I didn't finish this book. I got about 1/4 of the way in before it became too stupid to bear. The first major stupidity was the existence of a department of saboteurs to keep government from becoming too efficient. The story then moves on to magic aliens who can move people anywhere in the universe. One of these aliens enters into a contract that will kill it. Previously unknown was that anyone who traveled with the help of one of these aliens will die when the alien dies. So most of the sentient life in the galaxy is about to die and the main character and woman bringing about this mass murder enter into a legal debate which she apparently wins. I don't know for certain because that was when this book became TO STUPID TO BEAR.

This is the kind of stupidity masked as intelligence that only a man could accomplish. I regret ever taking a class that would make me read this.

A great mystery novel, with surprisingly expansive world-building for its length, and even somewhat funny at times.

Initial thoughts was that it would be a slow read, with the meat of it consisting of figuring out human - Caleban communication, but there is some spy-like action tossed in between. Some of the concepts discussed were lost on me (mostly those on the nature of multiverses), but nothing was ever confusing to the point where I felt that I was missing something vital.

Absolutely worth a read, if not just to experience some Herbert outside of Dune!

Don't remember it that much since it was a long time ago that I read it. Seems like I enjoyed it though. Date read is a guess.

The Bureau Of Sabotage (BuSab) was set up for the ironic task of slowing down bureaucracy, when fast-tracking causes more problems than no-tracking. Jorj X. McKie is a Saboteur Extraordinary and gets a strange call to investigate a Caleban beachball on a remote planet. The Caleban has entered into a contract with a quadrillionaire to be flagellated but if the Caleban dies it will have ramifications…like the death of most of the galaxy’s humans! The trouble is that both Abnethe, the wealthy woman who has paid for the whipping, and McKie have real trouble communicating with the Caleban. Agnethe has already been treated for her kink once before and now feels real anguish at another’s pain, giving the whole thing a bizarre S&M feel. Meanwhile tests on the whip indicate that it is both very young and very old. The only scenario that fits is considered impossible. It has come through time. McKie and BuSab must somehow find Abnethe and prevent the death of the Caleban, and thus trillions of humans. Unfortunately for Abnethe she has made a huge mistake. Interesting (if difficult to parse at times) tale from Frank Herbert.

Reading Whipping Star, you kind of get the feeling that perhaps Herbert wanted to do something a tad lighter in tone than Dune. He succeeds admirably, creating a breathless Space Opera containing just a hint of silliness, yet still offering some intriguing concepts (even if it's some of these concepts that instil the air of Silly).

But what in Hell inspires a setting where an alien entity that cannot be seen squats inside its beach ball spaceship, calmly allowing another alien in the employ of a reformed sadomasochist to whip it through an interdimensional window in order to -when aforesaid entity dies- bring about the end of interstellar civilisation? As Sam Emerson once said, 'Enquiring minds want to know.'

More typical of its time in execution than the Dune books could ever be classed as, WS is nevertheless colourful, fun, and more than a bit daft.

This one is imaginative writing and ideas but a bit more weird than my usual taste in reading. This may just be my taste in science fiction. I find that Frank Herbert works do tend to be on the edge of what I like in science fiction.

7.6
Una aventura de ciencia ficción rápida y furiosa, me tomo leerla dos días porque no se desperdicia casi ninguna página, así que no te da un momento en el cual puedas decir bueno aquí no está pasando mucho mejor me duermo.
Muchos de los que leemos a Herbert empezamos por Dune y si seguimos con otras de sus obras es por que esperamos encontrar algo de Dune ahí también (creo yo) en esta novela si se encuentran ciertas similitudes, pero no de la manera que yo hubiera esperado, esta es una faceta mucho más pulp que dune si bien hay ciertos elementos que podrían haberse convertido en cuestiones filosóficas al nivel de dune aquí se aplica una lógica más a lo hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy.

Хърбърт е прекрасен разказвач и за пореден път умело създава невероятни светове и форми на живот. Историята поставя и развива интересни въпроси и идеи. Най-впечатляваща е линията в която една интелигентна звезда се съгласява да заплаща за познанието на хуманоидната цивилизация с живота си. Както винаги развръзките и обратите са вълнуващи.

Time-jump portal decapitations! Spherical alien gods hiding inside beachballs! Goofy species with names like Calebans, Wreaves, Pan Spechi, Beautybarbers, and Taprisiots!

Published after Dune Messiah, this slice of pulp sees Herbert using his penchant for abstract terminology and bizarre dialectical concepts to tell a more condensed story about the nature of reality. For diehard Herbert-heads only!

The attraction of SF books is that they are like telescopes, looking at some point into the far future. They aren't hemmed in by the here and now, instead, in that tiny piece of glass at the very end, you get to see myriad possibilities tinted with a hint of reality, with some futures, of course, being far more realistic than others.

SF books come in different genres. You have military, political, biological, psychological, mystery, romance, etc, one common point being they are based on a futuristic society. Many elements are necessary for the creation of an SF book, however, one of my personal favorites is the ability of the author to create either a being, or a society, so alien that I find myself hard put to understand it. However, despite this communication gap, I still find myself immersed just enough that I cannot let go of said book. Knowing how to achieve such a fine balance between creating too much, or too little, induced confusion, is a difficult talent to cultivate.

And yet, despite the difficulty, some books have achieved the ability to walk on such a thin tightrope, and one of them is certainly Whipping Star by Frank Herbert. To understand the book, one must first look at the society on which it is based. A society composed of myriad planets, inhabited by several different sentient life-forms. Aliens are a norm of life. They may not be well understood by the humans, but they live among them, work with them, and even form friendly, sometimes sexual, relationships with them.

To lessen the chances of spoilers, I'll only give a tiny look at the plot. The main protagonist, McKie, elite operative of the Bureau of Sabotage, is chosen to solve the problem of the dying Caledans and the subsequent deaths or insanity of sentients connected to them. Caledans are the masters of the S'eye, jumpholes from one location to the next, enabling real-time travel from planet to planet. Sentients can go from one planet to the next as easily and speedily as walking from your house, to your neighbor's. The universe has been made tiny. However, Caledans die one after another, until only one is left among the sentients. As McKie learns that one Caledan is the only entity separating him and all the other races from certain death, he realizes that the only way to save everyone, is to understand one of the most un-human races of them all.

Transportation and communication are now available for usage in immediate time, no longer needing FTL drives and message lasers which may take hours or years depending on the distance, and this has come with the assistance of aliens, specifically the Taprisiots and Caledans. There are other sentient races as well, such as the Pan Spechis, Palenkis, Wreaves, Beautybarbers, Gowachin, etc. All these are races with their own set of rules and understanding. As is most obvious in such relationships between species, misunderstandings do occur, sometimes with grave results. This book plays exactly on that premise, blowing up the grave results that can come out of miscommunication into magnificent proportions. Misunderstandings between human and human, that's small potatoes. But between alien and human, aaah...that's truly where great potential world destroying results lie.

Here's an example of a human and Caledan conversation. McKie talks first.

"What is a connective?"
"That which extends from one to eight, that is a connective. Correct use of verb to be?"
"Huh?"
"Identity verb. Strange concept?"
"No, no! What did you mean there one to eight?"
"Unbinding stuff."
"You mean like a solvent?"
"Before solvent."
"What the devil could before have to do with solvents?"
"Perhaps more internal than solvents."
"Madness...Internal?"
"Unbounded place of connectives."
"We're right back where we started. What's a connective?"
"Uncontained opening between."
"Between what?"
"Between one and eight."
"Ohhh, no!"
"Also, between one and x."
...

And it just goes on from there. Infact, I find it quite amazing that I kept on reading the book. Something about it made me keep on reading, and I'm glad, because the ending was worth the headache I had trying to make sense of the dialogue.

Cheers!

I wobbled between two and three stars for this one. As a massive Dune fan, I was hoping for something similar with Whipping Star, since this is also scifi by Herbert. It definitely isn't similar. Herbert's stellar (no pun intended) world-building still shines through, but the story lacked solid coherence. The plot was frankly ridiculous, but it was treated in such a serious way that I kind of wondered if I was missing something important. By far the best part of the novel is the linguistic gymnastics two wildly different aliens must go through in order to communicate. I imagine it was a blast to write those scenes!