Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Whipping Star
    Unavailable
    Whipping Star
    Unavailable
    Whipping Star
    Ebook276 pages3 hours

    Whipping Star

    By Frank Herbert

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    Listen to the audiobook instead

    About this ebook

    A classic novel from the master of science fiction, Frank Herbert's Whipping Star. “Herbert is one of the most thought-provoking writers of our time; by focusing on ‘alien' culture, he makes us examine what the true definition of ‘human' is.” —The Pacific Sun

    In the far future, humankind has made contact with numerous other species: Gowachin, Laclac, Wreaves, Pan Spechi, Taprisiots, and Caleban, and has helped to form the ConSentiency to govern among the species. After suffering under a tyrannous pure democracy, the sentients of the galaxy find the need for a Bureau of Sabotage (BuSab) to slow the wheels of government, thereby preventing it from legislating recklessly. BuSab is allowed to sabotage and harass the governmental, administrative, and economic powers in the ConSentiency. Private citizens must not be harassed, and vital functions of society are also exempt.

    Jorj X. McKie is a born troublemaker who has become one of BuSab's best agents. Drafted for the impossible task of establishing meaningful communication with an utterly alien entity who defies understanding, McKie finds himself racing against time to prevent a mad billionairess from wiping out all life in the ConSentiency.

    At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateJan 20, 2009
    ISBN9781429918480
    Author

    Frank Herbert

    Frank Herbert (1920-1986) created the most beloved novel in the annals of science fiction, Dune.  He was a man of many facets, of countless passageways that ran through an intricate mind.  His magnum opus is a reflection of this, a classic work that stands as one of the most complex, multi-layered novels ever written in any genre.  Today the novel is more popular than ever, with new readers continually discovering it and telling their friends to pick up a copy.  It has been translated into dozens of languages and has sold almost 20 million copies. As a child growing up in Washington State, Frank Herbert was curious about everything. He carried around a Boy Scout pack with books in it, and he was always reading.  He loved Rover Boys adventures, as well as the stories of H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, and the science fiction of Edgar Rice Burroughs.  On his eighth birthday, Frank stood on top of the breakfast table at his family home and announced, "I wanna be a author."  His maternal grandfather, John McCarthy, said of the boy, "It's frightening. A kid that small shouldn't be so smart." Young Frank was not unlike Alia in Dune, a person having adult comprehension in a child's body.  In grade school he was the acknowledged authority on everything.  If his classmates wanted to know the answer to something, such as about sexual functions or how to make a carbide cannon, they would invariably say, "Let's ask Herbert. He'll know." His curiosity and independent spirit got him into trouble more than once when he was growing up, and caused him difficulties as an adult as well.  He did not graduate from college because he refused to take the required courses for a major; he only wanted to study what interested him.  For years he had a hard time making a living, bouncing from job to job and from town to town. He was so independent that he refused to write for a particular market; he wrote what he felt like writing.  It took him six years of research and writing to complete Dune, and after all that struggle and sacrifice, 23 publishers rejected it in book form before it was finally accepted. He received an advance of only $7,500. His loving wife of 37 years, Beverly, was the breadwinner much of the time, as an underpaid advertising writer for department stores.  Having been divorced from his first wife, Flora Parkinson, Frank Herbert met Beverly Stuart at a University of Washington creative writing class in 1946.  At the time, they were the only students in the class who had sold their work for publication.  Frank had sold two pulp adventure stories to magazines, one to Esquire and the other to Doc Savage.  Beverly had sold a story to Modern Romance magazine.  These genres reflected the interests of the two young lovers; he the adventurer, the strong, machismo man, and she the romantic, exceedingly feminine and soft-spoken. Their marriage would produce two sons, Brian, born in 1947, and Bruce, born in 1951. Frank also had a daughter, Penny, born in 1942 from his first marriage.  For more than two decades Frank and Beverly would struggle to make ends meet, and there were many hard times.  In order to pay the bills and to allow her husband the freedom he needed in order to create, Beverly gave up her own creative writing career in order to support his.  They were in fact a writing team, as he discussed every aspect of his stories with her, and she edited his work.  Theirs was a remarkable, though tragic, love story-which Brian would poignantly describe one day in Dreamer of Dune (Tor Books; April 2003).  After Beverly passed away, Frank married Theresa Shackelford. In all, Frank Herbert wrote nearly 30 popular books and collections of short stories, including six novels set in the Dune universe: Dune, Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune, and Chapterhouse: Dune.  All were international bestsellers, as were a number of his other science fiction novels, which include The White Plague and The Dosadi Experiment.  His major novels included The Dragon in the Sea, Soul Catcher (his only non-science fiction novel), Destination: Void, The Santaroga Barrier, The Green Brain, Hellstorm's Hive, Whipping Star, The Eyes of Heisenberg, The Godmakers, Direct Descent, and The Heaven Makers. He also collaborated with Bill Ransom to write The Jesus Incident, The Lazarus Effect, and The Ascension Factor.  Frank Herbert's last published novel, Man of Two Worlds, was a collaboration with his son, Brian.

    Read more from Frank Herbert

    Related to Whipping Star

    Related ebooks

    Science Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Letters

      Jul 15, 2021

      Regarding ‘Hunting Bigfoot’, in “Creatures on the Loose” [FT405:26]: adopting Justin Humphrey’s position on the reality of Bigfoot, surely one would be required to establish its nature before designating it a suitable subject for the huntsman. If it

      12 min read

    • Article

      Futurenauts

      Aug 11, 2022

      In the study of UFOs, the origin of the phenomenon has been the subject of much debate. After all, this has never been just one mystery and numerous different possible causes have been put forward. The most challenging cases involve ‘ufonauts’, being

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Call Of The UFO

      Mar 21, 2024

      Many years ago when I was running the investigations department at BUFORA – the largest UFO group in the UK – I was presented with a new challenge – UFO Call. This was a telephone ‘hotline’ for UFO reports, and it started exactly 35 years ago as I am

      4 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Sep 1, 2022

      Are you ready? I nodded. She slid the needle inand the sick cat, who only a moment before had tried toleap to the floor closed his eyes and exhaled. Andthat’s it, she said a little too brightly, pulling the needle out.That’s it? I asked. That’s all t

      3 min read

    • Article

      Alien Invasion In Our Ears

      Apr 14, 2023

      Alien Invasion In Our Ears
      5 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Nov 3, 2022

      When I read David Hambling’s article ‘Listening to the voice within’ [FT423:16], I became conscious that my ‘inner voice’ was reading the piece aloud in my mind. Obviously I’ve had this realisation before; I decided to ask my wife if she also had an

      10 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Nov 5, 2020

      Sadly, the wonderfully prescient quotation from Samuel Pepys [FT397:70], “A dram in exchange for the pox is an ill bargain indeed,” is not by the great diarist, but from a spoof Twitter account. (https://londonist.com/london/books-and-poetry/samuel-p

      13 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Apr 18, 2024

      Letters
      14 min read

    • Article

      ‘They Put Me On A Ship And Took Me Into The Sun’: The Wild UFO Podcasts Taking Over Our Earphones

      Apr 7, 2023

      In the depths of winter last year, I was running through a cold and unlit field near my house when I saw a trail of lights moving through the sky. I stopped. The air caught in my throat. “Bloody hell,” I thought, “were the UFO people right all along?

      6 min read

    • Article

      Middle-Aged Mulder Syndrome

      Jan 27, 2022

      Middle-Aged Mulder Syndrome
      6 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Apr 21, 2022

      CONTACT US BY POST: PO BOX 1200, WHITSTABLE CT1 9RH, OR E-MAIL SIEVEKING@FORTEANTIMES.COM PLEASE PROVIDE US WITH YOUR POSTAL ADDRESS As an FT reader and occasional correspondent of some 30 odd years, I enjoy the magazine as much as ever, but I did un

      11 min read

    • Article

      Stranger Places

      Aug 9, 2018

      It began like any normal pregame in the woods. Naked, alone, hungover, a sweaty sleeping bag in the back of a dusty pickup truck, miles from civilization. Predawn in a narrow Utah river bottom, canyon country, early July. A Thermos of lukewarm coffee

      18 min read

    • Article

      The Hidden Origins of Mankind

      Nov 12, 2019

      The Hidden Origins of Mankind
      8 min read

    • Article

      I, Spy

      Aug 7, 2018

      Many things happened to me for the first time on a night in April 1944. I rode in a Black Maria; I jumped from a bomber with a tangled parachute; and I began my mission in wartime France as a British secret agent. We drove in the Black Maria from Int

      17 min read

    • Article

      The Man Who Seduced the World with Whale Songs

      Sep 8, 2021

      It’s been more than 50 years since biologist Roger Payne brought whale song into the lives of millions via the popular album, Songs of the Humpback Whale. At the time, commercial whaling had decimated global whale populations, and Payne’s record help

      7 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Oct 8, 2020

      Thank you for making my life more joyful month after month. I can’t tell you how important to me the Fortean Times is. Kevin Hope By email Regarding Matt Salusbury’s Forum article on sunken bells [FT396:54-55], there is more to the bells of Aberdyfi

      14 min read

    • Article

      Astonished And Amazed

      Jan 26, 2023

      Astonished And Amazed
      6 min read

    • Article

      Have You Hugged A Rhino Today?

      Jul 29, 2022

      Have You Hugged A Rhino Today?
      5 min read

    • Article

      A Surreal and Outrageous World: Jessica Anthony in Conversation with Joshua Ferris

      May 8, 2020

      Enter the virus, exit any plans you had for, oh, like, the next six months. Exit intimacy. Exit the toilet paper and watch your lazy, spray-tanned president assure the People that everything is going to be okay... The post A Surreal and Outrageous Wo

      10 min read

    • Article

      The Weirdest Ghosts Of All?

      Feb 25, 2021

      The Weirdest Ghosts Of All?
      4 min read

    • Article

      Sci-Fi Has Changed A Lot In The Past Decade — These 7 Reads Will Show You How

      Aug 16, 2021

      This year's Summer Poll is all about the past decade in science fiction and fantasy, so we asked critic Jason Sheehan to come up with his own list of the new sci-fi that's blowing his mind.

      9 min read

    • Article

      Tuning In To The Hum

      Feb 23, 2023

      SEND FORUM SUBMISSIONS TO THE EDITOR: DRSUTTON@FORTEANTIMES.COM For two years, the noise plagued residents of Holmfield and Queensbury near Halifax in West Yorkshire, disrupting their mental health and work performance (FT415:8). A Facebook group sta

      3 min read

    • Article

      Arkham Fire

      Jan 29, 2020

      Arkham Fire
      5 min read

    Reviews for Whipping Star

    3.5/5

    224 ratings11 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Not one of his best, but interesting and keeps you thinking about it when you put it down. Most of the book consists of conversations between "people" who can't quite understand each other due to their alien nature.
    • 4/5
      I read Herbert's Dune Messiah when I was 11 (it was what I could afford at a school book fair), not realizing it was a sequel. It was confusing to a 5th grader. A few years later, I read The Dosadi Experiment, also not realizing that it was a sequel...of sorts. Also confusing. What a Mind Herbert had! Creating the alien concepts...alien interactions .. much more challenging than straight up human-only science fiction. I wish he had written more of these rather than churning out the drivel of the later Dune chain, which jumped the shark for me halfway through God Emperor...
    • 4/5
      This book really deserves 3.5 stars, but since Goodreads doesn't allow that level of granularity.... Anyway, worth a reading. Not mind blowing, but there are definitely some very interesting ideas in here.
    • 4/5
      Mind-blowing.

      Like a lot of Herbert fans, I was introduced to Frank Herbert through Dune and its original quintet of sequels. And like a lot of Herbert fans, I kind of stopped there. It was only later, years later, that I bothered to read some of Herbert's other stuff. And while the Dune saga still represents his most complete vision and best storytelling (at least through the first four books), and is deservedly his best-known work, I've started to realize that some of his most truly impressive feats of imagination and intelligence lie within his books outside of the series. Destination: Void, with its penetrating insights on the nature of consciousness, is one such book. The Dosadi Experiment (actually a sequel to Whipping Star, but which I accidentally read first), which takes a much more detailed look than Dune at exactly how humans might evolve in a hyper-hostile environment, is another. And Whipping Star is absolutely in that same class.

      Here's just one example of Herbert's genius: One thing that was shocking to me, in reading Whipping Star, is how deeply Herbert approached the idea of communication between humans and aliens. Extraterrestrial contact is such a basic staple of science fiction that it's amazing how little some SF authors seem to think it through. On the low end of the depth continuum you have the Star Trek and Star Wars universes, where the vast majority of aliens are just humans with weird bumps on their heads, and most of them happen to speak English as a second language for your convenience. Certainly there are cultural disconnects as humans deal with Klingons, or Wookiees, but they're roughly on a par with "Crocodile Dundee making his way through New York City" in their severity. Slightly better thought through than those examples might be Larry Niven's aliens in Known Space: clearly, they think differently than humans, and understanding is rarely perfect, but everyone seems to have magic translator boxes and once again, the real problem of interspecies communication is hand-waved away. Closer yet to a realistic treatment would be Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, where the Mars-raised human, Valentine Michael Smith, knew the words and syntax of English, but that was no guarantee of clear communication because his whole way of thinking and set of experiences was so vastly different to an Earthling's.

      Heinlein is the first SF author who appears to have honestly thought the thing through, and Herbert takes it to a whole different level in Whipping Star. As the protagonist, Jorj X. McKie, attempts to communicate with the mysterious Caleban, the basic breakdown in understanding is evident, and the characters' frustration is palpable and believable. Herbert makes the reader think of what it would be like to deal with a creature that's as intelligent as a human, maybe more so, but not at all human. The dialogue between McKie and Fannie Mae alone makes this book worth the price of purchase, and the book is filled to bursting with other ideas besides that, in spite of being short and fast-paced. For one, it takes a unique and plausible stab at FTL travel and time travel.

      An enormously impressive and enjoyable book. I give it four stars instead of five only because, much like Destination: Void, the story is a ramshackle thing, mostly meant to convey Herbert's ideas from Point A to Point Z. It's still more than worth the read, though, if you're into science fiction that makes you think.
    • 4/5
      Basically a 'simple' crime story but set in an interesting and intelligent environment where humanity have to share the world with so alien intelligent creatures they hardly can communicate with. The best (and the most comlpex) parts of the book are the conversations between McKie the saboteur and the Caleban...
    • 4/5
      Fantastically deep. It was so refreshing to finally read a well written novel. It's hard to find an equivalent in today's modern authors, although they are out there.
    • 3/5
      What I liked: the cover art and the font chosen for the titleWhat I didn't like: the storyI'll be a little more charitable: I do like Herbert's writing style, even when I don't like what he's writing about. It was very easy to whiz right through this book but finishing left me totally unfulfilled.A downright silly story, the plot is right out of a comic book. And I'm not talking a "Days of Futures Past" or "Dark Knight" style classic, I'm talking a throw-away "Marvel Two-In-One" plot line.
    • 2/5
      Basically drivel. Some interesting ideas, but quite poorly written. I had sympathy for the main characters, but lost patience with the writing.
    • 3/5
      Bizarre world building featuring a Bureau of Sabotage to ensure government doesn't function efficiently. An enjoyable quick read if you're a fan of science fiction from this period.
    • 3/5
      Huh. I’m not sure what to make of this book. It is interesting, but it seems to be bogged down in its discussions about language and communication. In this novel a crazy billionaire-ess is trying to kill every sentient creature by killing an anthropomorphic star that has given people technology. In the end she is destroyed by her own madness when her self created world collapses. This is a weird book written by a man who was equal parts smart and bat shit insane.
    • 4/5
      I think this was my second favorite of Herbert's books, following Dune. It didn't go exactly where I expected.