On retrouve bien sûr l'obsession de Franck Herbert pour Heisenberg et son travail.

Ce livre ne contient en tout et pour tout que 3 personnages féminin : Mrs Washington, l'assistante du chirurgien (qu'on n'évoquera plus après la page 18) ; Lisbeth Durant, cantonnée à son rôle de mère tout au long du roman (surprotectrice, à « l'instinct maternel surdéveloppé ») ; et Calipine, une Optimhomme, femme dirigeante aux côtés de Schruille et de Nourse.

La description du tyran : les Optimhommes
Une critique de l'immortalité et de la toute-puissance : les Optimhommes ont cela, et pourtant ils sont enfermés dans un carcan qui les condamne à la passivité, au rôle de spectateurs même dans leur propre vie, et à l'ennui.
Un contrôle absolu de la population à la Orwell (jusqu'à leur pensées et leurs sentiments « La culpabilité était interdite aux membres du corps médical, car la culpabilité conduisait immanquablement à la trahison » « La nuance critique impliquée dans cette pensée suscita une crainte éphémère chez Svengaard, qui avala sa salive et se força à se concentrer sur le répons que la Masse adressait aux Optimhommes : Eux nous dirigent, eux nous aiment, eux prennent soin de nous. » p8).
On retrouve également le culte de la personnalité (la Masse doit adorer les Optimhommes, c'est presque une religion planétaire et ils sont presque des dieux ; les individus ordinaires lorsqu'ils sont autorisés à s'adresser à un Optimhomme doivent le regarder et s'adresser à lui en utilisant son prénom dans chaque phrase).

La Résistance des humains à la tyrannie parce que... même s'ils ont des vies parfaites équilibrées et paisibles, il leur faut la liberté et le libre arbitre. Fait important également, dans cette société ils sont coupés de leur passé (pas vraiment de parents, ni de patrimoine génétique, ni d'ancêtres... pas de racines).

Prototype du ghola Duncan Idaho, à travers le personnage de Max Allgood, chef de la sécurité auprès des Optimhomme, qui les adore, mais finira par se rebeller parce qu'il découvrira qu'il n'est qu'un des multiples doubles de lui-même utilisés à ce poste.
Dès qu'un Max Allgood ne convient plus ou se rebelle, les Optimhommes le tuent et le remplacent par un autre double Max Allgood.
Dans les yeux d'Heisenberg également, les doubles sont de moins en moins bonne qualité, changent au fur et à mesure des clonages, alors que c'est le même patrimoine génétique (→ évoquation d'une mémoire génétique d'un individu à l'autre chère à Franck Herbert).
« Quel Max... avait-elle effacé ? Il y en a eu tellement... un modèle vedette pour notre sécurité. Elle pensa aux autres, une longue lignée de Max qu'on éliminait tour à tour dès qu'ils avaient cessé de plaire. Leurs images se multipliaient à l'infini comme dans un jeu de miroirs.
Que peut bien représenter l'effacement pour un être comme lui ? Moi, je suis une suite continue mais un double n'a pas de mémoire ? Un double ignore toute continuité.
A moins que les cellules n'aient une mémoire. », réflexions de Calipine, p194.
« – Il ne suffit pas de mettre en service un double de Max, fit remarquer Schruille. D'abord, savez-vous qu'ils ne sont plus aussi bons qu'autrefois ? », p191.

Quite old and dated; unlike Dune, which is also old. but timeless.

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 Eyes of Heisenberg has many of the qualities for which Herbert is known, and yet I still found it to be an unusual FH novel. The "hard" sci-fi language is present, similar to the style of language (not the vocabulary itself) found in Destination Void. There is also a clear plot direction with definite Herbertian themes and great potential for development. But all in all, it felt to me like TEoH was missing something, and the end came too fast. The novel seems rushed, and Herbert's usual level of depth was not reached. Reading it was a bit like swimming on the surface of a great reef and being able to see the ocean floor, but never able to dive down and really enjoy the view.

In this obscure science-fiction novel, written at about the same time as Dune, Frank Herbert asks a question which has occupied surprisingly few SF writers: if you were immortal, what would you actually do? His answer, which will appeal to many people on this site, is more or less that you would catch up on your reading.

As things are, we're so limited by our puny lifespans. Usually we just read a book once and then move on to the next one. If we liked it, we might read it a second or even a third time. If we really liked it, we may occasionally go further: read books that it refers to or that influenced it, check out a biography of the author, perhaps find a doctoral dissertation that provides further details.

Even though we know we could do a whole lot more, we don't have time. But suppose we could count on living to two hundred thousand. If we thought a book was interesting, we could spend a century reading it properly. We could become fluent in Polish or classical Japanese to get all the nuances of the original, visit the places it mentions, check out every single book that the author might have read, learn to imitate their style and try rewriting the story in different ways to explore the artistic choices they had available, and finally publish our conclusions in thirty leisurely volumes. A few thousand years later, when we were busy with another author of the same period, we'd be able to reread our previous work, see how our ideas had changed and revise a few things. Maybe we'd suddenly notice an angle we'd missed first time round.

Well, that's roughly how the immortals here spend their time. Of course, the underground wants to get rid of these spoiled, decadent aristocrats, and you're encouraged to sympathize with their revolutionary ideals. But I wasn't sure I agreed. I quite liked the immortals and felt sorry that they couldn't go on with their cultural studies for another few million years.

A very slight novel for Herbert in marked contrast to Dune and sequels. Still, the musings on immortality and how it could corrupt mankind is interesting. Herbert does use some of these ideas in the later Dune novels, e.g. the Duncan Idaho gholas are similar to Max Allgood. The major flaw with the novel is Herbert's description of the genetic surgery--simply a word salad of biological terms often used very inaccurately. The idea of gene splicing a morula under the microscope is pretty absurd. I wish Herbert had delved deeper into the personalities of the Optimen and Cyborgs. I think Herbert could have crafted an excellent, but much longer, novel if he had delved deeper into how these groups came about. As it stands, the background is only hinted at.

A novel of the early understanding of the dangers of genetic manipulation, and the sterility of a fully eugenically controlled world. Echoes of the Those Above/ Those Below duology by Daniel Abrahams in the society of the Optimen, in that they have become entirely detached from and largely indifferent to the world.

Like much of Herbert's short fiction, you can see him testing out ideas which will be deployed in full form in his Dune masterwork. In this case, notions of genetic cloning, ability to read innermost thoughts through expression and bearing, and battle-language/ touch communication.

Any screenwriters looking for their next project, I have the feeling that this would make a tremendous movie...

Frank Herbert wrote what for me is the best book ever: "Dune". Maybe not the best written, but the best with its sprawling mythology, its inspired ideas and deep understanding of varied topics: environment, religion, politics...

"The Eyes of Heisenberg" is no "Dune", that's for sure. In a world where a part of the population has become immortal, tensions are rising, as many of the mortals don't like the "gods" way of ruling things. It is an interesting little novel, an easy read, very very short, with some good ideas, but that seems to have been written in a hurry. Why the Durant embryo is so important that puts everything in motion is a little bit strange the further you get in the novel, and it all seems a little bit as an excuse to see Herbert's opinion of how an immortal society would work. The style is Herbert's, for sure, but it lacks the focus of other of his works. It just jumps too fast from one place to the other, without making very clear some aspects of what happens.

Not a bad book, but from one that wrote a novel so respected and revered as "Dune" a little bit of a misfire.

6/10

Romanzo breve, che si legge velocemente.
Gli interrogativi che pone sono molto interessanti: l'uomo che vuole ergersi a Dio, i limiti dell'esistenza umana, il confine che gli uomini devono o possono porsi per non essere corrotti dal potere.
Qualche manciata di pagine in più non avrebbe guastato, soprattutto per delineare meglio le fazioni in lotta e la storia che ha portato a quel mondo.
Il difetto più grande che ho trovato nello stile di scrittura, posto che è scritto decisamente meglio di Dune, è che l'autore cambia spesso punto di vista: passa da un personaggio all'altro, ma in alcuni casi questi cambi di soggetto sono mal gestiti, generando confusione nel lettore.
Da leggere per i quesiti morali che pone.

I had to really try and finish this book as I wanted to know how it ended, but I didn't care for the characters as they weren't particularly likeable. The world Frank Herbert sets up is interesting, however in the melange of the heavy sci-fi techo talk, ethical themes and poltics - I found things got a little muddy.

Buuueno.... lectura fàcil però bastant inconexa e incongruent. Probablement només apte per adolescents dels 70.

It was a good piece of old-fashioned science fiction. There were definitely some parallels with the Dune books when it came to the rulers cloning their favorites so they would always have them in their service. Overall, it was a quick, enjoyable read.