Something sinister lies at the heart of the Santaroga Valley and Dr. Dasein has been chosen to discover it. The state reports no mental health issue in the Valley, no public health issues and no outside trading. Dasein is here to find out why, and what he uncovers is deeply unsettling...but will he be able to escape alive?

Herbert weaves a tale of desperation, unconscious racism and leaves us with the mysterious sense of something deeper. An excellent tale where we peer into the realms of darkness and suspicion as well as what lies at the heart of human paranoia.

A fun, fast-paced novel heavily influenced by its time (the 1960s). Its noir structure — single man, looking into suspicious business, encountering an old flame — is spiced up by 1960s psychology and psychoactive drugs. Is it a little old-fashioned? Certainly. Does it hold up? Incredibly well. I wish some contemporary authors could learn their pacing from this book. Keep the pages turning!

I had no idea what to expect of this book. I bought it because, well, it was Frank Herbert and not from the Duniverse. (Are we using that as a word to describe the world of the Dune series?) I accidentally gave myself a misdirect by reading a paragraph near the end, where I had placed my bookmark. I'm glad I was wrong.
There wasn't much science, but it does take place in a dystopian California - depending on which side of the barrier you live. Otherwise, I thought it was a wonderful story as you follow Gilbert in his search for answers. He is constantly on guard; never knowing who he can trust, not even himself sometimes.

Dating a sci fi boy is all fun and games until you find yourself reading a backlist Frank Herbert…



(Jk this was better than I expected)

Santaroga Barrier is about a psychologist named Gilbert Dasein who is assigned to do a market study in a town called Santaroga. No outside businesses have become established in the valley because no locals will patronize them - and it's Dasein's job to find out why. I don't want to say much more than that. One of the best parts of this book is figuring out what's going on in Sanataroga along with the protagonist. Suffice it to say that the mystery is worth solving! I can't promise you'll love this book because reading is after all subjective, but Sanataroga Barrier is well written and will certainly engage you as a reader one way or another.

I enjoyed the characters and their interactions. The plot was good, as was the action. The story presented some questions that were never answered, though information was there to let you guess at the answers. The plot had a few holes, but nothing that derailed the story. Overall, an enjoyable read.

Obviously not his best book but it does continue a theme in his work. Psychology as a means of exploration and manipulation of group mentality amongst communities at odds with each other and linked with a mind expanding substance….

Also dripping with heavy 60’s b-movie Americana sensibilities.

Wow, can't believe I'm giving one of my favorite authors a 2 star review. This story felt like it was only partially completed. The writing style is so Herbert that the reading was pleasurable, but I am afraid I just did not get the real point behind "why" the book was written. So much of the "sinister" aspects of the book felt artificial. I kept wondering aloud "Why in the world did that just happen!?" more times then I care to recount, and that is definitely not a good thing.

The ending was equally frustrating with no real satisfaction to be gained for the reading effort. The concept behind the book could have been so better exploited for a juicy story, and perhaps even spawned other spin-off stories. Yet Santaroga Barrier fails to excite the reader and stimulate near enough thought into the evils of commercialism and marketing, and I simply could not connect well with our supposed hero since it was impossible to identify just what it was he was opposing.

I imagine there are folks that will look upon this as a hippie drug story, and a small part of me agrees. I suspect that Herbert was intentionally trying to get this response, but again the reasons are not clear as to why.

Overall, I found this an odd book but very smooth to read. I still love Herbert's writing, but this was perhaps his weakest story I have read and will keep me from exploring too hard his other pseudo sci-fi. He is at his best when the sci-fi is heavy and the fiction very clear.

*Mild spoiler warning*
Considering this is written by Frank Herbert, one of the most popular sci-fi authors, I'm surprised there isn't more talk about this book. It was a very compelling mystery with a nice sprinkling of sci-fi elements in it. I love the unsettled feeling that Santarogans give off and the appeal of the Jaspers. If I were Dasein I would've had a hard time choosing between my mission and the temptation of settling in to Santaroga and tripping balls and Jaspers in a nice house with Jenny.

I'm fascinated by reading other works by a writer best known for one title. It's interesting, for example, to read Bram Stoker's non-Dracula fiction. And so it is with Frank Herbert, a writer possessed of an astonishing mind, best known for the sf classic Dune, and yet someone who also produced many other novels and stories. You can't help but look for links between the lesser works and the masterpieces. If the other story appeared earlier, it seems like an antecedent. If it follows, the text appears in the giant's shadow.

Santaroga Barrier can't escape the shadow of Arrakis. Yes, it's a very different book. It takes place in contemporary America, rather than in the far-off future and across alien worlds. It's a fairly taut mystery, rather than a sprawling space opera. Its protagonist is a psychologist, rather than a galactic messiah. But the links are clear, unsurprisingly as Santaroga appeared just four years after Dune's first publication, and one year before Dune Messiah.

Let me summarize the book, first, and without spoilers. Santaroga Barrier concerns an investigation into a strange Californian town that is unusually isolated from the surrounding area. A group of investors hires Gilbert Dasein (great name) to figure out Santaroga's secrets. He quickly learns that the town's identity is based on using a mysterious substance called Jaspers, and that they've built an intentional community around its powers. Dasein is in love with a Santarogan he went to school with, and their relationship yields a romance plot.

It's a good suspense tale. Herbert feeds us clues generously, but not overmuch. Mysteries appear, to be tackled. And the second half ratchets up the tension with escalating physical challenges, including an awesome series of "accidents."

It's almost impossible to read Santaroga without seeing the historical context. Jaspers stands in for the 1960s drug culture, obviously. The intentional community echoes contemporary communes and utopian projects. Race politics appear early on, as Dasein wonders if the locals are racist, and if there are integration problems. Santarogans' critique of the rest of America jibes well with both the counterculture and also the emerging mainstream sense of self-doubt. Somewhat out of step is the idea of a heroic psychologist, which feels more like a 1940s idea, especially as contemporary reform and splinter movements within psychology don't really appear.

I was especially taken with the idea of a non-countercultural community building up a drug-based utopia. Through speech and manners Herbert carefully establishes Santarogans as ordinary middle Americans, rather than hippies: middle aged, too, rather than young. He avoids the typical Californian attitude of equating California with the rest of the nation by identifying people as having moved to Santaroga from Louisiana and New England. The novel could have connected with the back-to-the-land movement by expanding on Jaspers as a natural, rather than synthetic product, but the community is resolutely modern, complete with cars and greenhouses. (There is dislike of tv, but that doesn't seem too radical for the time; I share the attitude, myself.)

What about the Dune resonances? The big one is a drug organizing a new way of life. Jaspers isn't melange, but it's close. Dasein spends a lot of time tracking how his mental awareness changes under its impact, including speeding up of cognition and allowing access to a kind of group mind. Jaspers improves people, it's suggested, and Dasein as problem-solving hero starts talking about gods towards the end. The drug also appears in an ecological framework, as we follow its presence in multiple environmental niches.

I was very taken by the novel. It has many classic Herbert features: conversations that become cryptic, even maddening; oblique observations that set the reader's mind buzzing; a shift from concrete details to macro discussions about civilization and humanity; that nearly conspiratorial sense of multiple forces and politics overlapping, often from the shadows. Like many of his early and middle period novels other than Dune, such as the brilliant Whipping Star, Santaroga Barrier is a short and focused novel, almost a novella, which I appreciate. There are some fun jokes, like naming the hero after Heidegger's notion of being, Jaspers after Karl, and having a psychologist named Piaget.

Two off notes remain, and I can only mention them with spoiler shields on.First, the female love interest is a thin stereotype, like a 1930s Universal horror film character. Jenny has no interior life. Her education is shunted aside in favor of basic administrative work. She only lives to love and care for Dasein. She has embarrassing to read in 2018. Second, the final moments are a bit too restrained, as Gilbert and Jenny agree to marry and live within the Jaspers land. There's just a hint that Santaroga might expand, but that's left undeveloped. We don't know how the outside world will respond, including the investors who kicked off the plot.
Otherwise, recommended. Have a bottle of Santaroga beer while you read.

The version I had is an old one, so the blurb spoiled the plot until 1/3 through the book...

It's fantastic. Depth, originality, vivid characters and a steady beat. The only thing that lets it down is the ending, which didn't quite land where I wanted it to.

Although Herbert isn't an especially exciting prose stylist, I enjoyed reading this one. It isn't full of complex concepts and systems that you need to figure out as you go like Dune or some of his other works, so it moves along pretty well, at least in Herbert-adjusted terms. I also just love spooky town mysteries. The build-up in unease is effective. Despite not being quite as exciting as it could have been I found it more interesting than, say, Blake Crouch's Wayward Pines trilogy.

A few criticisms: Santaroga doesn't go in depth enough into its themes, making it feel relatively slight when compared to his other works. Which is a shame because I really enjoy the ideas brought up here--mostly dealing, in as non-spoilery terms as I can muster, with consciousness and psychological development. It also has some problems with misogyny and racism in its treatment of a couple of the side characters.