Whipping Star
by Frank Herbert · first published 1970
36% recommend64% neutral
Why HN recommends it
A science fiction novel by Frank Herbert that serves as a stand-alone alternative to Dune, offering a less allegorical work and a good starting point beyond the famous series.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
From inside cover: In the future, "jumpdoors" presented to mankind by the mysterious entities known as Calebans have made instantaneous travel -- to any point in the Galaxy -- a commonplace. But the Calebans are vanishing, and now only one is left -- and two agents of the Bureau of Sabotage make a horrifying discovery: When the last Caleban dies, so will everyone, everywhere, who has ever used a jumpdoor! And nobody is known not to have "jumped" at least once.... The Caleban must be kept alive -- but it is under contract to a psychotic millionairess who is subjecting it to systemat
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…>_> God Emperor of Dune was my favorite even though it was the most preachy. I thought the original Dune was a bit preachy being so strongly allegorical and all. I prefer Herbert's other novels like Whipping Star/The Dosadi Experiment
on “Ask YC: What's the most inspiring sci-fi book you've read?” ↗Some iconic science fiction books that can stand alone: Asimov: The Gods Themselves Clarke: Childhood's End, Rendezvous with Rama Herbert: Dune, Whipping Star Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451 Bester: The Demolished Man, The Stars My Destination (also called "Tiger, Tiger") Niven: Ringworld Niven and Pournelle: The Mote in God's Eye, Footfall Gibson:…
on “Beginnings of Science Fiction” ↗On that exact note -- I can recommend "Whipping star", a sci-fi novel by Frank Herbert (of Dune fame).
on “A New Physics Theory of Life” ↗…lot of things (comic books, concept albums) that aren't really novels. I think Fred Pohl is missing (say Gateway) and also Joe Halderman (Worlds!). I'd rather see any Frank Herbert book but Dune (say Whipping Star or The Santaroga Barrier.) On the other hand, put a sci-fi fan in charge of making this list and it's no doubt they'll add a stick of books from some author who is a "no account" in literary circles…
on “New Wave Sci-Fi: 75 Best Novels of 1964–1983” ↗I like the Dosadi books, Whipping Star, the short stories in Eye, Eyes of Heisenberg, Destination: Void, The Santaroga Barrier (which my wife hates), Under Pressure and Hellstrom's Hive. If I had to pick just one it might be Whipping Star…
on “Vernor Vinge has died” ↗…Asimov or Heinlein or Dick or Smith or LeGunn or Pohl or... I am a big fan of Frank Herbert's other books, particularly The Santaroga Barrier, Under Pressure, Destination Void, Eyes of Heisenberg, Whipping Star and the Dosadi books. I can't stand Dune but for some reason people read it over and over again and don't get into the rest of Herbert never mind any other authors. I'd also blame Tor press for the…
on “Nobody Wants to Buy the Future: Why Science Fiction Literature Is Vanishing” ↗Or Whipping Star by Frank Herbert (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whipping_Star)
on “Is the Sun Conscious? (2021) [pdf]” ↗…General semantics appear also in Robert A. Heinlein's work, especially Gulf. [49] Bernard Wolfe drew on general semantics in his 1952 science fiction novel Limbo. [50] Frank Herbert's novels Dune[51] and Whipping Star [52] are also indebted to general semantics. The ideas of general semantics became a sufficiently important part of the shared intellectual toolkit of genre science fiction to merit parody by Damon Knight…
on “How Swedes were fooled by the book “Surrounded by Idiots”” ↗Reading Herbert's thoughts on Dune and the all-too-human nature of superheroes reminded me of "The Bureau of Sabotage" (1) from two of his other books, The Dosadi Experiment and Whipping Star: In Herbert's fiction, sometime in the far future, government becomes terrifyingly efficient. Red tape no longer exists: laws are conceived of, passed, funded, and executed within hours, rather than…
on “Dune Genesis (1980)” ↗While the article is interesting in its own right, the title reminded me of Frank Herbert's Whipping Star http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whipping_Star
on “NASA's NuSTAR Captures Possible 'Screams' from Zombie Stars” ↗And by "a couple", it is just that. There are exactly two novels set in the ConSentiency Universe: Whipping Star and The Dosadi Experiment. There are also two short stories, available in the collection Eye. The Dune Universe proved more popular, but I think ConSentiency would have been more movie-and-television…
on “Being a good guy boss left me £1.2m in debt” ↗The concept of "connectives" as explained in Frank Herbert's Whipping Star book comes to mind. One critic remark to make: I am not impressed by the "complex looks" of the hypergraphs because the initial premise is that it does not matter how we visualise them.
on “The Wolfram Physics Project” ↗There is an exploration of this train of thought in Frank Herbert's novel "Whipping Star", where a criminal condemned to a Clockwork-Orange-style conditioning to abhor pain and suffering nevertheless finds a way to commit murder by exploiting a truly alien being with no human-understandable…
on “On Norbert Wiener's Relationship with Bertrand Russell” ↗Herbert's ConSentiency universe , the Calebans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whipping_Star?wprov=sfla1
on “SETI Home Flags 100 Signals After Sorting 12B Others” ↗Have you read Frank Herbert's Jorj McKie series of books? http://infohost.nmt.edu/~shipman/reading/mckie.html "The main theme of the two principal Jorj X. McKie stories, Whipping Star and The Dosadi Experiment, is the Bureau of Sabotage, an interesting concept in government that is kind of like a ninja GAO. The idea is that all governments and other bureaucracies tend to snowball…
on “Digital identity cards: Estonia takes the plunge” ↗