As you may or may not know, I’m a big fan of Frank Herbert’s work. I own all six books in the Dune saga, and I more or less consider them an epic Science Fiction masterpiece. Dune is my yard stick by which I use to measure greatness of other SF novels.
You may say what you want about Herbert, but his books pack more thought provoking ideas about philosophy, religion and life per page than any other work in the SF genre. They are incredibly smart, eloquent and while the plot usually moves at a glacial pace, each paragraph is loaded with mind blowing revelations, or interesting ideas. Dune had so many incredibly potent ideas condensed into it created a similar effect that Tolkien’s Trilogy did for Fantasy – almost all science fiction written after Dune echoes or copies it’s themes and ideas.
Even Herbert himself didn’t seem to be able to escape from being overshadowed by his own success. I recently picked up one of his non Dune related novels titled Hellstrom’s Hive and it does seem like a faint echo of Dune. When I first started reading the book I actually thought that this was one of his earlier novels, and that the familiar themes (ecology, eugenics, social conditioning) were simply indicative of authors primary interests which were later expanded and fully fleshed out in Dune. This is however not the case. Prior to writing this review I checked the publishing dates, and it turns out that Hellstroms Hive (I will abbreviate it as HH if you don’t mind) was first released in 1973 which is 3 years after Dune Messiah hit the book shelves and 3 years before the Children of Dune.
Messiah is widely considered to be the weakest book of the Dune saga, so it puts HH right at the lowest point of this great authors form and it shows. Still, Herbert at is worst is still a hell lot better than most writers at the pinnacle of their creative performance. The book is still smart, eloquent and very well written. The concept behind it, and the general setting however are simply not as gripping or fascinating as those of Dune.
The action takes place in the present – or rather Frank Herbert’s present, which is the the earl 70’s. A ultra secretive governmental agency intercepts schematics for some incredibly potent weapons system, and links them to a known insect specialist and film maker Nils Hellstrom. Agents are immediately sent to covertly investigate his remote and secluded farm compound where most of his nature films are being produced. What they find there goes beyond their wildest dreams – they uncover a bizarre social experiment: a human hive. Inhabitants of the compound built a vast network of tunnels and caverns beneath the ground, and their society is modeled after that of social insects like ants of bees.
In a way the Hive is simillar to Huxley’s Brave New World Society with humans being breed and chemically altered for their jobs. There are mute drone workers chemically stripped out of free will, grotesque and sterile science specialists with withered bodies but superhuman intellect, inbred dim witted and docile hulks used for heavy lifting and etc. The Hive is essentially an alien world with it’s own philosophy, goals, and agenda.
Herbert skillfully switches between the two factions and tells the story both from the perspective of the members of the agency and the hive inhabitants. So we get a unique look on what really drives Hellstrom and his people, and how they view the outside world. But while the description of inner workings of the hive, and the psychological portrait of it’s people are compelling there are no where near as complex and layered as for example the Fremen culture Herbert portrayed in Dune.
While the Dune books usually are overflowing with really catchy, memorable ideas and themes that we keep imitating to this day (the spice, the space guild, the Bene Gesserit, Kwisatz Haderach, the Golden Path, Sand worms, personal shields, the Sardukar etc..), HH is essentially a one trick pony. The hive is the central idea – it is the science fiction element and that’s it. The same painstaking level of detail, and slow methodical progress of the plot that actually worked well in Dune is actually painful at times. While it was fascinating to read about court intrigue, or observe Bene Gesserit political maneuvers, the lengthy passages dealing with the Agency going through the motions, and dealing with bureaucratic hurdles are actually a bit dull. They lack that deep insight, religious reflection, philosophical contemplation, and the Zen of Dune.
I think that the core plot and ideas could easily be compressed into 20-30 pages and would make for an excellent short story. As it is, it is merely a mediocre novel which plays around with 3 of the themes known from dune: ecology, eugenics (selective breeding for special purposes) and social conditioning. All of them were already pretty well covered in the two Dune books that preceded HH and the author really had given them a much better treatment in the 4 Dune books which followed it. In my mind this book seems to be a light warm up or perhaps a much needed combo breaker that helped Herbert to get into the mood for Children of Dune.
If you are a big Frank Herbert fan like me, pick it up. It is well written, and uses that distinct 3rd person, objective, omnipotent narration style that you know and love from the Dune books. Just don’t expect any conceptual fireworks. Just sit back, and enjoy the ride. If you fell asleep reading Dune, and then fell asleep again watching one of it’s movie adaptations stay clear of this title. You have to appreciate Herbert’s specific, slow, deliberate and detailed style to fully enjoy this book.
[tags]hellstrom’s hive, frank herbert, literature, reviews[/tags]
I read all Dune books when I was 16 or so and I found them mostly boring, apart from the 1st and the 3rd which were only slightly boring. The films left out most of what makes up the story, so that was terrible, too, but in a different way. I stopped watching the german TV adaption (3 parts) after the first part, and my wife didn’t even understand a thing until I started explaining.
Yep, I assume that if I red the books at 16 I would probably find them boring too. I highly recommend re-reading at least the first one for the socio-political and religious tangents that would probably be hard to appreciate at 16. :)
Also, reading Dune was really similar to reading Tolkien – it was the source – the work that everyone was ripping off. This is the stuff that George Lucas was reading when he dreamt up Star Wars (and don’t say you don’t see correlation – desert planet, galactic empire, ancient prophecy etc..).
Dune is the sole reason why every desert planet in every universe has giant sand worms. :P
I am a HUGE Herbert fan! I’ve probably read the Dune series about a hundred times. My favorite, of course, is book one.
If you want to read something of his that is completely different – but still pretty good – pick up “The White Plague” published in 1982.
Thanks, I’ll put that on my reading list. :) Nice to see another Herbert fan around here!
Since this shows up on Google’s 1st search page about HH, I’ll say that I can’t agree with your analysis of this novel. The insect hivemind concept is incredibly different from the ecological ideas fleshed out in Dune and HH is one of the only SciFi books to ever look deeply into what a hivemind organization of humans could look like. This is still a relevant concept in the internet age – the radical hacktivists “Anonymous” come to mind – and the social interactions described in HH are extremely well done. I’d put this up there with Soul Catcher or The White Plague as one of Herbert’s best stand-alone novels.
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*Yep, I assume that if I red the books at 16 I would probably find them boring too. I highly recommend re-reading at least the first one for the socio-political and religious tangents that would probably be hard to appreciate at 16. :)*
I thought they were great as a child – and I read them a lot younger than 14 – but as an adult with experience of the world and real education the holes really show. The secret plots are imbecilic and the “layered” society is tissue thin. Dune’s main achievement is the *illusion* of depth in the mind of a certain type of person (ironically, these people always seem to miss what Herbert said he meant to be the themes of the book.)
*Also, reading Dune was really similar to reading Tolkien – it was the source – the work that everyone was ripping off.*
Among actual fantasy writers rather than their fans, Fritz Leiber and Jack Vance are considered much more influential than Tolkein. Which is GOT, Feist’s work and Pratchett’s all follow the Low Fantasy model instead of the High Fantasy one. Really: all those people have written this.
*This is the stuff that George Lucas was reading when he dreamt up Star Wars (and don’t say you don’t see correlation – desert planet, galactic empire, ancient prophecy etc..).*
No, Dune was not the first SF novel to have a galactic empire: trust me. It was something of an influence of SW, but a much bigger one – Lucas kept the books handy during production and used their terminology in the draft scripts – was the Lensman series. (Which Dune itself borrowed from.)