From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Aug 25 14:30:21 1997 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!eru.mt.luth.se!news-ge.switch.ch!news.grnet.gr!news-feed1.eu.concert.net!infeed1.internetmci.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!192.88.144.6!news.kei.com!eecs-usenet-02.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!news!wex From: agapow@latcs1.cs.latrobe.edu.au (p-m agapow) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: "The White Plague" by Frank Herbert Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 24 Aug 1997 19:40:24 GMT Organization: Calvin Coolidge Home for Dead Biologists Lines: 56 Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: tinbergen.media.mit.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:1504 "The White Plague" by Frank Herbert A Postview, copyright 1997 p-m agapow Genius scientist goes wacko after death of wife and cooks up killer disease that offs the female half of world. Social implications at 11. Perhaps we should have pity for poor Frank Herbert. Shackled by the success of "Dune," from this distance his later career seems like an endless parade of sequels. Herbert himself may not have felt this way, but even the "BuSab" and "Pandora" books have faded against the weight of the "Dune" juggernaut. So you have to give him credit for trying something different, even if it isn't entirely successful. In an attempt to avoid spoilers, the following discussion will obliquely talk around some plot elements. "The White Plague" sits, at times uncomfortably, between the modern technothriller and an end-of-the-world social upheaval SF novel. The first half of the book could have come from the pen of Frederick Forsyth or Tom Clancy. Although not as prone to apropos lectures as either of those two -- in fact some of the biology used is downright wobbly -- Herbert keeps the story strictly prosaic for the first half of the book. Swapping between different story threads, we see the creation of the plague as an act of revenge, its' spiralling out of control, the lives of a couple trapped in a containment facility, a scientific team attempting to thwart the spread of the disease. In content and style it is barely SF at all. This, of course, is not necessarily a problem. However, this section of the book is a trifle dull. Towards the end of the novel SFnal elements start to creep in, depicting the social changes wrought by the plague. Unfortunately these sit uneasily with the previous material. Rather than a natural turn of the story, it feels as if the author had lost his nerve. Similarly the plague passes from being an unstoppable menace to something nasty but solvable. Astonishingly, a large chunk of the plot - the quest to find a cure - just fizzes. There is also a vaguely misogynistic air to some of the plot elements, although this impression is admittedly subjective. The amazonian qualities of a female research scientist -- who is smart, aggressive and brave -- and the unattractiveness of a surviving girlfriend who complains a lot are lingered over. The social changes occurring at end of the book are hardly favourable to women, yet this fact goes largely without note. Despite its speculative elements "The White Plague" seems to be promoting a curiously archaic pictures of gender, with women pleased to be child-bearing units and men slaves to their reproductive and sexual urges. The end of the book thus leaves a faintly bad taste. These complaints aside, "The White Plague" is not an entirely bad read as it is sturdily written. Although not as good as it might be, it is moderately entertaining if disposable. [**/ok] and the quality shelf of an airport bookshop on the Sid and Nancy scale. %A Frank Herbert %T The White Plague %D 1982 paul-michael agapow (agapow@latcs1.oz.au) Postviews SF/F reviews site: From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Aug 7 16:57:56 2000 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!newspump.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!europa.netcrusader.net!4.1.16.34!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!nycmny1-snh1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!dreaderd!not-for-mail Sender: wex@deepspace.media.mit.edu From: arenn@urbanophile.com Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Subject: Review: Dune by Frank Herbert Organization: GNU's Not Unix! Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Date: 05 Aug 2000 16:54:31 -0400 Message-ID: Lines: 62 NNTP-Posting-Host: deepspace.media.mit.edu X-Trace: dreaderd 965508873 9434 18.85.23.65 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:2774 Dune by Frank Herbert Review Copyright (c) 2000 Aaron M. Renn Conclusion: Recommended My computer crashed, keeping me away from my precious hacking and, in a strange way, sucking out my life force. I have been singularly unmotivated to do anything, including read new books. All I could bring myself to do was to re-read a few old SF novels. Now that I'm back in business with a new computer, my reviews resume with a series of these repeat reads. The first was Dune. I happened to stumble across a showing of the movie Dune on the Sci-Fi channel. I thought it was better than I had remembered, and it made me want to go back and re-read the book. Dune is an interesting work, telling the story of young Paul Atreides as he grows into his destiny and battles the evil forces that threaten his family and the life he's known. Dune refers to the planet Arrakis, a desert world that is the sole source of the melange spice, which extends life and also has psycho-active properties. This is the most valuable substance in the galaxy, and it is nominally quite a coup for the Atreides family to be put in charge of its production. Nevertheless, they suspect a trap laid by their arch-enemies, the Harkonnens. This book has a few of the cliched sf elements that I dislike, such as the far future society organized on feudal lines, the Christ-like child of prophecy come to save the world, the more-evil-than-evil villains, but nevertheless I thought it was an interesting read. Herbert clearly put a lot of work into designing his universe, which has the feeling of depth so often missing in lesser works. He cleverly hints at events in the past that would be interesting to know about, but doesn't tell us about them, thus leaving us wanting to know more about the world. I'm guessing Herbert delivered on that desire, as he wrote many sequels, none of which I've read. He also smartly went with the epic feel of re-telling a legend rather than a straight-ahead narration. It was pretty obvious what was going to happen at the end, and by adopting this approach Herbert avoids making his work look transparent. Still, this clearly fell a step or two below the masterpiece category for me, probably because of the elements I outlined above. Perhaps that's a bit unfair. This book was written long ago and for all I know Herbert was the first to originate all of the cliches I complain about. Nevertheless, reading in the year 2000, I can't help but be affected by them. But as one of the classics of the field, and a solid, above average work to boot, Dune is clearly a must read for any SF fan. BTW: The Sci-Fi Channel is apparently creating a new movie version of Dune, due out later this year. %A Herbert, Frank %T Dune %I Ace %D 1990-09 (original publication 1965) %G ISBN 0-441-17271-7 %P 535 pp. %O mass market paperback, US$4.95 Reviewed on 2000-07-30 Aaron M. Renn (arenn@urbanophile.com) http://www.urbanophile.com/arenn/