This isn’t Frank Herbert’s best, but it’s certainly an interesting read none-the-less, although it isn’t always an easy one. Much of the book is taken up by a conversation with a non-sentient entity that speaks in strange sentences and which is difficult to follow.

There is a story here, and the story itself is okay, but I feel like there’s only really enough to last for fifty pages or so. Herbert is an ideas man, and the ideas here work well, but I feel like this could have just been a short story, perhaps even included as part of The Dosardi Experiment, which follows on from this one if I’ve got my facts right. I’m pretty sure I read that somewhere.

Nevertheless, Frank Herbert is always worth reading, and Whipping Star is yet another example of his abilities as a prose writer. Even if I wasn’t particularly into the story, I still loved reading the words, because it was like watching a master musician with his instrument. That’s always worth doing, even if it’s in a genre that you don’t enjoy.

That’s about all I’ve got for you. I wouldn’t go out of your way for this one, but it’s fine I guess. Yeah.

This is an odd book, even for Frank Herbert, which is not to say I didn't like it.

The title "Whipping Star", I thought, was going to have some fascinating metaphorical meaning, but nope, it actually involves someone using a leather whip on a shining bright ball of gas in space. I'm not joking.

The ball of gas in question is actually a life-form called a Caleban, which exists on another plane or dimension of existence, and I'm still not quite clear as to why the character actually has a thing for whipping the creature. It's implied that there is some weird sexual thrill that comes from whipping a Caleban. I'm sure there is.

The problem is, with each lash of the whip, the Caleban gradually loses strength, and when it inevitably dies, so will every human being in the universe. How and why this is going to happen is unclear, but the protagonist, Jorj X. McKie, an agent of the Bureau of Sabotage, is pretty convinced of it. Oh, and the Caleban in question is named Fanny Mae, and she's in love with McKie.

I'm stifling laughter (badly) with every keystroke of this summary. I have no idea what Herbert was smoking or ingesting when he wrote this. It was the '60s at the time he was writing this, so that might explain a few things.

Regardless of how silly this sounds, i have to say I enjoyed it. Parts of it were pretty humorous, intentionally or not. I will definitely re-read it someday. I may try reading it high because it may make more sense that way...

I read this book as a part of Vintage SciFi Month and truly enjoyed it. Yet again Frank Herbert is proven to be a master at his craft. As with others of his books this one is primarily dialogue and quite philosophical. I will post more in the review on my website.

This book probably only deserves one star. It's really bad in some respects and pretty much the paragon of bad science fiction. There's really no plot. Herbert gives a crisis, which seems completely unmotivated, like the actions of most of the characters, that you just can't seem to care about. Some stuff happens, then some poorly conceived mystical / quasi-scientific revelation unsatisfyingly solves the crisis in the last dozen pages. A bunch of nonsense mathematical sounding terms get thrown around despite having absolutely no meaning. The few good ideas which seem to be floating around the book never break their way out of the background and ultimately go unexplored by a book which seems simultaneously too short and abounding with verbiage.

At the same time though, I kept reading it. And I kept wanting to read it. Because it's Frank Herbert and because I need to read all of those quotes that begin the chapters, and for some reason all of those reasons listed above seem detract less in his writing than they would with other authors.

Un roman haotic și inegal. Știm din „Dune” că elementul forte al lui Herbert e dialogul, mereu imprevizibil, pe muchie de cuțit, plin de suspans, voalat, abscons. Unul în care nimeni nu spune cu adevărat ce gândește și își plănuiește viitoarea mutare sau lovitura de grație, fie ea doar verbală. În acest roman, primul din seria „Co-senzitivității”, tocmai dialogul e punctul slab. Replicile sunt o nebuloasă totală (nu pot da vina doar pe traducere), într-o mică parte justificat, fiind vorba de barierele de comunicare dintre două specii diferite, dar chiar m-am chinuit să-i deslușesc dedesubturile, însă tot ceea ce am găsit a fost stângăcie în exprimare și haos total. Cu atât mai de neînțeles, cu cât universul creat, premisa și speciile galactice care mai de care mai pestrițe și nemaiîntâlnite (vă puteți lămuri din acest scurt sinopsis ce ar fi putut ieși! - https://spacebattles-factions-databas...), ar fi putut fi o pistă de lansare pentru un scenariu spectaculos și unic. Mi-e ciudă de potențialul irosit.

In today's SF market, I doubt we'd EVER see a novel like this get published.

After all, it's highly abstract, deals with n-space topologies and a macro-inversion of String Theory as tied to consciousness, and it happens to be a really neat IDEA. The blurb may be accurate, but it doesn't do the intelligence of the novel ANY justice.

Here's the thing: we're meant to be floundering in the water like the main human characters trying to make SENSE of the things this truly alien alien is saying. The fact that it may or may not be a 4th-dimensional creature (in the way that Arrival was) is hard to suss out because of the highly abstract but very logical word salads.

Add to that a completely misunderstood agreement that allows for instant portals, time-travel, and a really nasty side-effect of killing the alien, slowly, nastily, and we've got a novel that OUGHT to be more respected and read. It has a lot of fantastic ideas and the mystery fully engaged me to the hilt.

If I had read this not knowing it was Frank Herbert or that it had been written a while ago, I would have assumed I was reading a contemporary of Greg Egan or a companion to Peter Watts' Blindsight. These have a lot in common. If I had said he was a newcomer, I would have said, "Hey! This is like Robert Silverburg at his best!"

The fact is, this novel may be forgotten because so much attention is put on Dune. Whipping Star doesn't pretend to be anything but what it is: a very intelligent novel about language, understanding, and N-Space physics with a side dish of quantum.

I recommend it for anyone who despairs that SF is getting too stupid. :)

I will actually give this book a 3.5/5. It was my first Frank Herbert book that wasn’t part of Dune. This story was certainly very unique, with a great ending, and I saw so many of the things I expect from Herbert - philosophy, unique language and setting, and some colorful characters.

I could almost give this book 4 stars, but I found some of the story a bit confusing at times. Perhaps if I had been physically reading the book rather than listening to it on Chirp, I would have understood some of the language and ‘accents’ better. However, it was an enjoyable story and I feel like there are some influences in this book on later books. From Herbert’s later Dune books - chairdogs, anyone? I can also see some potential influences on the Culture series, but I haven’t read enough of those books to say that for certain.

Overall, I recommend this to anyone who likes Frank Herbert and anyone who likes classic science fiction. I look forward to reading more of Herbert’s non-Dune works!

I listened to this book on a playaway from the library and it was quite good. It's a space detective story, but for me the best parts were the interspecies interactions. The way the main "alien" species communicates with the other sentients of Herbert's worlds makes for a lot of hilarious, sometimes grimly so, miscommunication. The main character is a hard-boiled type, but he works for the bureau of sabotage, which does all it can to keep the governments on their toes--an interesting premise. The various quotes at the beginnings of chapters, from various species, are gems. I'm going to have to get the book out so I can write some of those quotes down.

Ambivalens vagyok a könyvvel kapcsolatban. Nem mondom, hogy nem volt érdekes, de valahogy... kb. úgy érzem magam, mintha a kalebánnal beszélgettem volna.
Jó, hát a végére szépen összeállt az egész, mégis maradt egy fura, nem épp abszolút pozitív érzésem a történettel kapcsolatban.
A fejezetek elején mindig volt egy kis szösszenet, ami felvezette a adott részt, azokban voltak olyanok, amik bölcselkedésnek tekinthetők. Tulajdonképpen lehet, erről szólt az egész.
Mindegy, ha felkészült vagy néha értelmetlennek tűnő párbeszédekre (melyeknek oka az eltérő gondolati megnevezések és fogalmak és szavakkal nem igazán definiálható érzések), akkor próbálkozz meg vele.

Connectives fail; self does not hang. If you choose to read this book just know this: it is supposed to be confusing.

My copy was made worse by more than a few misspellings and other typographical errors.

I had started reading "The Dosadi Experiment," and realized that it was not the first book in the McKie (Saboteur Extraordinary) series. So since I was pretty darn lost (after 40+ pages), decided to back up and read "Whipping Star" to get a handle on the basic story/recurring characters. By the end of "Whipping Star," while I felt less lost, I still didn't get the impression I really grasped what the heck was happening in this story. When Frank Herbert wants to get into the minds of aliens, things can get very strange very quickly; witness any book in the original "Dune" series after the first. It's been many years since I read "Dune," so I thought I'd give this a go, but the novel was hard to enjoy when the reader has to work so hard to figure out what is happening, which is actually a reflection of what the main character is going through. Have I lost you yet? I finished the book, and went back to finish "The Dosadi Experiment," but would not recommend as an enjoyable read.

I have a much older edition, from Berkley.