I like Herberts' focus on economics in his books: The science (fiction) of greed driving the wheels of progress, in this case the progress of a stubborn Berkley PhD to expose the psychotropicly enhanced citizens of a North California valley, while himself becoming high on dairy produce.

The engaging array of characters and fast pace in this book make for a quick and enjoyable read. This is a good book for Creighton fans to move up to on the way to Philip Dick, with aspects of both, as Herbert's story liberates us from our mental shackles and then buries us, in Santaroga, under our inescapable biological inheritance.

A real page turner from the beginning. Started to drag on at the end, but definitely one that leaves you thinking about the pros and cons of such a society described in the book. I also liked the theme of consciousness. What is full consciousness? How do we achieve full consciousness? Is better to achieve it or not to achieve it? I would like to still know why all the "accidents" occurred. Were they meant to protect the people and state of Santaroga? Why did they happen unconsciously by the Santarogans?

I would give this book 3.5 if I could.

Truthfully I enjoyed this read. It was OBVIOUSLY LSD coded, but it really plays out like a regular mystery novel with sci-fi elements. By the end I was hungry for some Jaspers Cheese myself. Also the protagonists name was very original "Dasein".

Intriguing and Wyndhamesque exploration into a mysterious hive-like community. Great little read but would have liked a few more answers.

This lean, exciting thriller is as brilliant as Frank Herbert's Dune novels and like them defies categorization. The citizens of the town of Santaroga are exposed to an indigenous fungus that links them together in a collective consciousness, hostile to outsiders. Herbert ratchets up the suspense as he uses this premise as prime philosophical fodder, exploring the idea of the community as an organism.
The story is of a piece with 70's conspiracy pictures. Think of it as a convergence between Deliverance, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and The Parallax View. It would make a great screenplay.

Like most people, I read Dune first, fell in love, then sought out his earlier books. And, like most people, was disappointed that they all weren't Dunes. What I came to realize was that most of Herbert's earliest works were stories appearing in science fiction magazines like Amazing Stories & Astounding Science Fiction, and the books were just fleshed-out versions of these short stories.

Reccuring themes throughout Herbert's writing: ecology, religion, power, the relationship between an environment and its inhabitants, and the consequences (especially in the long term) of attempts at controlling either..

The Santaroga Barrier by Frank Herbert
Frank Herbert has long been interested in expanded consciousness and collective or hive minds, themes that show up at least in part in many of his novels (Dune, Destination Void, The Dosadi Experiment, Helstrom’s Hive, The Green Brain, etc.) and is of central interest in The Santaroga Barrier.

The setup for the story is handled quite efficiently in the first pages. Major retail and marketing firms are frustrated by their inability to penetrate the Santaroga Valley for their consumer goods. Almost everything used in the valley is produced there (there are exceptions like gasoline, but there is only one gas station in town, and it is run by a Santarogan). The retailers want in to Santaroga and they’ve hired psychologist Gilbert Dasein to do a market study on the valley to help them solve their problem. There is only one major problem. The last two people they’ve sent to do the same project have died from what appear to be genuine accidents—and yet Dasein and the reader are immediately left to wonder if something more sinister might be involved. Dasein has one major advantage over his predecessors that is undoubtedly the reason he was chosen for this task. His college girlfriend, Jenny, whom he asked to marry him, left him at the end of her studies and returned to her home in Santaroga. Dasein has a potential “in” that the marketers and retailers want to take advantage of.

Things are weird from the moment Dasein arrives. Outsiders passing through the beautiful valley on the federal highway do not feel comfortable there when stopping at its restaurants or lone hotel. Dasein gets a different response. He is almost immediately recognized as Jenny’s young man from school (despite the fact that he’s never been there) and sort of half welcomed and half not. While Dasein struggles with himself to keep an objective view of his surroundings, it is instantly obvious to the reader that he can’t. This valley is the reason Jenny refused to marry him. She wanted them to return to her home (a place she left for without him every weekend of their schooling) and he was too proud to simply give in to her wishes without a “reasonable” explanation of why they couldn’t set up their practice somewhere else. Now he has a chance to understand the mysterious hold her home has on him.

Then the accidents begin to happen. Gas leaks into his bedroom and nearly kills him. A dangerous fall caused by tripping on a turned-up carpet almost causes him to plummet to his death. Accidents? As more and more such incidents pile up, it’s really hard to believe that they aren’t part of a conspiracy to do Dasein harm, and yet, they honestly appear to have been accidents and sometimes Santarogans save him from the peril.

Where many people would have simply given up the job and left, Dasein doesn’t for two reasons. First, he is incredibly proud and stubborn. Second, there’s Jenny, the woman he’s in love with and who honestly appears to be in love with him. Yet Jenny is part of the Santaroga mystery, working in the mysterious co-op which seems to be the heart of it. Yet it’s Jenny’s friend who rescues Dasein when he breaks into the co-op and gets over-exposed to the mysterious Jaspers.

Jaspers (and it’s never quite clear just what it is) is the heart of the Santarogan mystery. It’s consumed like a spice and it’s addictive and mind expanding. But it also becomes increasingly clear that it is something much more. It links Santarogans together at least on a subconscious level and when Dasein discovers what’s happening with the Santarogan children (and that many become brain damaged by the Jaspers) the town turns on him in a truly frightening way.

Jenny understands on some level what is happening, but no one else in the valley seems to be able to consciously credit that they are creating accidents to kill Dasein. It’s the most exciting part of the novel. Jenny has begged Dasein to leave because she loves him, he refuses, and weird things start happening and people start dying in situations clearly directed at Dasein. The reader grows to understand that the valley—jaspers—is protecting itself. The question is, will Dasein be killed, escape, or ensnared into becoming one of the Santarogans? It’s important to keep in mind that in many of his books Herbert isn’t interested in a conventional victory. You simply can’t predict how this novel is going to end.

Frank Herbert once said that he wanted half the country to think that Santaroga sounded wonderful and half to find it highly disturbing. At times, as a reader, I felt both ways, so I’d say he succeeded.

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A real surprise. The beginning was a little tedious, but always interesting. The mild paranoia that Herbert builds up was a treat – this book read more like a mystery than a “sci-fi”. Although it was both really, so I guess that makes sense. One of the more “page-turny” books I’ve read in a while. The ending is pure Herbert, one of his best, up there with the later Dune books. I adore open-ended endings and this one really shines without being cliche. I was left with a *lot* to think about. The big question is, I suppose “Would it be worth it?”.

3.5 stars.

Unfortunately, I had to hold my nose and force myself to finish Frank Herbert's 1968 novel "Santaroga Barrier, The." Technically, the writing is fine. But, plot- and character-wise, there are problems. First, I don't much like the protagonist. Unfortunately, I can't tell if I don't like him because the plot has him perpetually in a less-than-optimal state of consciousness or if he's simply an idiot. Second, no one communicates anything important. Things happen which no one on either side seems to understand. But, no one asks questions or explains situations. So, much of the book consists of the protagonist thinking about what's going on instead of just asking someone. Third, even when the protagonist does ask questions, the answers come back as gobbledygook or gibberish (Herbert even uses the word "gobbledygook" to describe some of this verbiage). And finally, the book just reeks of the 1960s. So, I'm not happy with the book and am rating it at a Not Very Good 2 stars out of 5.

Herbert is my favorite and fairly speaking, this one was so-so because the characters were not always plausible, and the plot elements around coercion and “mind-screwing” people (visitors or police or residents of) felt like yelling at the screen during a bad horror film, like ‘why don’t you just get out already?’ I’d place “Hellstrom’s Hive” or “The White Plague” or “Dragon in the Sea” over this one. But cool concept: the hallucinations, the fungus, mind altering, Herbert does not exclude the vices of people in his storytelling (the spice on Arrakis or a lit cigarette) and this serves toward setting an atmosphere, in this case, with “TSB”, of loony madness in a twilight zone. Nothing makes sense for our main guy, can’t figure out why his girlfriend is acting shady, and the world is spiraling downward on him in a strange valley. And the Jeepers! Ah good standalone sci-fi from Herbert—

I thought I had read this short Frank Herbert story in high school when I first devoured Dune & everything else he had written but on what I thought was a re-read I'm less sure. Almost at the borderline of not being SF this was a fun take on the "small town with a dark secret" horror trope. Segments clearly inspired by LSD were familiar in proportion to unsettling.