remember reading and really enjoying the Hellstrom's Hive. It's really weird. He wrote it after watching a documentary about insects
I’ve been meaning to try a couple of his other books that I already own, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.