I came to The Jesus Incident via a long road. As a young boy I was given a copy of Galaxy magazine and read the precursor to Destination Void, which was then titled Do I Wake or Dream?  I thought it was wonderful, but strange. Re-reading it in its longer form was interesting because I could see why the story had enthralled 10-year-old me, even though the older person now found the writing style irritating.

So I read The Jesus Incident out of curiosity, just to see how the story developed. It was an odd and frustrating experience, because it's as though the novel has been partly assembled from writing notes, with sentences and phrases left lying around to trip over, like unused material on a building site.

This stylistic choppiness is reflected in the plotting. Ideas are introduced and abandoned. Characters suddenly acquire capabilities from nowhere. Someone will have a sudden dramatic realisation or scientific insight, and then... nothing.

The style compounds what I found to be a confusing narrative. Others have commented on the novel having few landmarks. Too much of it comprises the internalised musings of characters who, I felt, remained undeveloped throughout. As a result it was difficult to remember, or care, who was who, where they were, and what they were supposed to be doing. Their principle goal seemed to be to think lots of thoughts, far too often expressed as questions to themselves. In fact, over the course of the story they must ask more than a thousand questions in one form or another. Hardly gripping storytelling.

Although the Gaia thesis was interesting and gives the novel a place in the history of science fiction, nothing about the horrors of planet Pandora made much of an impression on me. Death and destruction are described in a rapid, matter-of-fact way, and because so much of the already limited action gets pushed through the thinking filter, the novel fails to generate tension. Its philosophical and metaphysical sections also seem vague, especially when it comes to the ship's dialogue.

In all, a story with some important ideas, but written in a style that I can't engage with.

'Destination: Void' was amazing in and of itself, but 'The Jesus Incident' took the whole of D:V's challenging concepts to another level! Absolutely amazing book, bursting with provocative ideas and multi-layered characters.

6/10

"Myths are not fiction, but history seen through a poets eyes."

Herbert visits themes of racism, bio-ethics and theology in a sci-fi book thats lacking the passion and power of Dune, but matches it in the themes and arguments it makes.

A colony of humans and clones is planted on Pandora, (a planet ill-suited for human life because of the harsh terrain) by Ship, there artificially intelligent spacecraft that demands proper worship from its new people. The plot, as crazy as it sounds, is actually rather dry for the most part, and lacks any dynamic character to center around. Still, the Theological and social issues are incredibly interesting. The role of Ship as god is bizarrely compelling, and something I think will stick with me for a while.

Watching the crucifixion was unexpected and powerful, "as they raised Him on the cross, a silence falls on the crowd as they wait for Him to stop them, hoping He was who He said He was."

"You cannot learn peace until you have been drenched in violence."

“And what do you do with doubts that cannot be tested?”— “You hold them quietly until a moment they can be tested.”

“Urgency should never mean hurry.”

Here starts a 'reboot' if you will of the WorShip series with a new trilogy following 'Destination: Void', Herbert receiving help from 'rookie' Bill Ransom.

Definitely a good start to the trilogy, a step up from previous novel. Here come an interesting setting, cool aliens, pretty solid sci-fi concepts overall.
Only things wrong were the very difficult style and the convoluted and not very interesting development of events.

ÎN MOD NORMAL, Morgan Oakes îşi căra frustrările şi furiile din timpul nopţii în lungi plimbări prin coridoarele navei, încotro îl duceau paşii.
De data asta, nu! îşi spuse.
Se aşeză şi sorbi dintr-un pahar cu vin astringent. Amar, dar spăla gustul rămas de pe urma glumei idioate pe care i-o făcuse nava. Îl ceruse, şi îl primise imediat; ţinând cont că traversau o perioadă dificilă cu aprovizionarea, acesta era un semn al puterii sale. Prima sticlă din primul lot. Oare ce vor spune cei de jos când le va ordona să îmbunătăţească vinul?
Într-un gest ale cărui semnificaţii se pierdeau în negura vre­murilor, Oakes ridică paharul: Confuzia să pună stăpânire pe tine, Navă!
Vinul era prea aspru. Îl puse deoparte.
Oakes îşi dădea seama ce impresie jalnică făcea, tremurând şi privind fix com-consola de lângă canapeaua preferată. Coman­dă sistemului de iluminare să ofere o lumină ceva mai puternică.
O dată în plus, nava îl convinsese că programul ei se ducea de râpă. Senilitatea va pune stăpânire pe ea. El era Preotul-psihiatru, iar nava încercase să-l otrăvească! Au fost câţiva care au supt de la ţâţa navei ― nu des, nu mult, dar se mai întâmplase. Chiar şi el primise o dată favorul acesta, înainte să devină PP; încă îşi mai aducea aminte de gust ― delicios! Aducea puţin cu chestia aia pe care Lewis o crease jos, la sol, şi îi dăduse numele de "potol". O tentativă de a imita elixirul. Scump, potolul ăsta. O extravaganţă. Şi în nici un caz nu e elixir.
Privi ecranul bombat al consolei. Se vedea ca într-o oglindă, doar că imaginea era mult mai mică: un bărbat supraponderal, cu umeri largi, îmbrăcat în salopetă de lucru. Datorită luminii din cameră, salopeta avea o culoare incertă, uşor cenuşie. Trăsăturile feţei erau ferme, autoritare: bărbie puternică, gură largă, nas încovoiat, sprâncene dese, şi un pic de argint pe la tâmple. Duse degetele la tâmple. Reflexia mult micşorată datorată ecranului îi amplifica sentimentul că Nava, prin modul în care se purtase cu el, îl făcuse mic, insignifiant. Reflexia îl punea faţă în faţă cu propriile temeri.
Nu mă las eu păcălit de o maşină blestemată!

I have been intrigued by this book ever since I saw the cover as a little boy. I finally got my hands on it...and after 50 pages, my hands will no longer touch this. I don't know what madness is going on here, but it makes the film 2001 look like a linear Disney film. Reading the reviews, I see that people either love or NOT love this book...and I'm afraid I'm in the NOT category. For my own sanity, I will be moving on.

This was an odd book. It starts off incredibly slow and does not really build up much steam until 'the end' when it suddenly 'is over' and things are wrapped up. I do not know how to rate it, to be honest. None of the characters really stood out to me, for the most part, although there were a couple of men and women I hoped would pair up as couples by the end of the book. It bounces between three-to-four viewpoints before the differing viewpoints come together in the last chapter or so of the book and it ends as one 'stream-of-consciousness.' The character development was . . . decent, I guess. There were a couple of characters I hoped would survive who did not [I was surprised at the death of one character - never saw it coming], so I guess it is good that some of the characters kinda grew on me so that I actually cared about what happened to them.

It is a sequel to a book called Destination Void written by Frank Herbert back in the 60s. As I have not read the 'first' book in this 'series' I cannot say how important or necessary that book is to understanding this book. It features clones, some sidewise questions about what determines a quality life [in regards to the clones] as well as are clones 'humans' or offshoots of humanity, genetic manipulation, artificial intelligence, some kind of religion, an alien planet with a powerfully strong alien intelligence, terraforming and colonization, "caste levels" between humans and clones, abuse(s) of power, limited resources [food], violence performed upon people to make them obedient and subservient, aspects of brainwashing, attempts at exploring some philosophical differences as well as why violence is found amidst peaceful religion(s), what may or may not be time travel, the "politics" of domination and manipulation through sex, and some weird sexual shenanigans [including three possible rapes and a strange copulation scene where it seems the local plant-life gets involved and mutually impregnates the woman with her male lover].

The title is taken from a discussion where Ship is describing how it 'sent' a woman 'back in time' to the crucifixion of Jesus; Ship tells Thomas that "He" [It] has shown her [Hali Ekel] 'the Jesus Incident' at Golgatha (229). Ship felt that Hali's life had been too protected, too 'tame,' and that she needed to be exposed to some 'hard truths' as a result ["how far holy violence can extend" (230). Ship also claims that Hali needs to learn "your kind cannot learn peace until you are drenched in violence. You have to disgust yourselves beyond all anger and fear, until you learn that neither extortion nor exhortation moves a god. Then you need something to which you can cling. All this takes a long time. It is a difficult lesson" (174). It was a 'weird' moment in the book, as it is not clear if Hali has actually traveled back through time or is having a hallucination because Jesus looks at her and recognizes that she [Hali] has come from a long distance even though Hali is 'inhabiting' the body of an older [much older] woman (143, 156). She realizes that "Time" does not confine Jesus, that Time cannot hold Him (157). Even Death cannot hold Him [in the book] because He has another part of Himself that is still alive, elsewhere, in reality, that has not died (170, 173). Not a 'physical body' but still a part of Himself.

It was an interesting observation made by Hali that the Jews crying out for Jesus' crucifixion secretly wanted a miracle to happen, for God to stop Jesus' suffering and death on the cross (158). Even though humans were inflicting this pain upon Jesus, they still wanted God to intervene and stop the travesty of justice from happening.

"Those who remember Him travel this world over teaching peace and love. For this they suffer murder and torture and they incite great wars in His name, many bloody events even worse that what you have just seen" (174). Such a sad paradox of Christians, that wars are incited in the name of Christ, which is quite contrary to the message Jesus taught while He was on Earth.

I did find these chapters dealing with the crucifixion of Jesus to be fascinating discussions as I felt they did offer some interesting insight(s) into what happened on that day and some of what might have been going through the minds of those who were there. Spectators are described throughout the Gospels as demanding signs from Jesus to show/prove Who He was, that He was Who He said He was; it actually makes sense that those in the crowd during His crucifixion were hoping for 'one final miracle' from God where God intervened and stopped the crucifixion, thereby saving Jesus from a horrible, barbaric death. Kinda-like the people wanted to be absolved of their actions by having God intervene and save Jesus.

It was 'amusing' to me how coy Ship was about saying if Jesus [Yeshua] was a real person or not until the very end. During these chapters, Ship would say that Jesus was both a man and not a man, that His story was both real and not real, that He did and did not experience what He experienced. I assume it must have been due to the lesson(s) Ship was trying to teach Hali about what Jesus went through in order for Hali's 'education' to be 'more rounded, more experienced,' than it had been? In the end, Ship says [asks] about Jesus, "Is the lesson diminished because the history that moves you is fiction? The incident which you just shared is too important to be debated on the level of fact or fancy. Yaisuah lived. He was an ultimate essence of goodness. How could you learn such an essence without experiencing its opposite?" (405). So, Ship 'finally' admits that Yaisuah [Jesus] really did live and experienced a painful death [and subsequent resurrection] to Hali and the others before Ship leaves for Destinations unknown. I do not know why, but it struck me as funny that Ship "finally" came around and admitted something to those it was abandoning on the planet Pandora.

I also 'laughed' at the various incarnations of "Jesus" that were described in the book [such as Jesus Lewis, described as pronounced "heyzoos" or, in the case of the Biblical Jesus, pronounced "geezus"]. I think there were four or five incarnations of the name of Jesus and how it was pronounced. It reminded me of when I learned His "name" was probably "Yeshua," which was also a variation of "Joshua."

The book starts out with a man being awakened from some kind of suspended animation/cryosleep. He discovers the Ship is orbiting a planet that was chosen by Ship to be colonized by the survivors of humanity. In the process, the Ship will decide if humanity will be allowed to survive or not as a species. From here, the book devolves into "multiple points-of-view" of many different characters; some are on the planet's surface whereas others are in the orbiting Ship above. Eventually, they multiple viewpoints do coalesce into a single 'discussion' as the different characters come together before the ending.

Apparently, Sol went nova and destroyed Earth and killed any humans living on other planets or moons in the system. Not only that, but the reader discovers that Ship has been visiting other planets where the sun is about to go nova and taking humans from those planets as well before it finally stops in orbit over Pandora. Ship has evolved during this time into a sort of "Supreme Artificial Intelligence" and sees itself as "God" because of its powers and abilities [reading people's minds; holding the power of life-and-death over those aboard the ship, be they crew or passengers; apparently having some sort of 'time traveling' abilities; affecting and influencing who clones are grown and which humans are allowed to be awakened from their hibernation; teleporting people off-planet; communicating via a form of 'telepathy' that does not necessarily require mechanical assistance; etc.]. Ship is also equated with God because He [It] does not always answer 'prayers' or reveal Himself [Itself] just as God does not always provide people with the answers they want or reveal Himself to humanity like Humanity wishes God would reveal Himself. Ship does not want to make things easy for humanity, so He [It] favors testing humanity so that humanity can grow and 'reach past itself' without having to rely upon 'outside help or assistance' just as God is seen as behaving [i.e. - testing humans and not making things easy because people not only grow the most during trials and tribulations but also have the capability to grow stronger during such times of testing]. So, there are some 'behavioral similarities' between Ship and God. This book is about some 'final test' that humanity must pass to prove its fitness for continued survival; humanity is seen as encompassing both clones and Natural[-born] humans.

Pandora is a vicious planet, generally inimical to human life. Some clones were specially adapted to life on Pandora, but even they have trouble surviving Pandora's hostile environment. It is eventually discovered that all of Pandora's life forms are connected via a 'supreme planetary intelligence' "whose" basis is in the kelp that inhabit the world's ocean [it is primarily an ocean planet with only two 'major' continents and some small island chains; the major landmasses are not very large in relation to the world as a whole. It is mostly a water-covered planet]. Some of the humans [both clones and natural-born] previously thought to have been killed are discovered to have been saved by Pandora's native intelligence by the end of the book; this band of survivors forms an 'army' to oppose those trying to despoil and kill the kelp and the accompanying planetary intelligence.

The weird copulation between Panille, Waela, and Avata [via the hylighter's tendrils] was oddly sensual and made sense in the book (285-287). It was beautifully described and seemed to add something to the story which was really odd to me. I do not know how to fully describe it, as it seemed a strange dichotomy of paradoxes. It also led to Waela becoming pregnant with some kind of "super-baby" that quickly grows inside of her and is born within days of her becoming pregnant.

This 'beautiful' moment in the book is oddly juxtaposed with two or three rapes in the book. The two rapes occurred in the "Scream Room," a special room created by Morgan Oakes to torture people so that they become subservient to him and his will. Two women are raped in this room during the course of the story; the rapes themselves are not actually described, thankfully. In the case of the first woman, she is grabbed by a clone who forces himself on her with the biggest erection she had ever seen; other clones also assault her while she is both drugged and trapped in this room. Her mind is so broken that she ultimately commits suicide by going outside of the compound to be killed by Pandora's life forms. The second woman [Legata Hamill] comes out of the 'Scream Room' unbroken and undefeated; she ends up using what happened to her to overthrow the barbaric 'reign' of Oakes over the remaining humans on Pandora's surface. She also is essentially raped by Oakes after her time in the 'Scream Room' as he forces himself upon her and has intercourse with her. Oakes has been observing her like a twisted voyeur and lusting after her for some time before he finally acts and forces himself upon Legata. Legata (for whatever reason) is unable to fight back or resist either him or his advances; it seems as if this 'second rape' has twisted her enough that she either starts to come around or considers coming around to his [Oakes'] point-of-view. These two women are not the only two women who have been raped and/or assaulted in this room. Men have also been tortured in this room to obtain their obeisance to Oakes and Oakes' authority. In addition, one of the "clones" [seemed more like some kind of mutant, to be honest] is described as having both male and female sex organs and was somehow having sex with itself [not sure how that would work, but it sounded very strange and grotesque at the same time]. It is a pretty brutal, disturbing room to have on the planet's surface in the 'final colony' to be attempted on Pandora.

Not only did the reader have to deal with lustful thoughts and fantasies, with Oakes acting out the part of creepy voyeur, but some of the women had parts to play as well. Hali kept trying to seduce her "Ship-match", Kero Panille. Kero believes he loves Hali, but he is not ready to make love with her or get her pregnant despite Ship's declaring they were perfect [genetic] matches for each other and would produce the optimum genetic offspring with their pairing. Well, she was described as continually trying to seduce him, to no avail. Another woman [I do not remember if it was Legata or Waela] was instructed to seduce one of the new men coming to the surface. It was believed that by seducing and copulating with the newcomer that he would be "freed" from Oakes' influence and be more susceptible to the manipulation and desires of those on the ground versus those who still lived aboard Ship. Different sets of values and standards at work, here, as the desires and goals of Ship's crew did not necessarily coincide with those of the colonists. The desired seduction was hoped to bend the newcomer to the goals of the colonists. It does not quite work out like it was intended, but the 'end result' is somewhat achieved. I suppose I should be 'grateful' Herbert did not have any children being raped or sexually assaulted like he had happen in the later books of his Dune series.

It is a very choppy book; I am not sure how well it flows together in terms of the overall narrative. It bounces around so much that it is hard to follow, at times, and some characters are suddenly killed off after they have been introduced and then apparently discarded after being given enough background information to seem 'important' to the flow of the story. Ship is very strange, as he wants humanity to learn some specific lesson but is very . . . stupid? obtuse? dim-witted? in how He (It) goes about either teaching or revealing this lesson to humanity. This very denseness on the part of Ship makes the ending so much more . . . disappointing than it needed to be. Ship leaves Pandora behind, taking with "Him" the remaining humans still board in suspended hibernation while "It" returns to "The Void" in an effort to achieve some sort of satisfaction or climax or SOMETHING to "justify" its existence and the wringer with which it has put humanity through by choosing Pandora as the 'final resting (testing) spot' of/for the human race as a whole. Ship claims "the Lesson" has been learned and humanity has 'earned' the right to go on living and existing in the Universe until humanity does something to kill of the branch of itself that is attempting to co-exist on Pandora with the planet's indigenous species and "supreme planetary intelligence." The book felt like a couple of partial stories pieced together in an attempt to make a "complete" story. If I were to break the book into 'thirds,' it almost felt like each third had nothing [or very little] to do with the other two-thirds of the book. The beginning seems to have one focus; the middle seems to have a different focus [religious violence]; the latter part has its own focus [a planetary intelligence that no longer seeks to kill humans], and then the end, where it attempts to tie everything together. It felt like it took a while to build up in the beginning [mostly, I suppose, because of the numerous characters that have to be introduced], then the middle picked up some speed and started to get interesting, then the final portion of the book seemed to move in spurts of speed and drag before it just . . . ends. And what an ending! Such a disappointment! Not even a climax worth talking about. It just . . . ends. Ship leaves, and that is that. Whatever.

I would rate it 2.4 to 2.6 stars, I suppose, rounded down to 2.0 stars because of the two rapes in it as well as how darn slow it starts out. It takes a long time to build up any momentum worth speaking about. I was hoping some more couples would form, but that was not to be the case, which was also disappointing. It felt like the authors could not decide between how much romance they actually wanted in the book or if they wanted any romance at all. I do not know how likable any of the characters really were, as there seemed to be an abundance of paranoia, distrust, scheming(s), and double-crossing going on to the point of taking away from the overall narrative. It was an okay book; I can see myself reading at least the second one to see how things progress and if it gets any better. I am not so sure about the third book in the series, but we shall see what we shall see in that regard.

Those who've read Dune will recognize many of the themes in The Jesus Incident: leadership and how leaders manipulate society, scarcity of resources, civil/human/individual rights, ecology, and religion. Though this book is called The Jesus Incident, and includes a scene in which one of the characters witnesses the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, this is not a "Christian fiction" novel, and the religious themes are not overwhelming. Rather, their inclusion is a vehicle to demonstrate religious violence and the brutality of which humans are capable.

This novel can be read on its own as the start of The Pandora Sequence trilogy, or read after Destination: Void. As another reviewer wrote, Destination: Void is to The Pandora Sequence as The Hobbit is to The Lord of the Rings. While both trilogies can be enjoyed well enough without reading their precursor novels, you'll probably enjoy them more if you do.

The Jesus Incident is one of Herbert's best works, and very under-appreciated. Though it's arguably not as good as Dune, it is still a great book. The Jesus Incident was also the basis for the movie Avatar.

The ebook version, published by Wordfire Press, is unfortunately riddled with errors. It appears to be a scan with simple OCR run on it and absolutely no proofreading.

This is my favorite book of all time. I've read it numerous times and own several copies although it's out of print. I gave a little seminar thing on it once. I tried to use it as the foundation of my Master's thesis but my advisor said there was too much to say about it and to save it for my PhD.

And yet I can't review it. Perhaps that's the reason: what I have to say would be a dissertation. So anything I could write here would be insufficient.

So I'll just tell you I love it because the main question I take from it is, "What, who, where, why, and how is/what's the nature/definition of god?" which is why I went to grad school to study religion.

So if that topic interests you, read this book. Now. Find a copy in a library or through ILL or on Alibris or somewhere else online and read it. I may even be willing to send you a copy if you can't get one any of these places. It's that good.

(Note: You do not need to read the first book in the series as it really doesn't add a whole lot and isn't very good. It does give a little more background then is provided in The Jesus Incident but I don't want you to hate it and then not read this one. I first read Destination: Void many years after I'd already decided this was my favorite book and didn't even think about it.)

This book confused me. I was unable to follow portions of Destination: Void due to incoherent technobabble, but I feel like I was able to pick up the main discussion on consciousness. The Jesus Incident did not give me as much grace. I'm reading this series because I'm a Herbert fan, and this doesn't quite read like a Herbert novel. Where Dune's (or rather, the first three books') overarching exposition was on prescience and the future, the Jesus Incident had the same sort of monologues on godhood, consciousness, and 'the oneness of life'. It was much harder to grasp at what he was saying. One of the motifs that comes up often is the defining of something either by its opposite or against another background. Herbert does this with consciousness, life, and goodness. I found that a very interesting perspective.

Additionally, the end made nearly no sense. I am going to continue reading through the series with the hope that I will find some answers there, but I don't have high hopes. What is the purpose of the Scream Room? How was Jesus Ship's devil and Raja his own? What does the 'holy violence' have to do with the story? Was the scene in the gondola a tentacle-intercourse seen? What was the necessity/literary intent for including that?

In all I thought that there were excellent points made in the book and that the story was certainly something creative and unique. Thinking kelp! Herbert still has an amazing ability to wordsmith and that appears in this book as well.

"Does it matter [whether Jesus was God]? Is the lesson diminished because the history that moves you is fiction? The incident which you just shared is too important to be debated on the level of fact or fancy. [Jesus] lived. He was the ultimate essence of goodness. How could you learn such an essence without experiencing its opposite?"
-Ship

In Herbert's 'Destination: Void' human clones were forced to achieve an A.I.-breakthrough with their colony space craft's computer in order to survive. 'The Jesus Incident' is set countless years after that, with the sentient craft, known as Ship, worshiped as a deity by the humans ship-side and those scrabbling out an existence on the dangerous planet of Pandora (and there are disbelievers among the humans as well). Ship does seem to possess god-like powers, and is on the verge of wiping out the human race unless humans figure out how to correctly 'WorShip.'

Herbert weaves enough different themes here -- non-human intelligence (both human-made and alien), religion, ecology, genetic engineering, political power structures, psychological manipulation, cloning -- and likewise juggles a large enough cast of characters that the novel is close to 'Dune' in complexity. However, none of the characters are as absorbing as the best characters in Dune, and the different themes are not quite as well blended as in that book. The pacing is also uneven, with the plot bogging down mid-book and suddenly going into turbo mode for the admittedly gripping climax. But despite those complaints, enough of the book is fascinating to make it worth reading in general, and a must for Herbert fans.

The Jesus Incident, written by the author of Dune, is an exciting page-turner with a bit of everything. And I do mean everything. Creation, God, religion, the meaning of life...all of humanity's most important themes, playing out in an alternate universe. Plus lots of weird, alien lifeforms in action-packed fantasy scenarios. The movie Avatar must have been based on this book (although there are some important differences). I definitely enjoyed this book. My only complaint with this story is that it contains too many big ideas that are not adequately explored or explained. It is thought-provoking but not entirely satisfying. Still, it is a must-read for any scifi fan.