Jᴀᴄᴜʀᴜᴛᴜ - Tʜᴇ Cᴀsᴛ Oᴜᴛ

Noticed this wasn't in the list (Or did I miss it?) I've had it on the shelf for a while now, figured I'd give it a go and I'm loving it so far. After the first 50 pages I went and looked up the Hellstrom Chronicle:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7R8UN9zGD04

Very Interesting movie.

I liked that film - Hellstrom is quality

I watched this all last night, and went to bed. But -- man! What a movie! I loved the whole story about the black ants at the end though. I wonder if PETA was around to protest this back then...

Finished the book this morning and I really liked it. I really loved Franks approach of showing the story from both sides.

Watched the entire film and must say I'm impressed. The actor portraying Hellstrom did a very good job at seeming both intelligent and delusional... I had Hellstrom's Hive in my room but had to return it and more to the library due to an accumulated bill. I'm more interested than ever to pick it up again.

Man, I've got HH just sitting here as an audiobook, ready to go at any time. I haven't gotten around to it yet, but you guys are making me feel intrigued ...

Its worth it just for the poor guy who literally gets fucked to death in it.

Ampoliros wrote:Its worth it just for the poor guy who literally gets fucked to death in it.

spoiler!

great book, i have not seen the film

I still haven't read this one yet along with the Eyes of Heisenberg.

I like the idea having a couple of books by Frank Herbert in reserve I haven't read yet.

Me too, I've deliberately stopped reading them so that I can do maybe one a decade from now on, might make it at least half way until I die.

So I can see that this thread is really old but HH was one of my favorites. I plowed through that thing like a stoner through a bag of funions.

I'd rather you revive an old topic than start a duplicate one.

Freakzilla wrote:I'd rather you revive an old topic than start a duplicate one.

... again.

Just finished this one today, and very much enjoyed it, particularly the implications of the last couple of chapters.
On a seperate note, I think I am going to take a Frank Herbert break for a bit.

JimmytheT wrote:Just finished this one today, and very much enjoyed it, particularly the implications of the last couple of chapters.
On a seperate note, I think I am going to take a Frank Herbert break for a bit.

Impossible

Serkanner wrote:

JimmytheT wrote:Just finished this one today, and very much enjoyed it, particularly the implications of the last couple of chapters.
On a seperate note, I think I am going to take a Frank Herbert break for a bit.

Impossible

He'll haunt your dreams...

I find it difficult not to comapare other works to his.


edit; not that it isn't good to shift gears once in a while

D Pope wrote:

Serkanner wrote:

JimmytheT wrote:Just finished this one today, and very much enjoyed it, particularly the implications of the last couple of chapters.
On a seperate note, I think I am going to take a Frank Herbert break for a bit.

Impossible

He'll haunt your dreams...

I find it difficult not to comapare other works to his.


edit; not that it isn't good to shift gears once in a while

Since I have become a Frank Herbert fan, the odd 30 years ago, I have read so many other authors that Frank isn't always on my mind (any more) when reading. I do however "judge" quality on the Frank Herbert scale. Some score high, others not so high.

Serkanner wrote:

D Pope wrote:

Serkanner wrote:

JimmytheT wrote:Just finished this one today, and very much enjoyed it, particularly the implications of the last couple of chapters.
On a seperate note, I think I am going to take a Frank Herbert break for a bit.

Impossible

He'll haunt your dreams...

I find it difficult not to comapare other works to his.


edit; not that it isn't good to shift gears once in a while

Since I have become a Frank Herbert fan, the odd 30 years ago, I have read so many other authors that Frank isn't always on my mind (any more) when reading. I do however "judge" quality on the Frank Herbert scale. Some score high, others not so high.

That's what I mean, FH sets the standard.
Thanks Serk!

D Pope wrote:

Serkanner wrote:

D Pope wrote:

Serkanner wrote:

JimmytheT wrote:Just finished this one today, and very much enjoyed it, particularly the implications of the last couple of chapters.
On a seperate note, I think I am going to take a Frank Herbert break for a bit.

Impossible

He'll haunt your dreams...

I find it difficult not to comapare other works to his.


edit; not that it isn't good to shift gears once in a while

Since I have become a Frank Herbert fan, the odd 30 years ago, I have read so many other authors that Frank isn't always on my mind (any more) when reading. I do however "judge" quality on the Frank Herbert scale. Some score high, others not so high.

That's what I mean, FH sets the standard.
Thanks Serk!

Indeed Master D ... Frank has and still is setting the standard. Some who reach that standard are called "critical darlings" by less talented writers.

Well I am now reading "Burmese Days" by Orwell, so as far as the quality of writing on a Frank Herbert scale, I would say his writing ranks pretty high up there.

I recently got a copy of Hellstrom, one of the few FH novels I still haven't read. I think after I'm done with Children of Dune I will get on this one. I'm pretty excited after what I have read here!

ULFsurfer wrote:I recently got a copy of Hellstrom, one of the few FH novels I still haven't read. I think after I'm done with Children of Dune I will get on this one. I'm pretty excited after what I have read here!

After reading Dune, naturally you want more.
You will be pleasantly surprised to discover Frank explores the same core themes in most if not all his books, even though the story and characters change ( how can I say the coffee hasn't quite kickrd in yet today), you still feel like you are getting some Dune...unlike other authors, just another nrw title.

good read,
the hive came up short on internal communications at the end,
didnt jive with the technology and mentality they owned if you ask me
but whatever

they really went easy on the wild human establishment at the end

this disappointed me

I just finished reading Hellstrom's Hive for the first time. I had no idea it was based on a film, and I haven't had the chance to watch it yet on Youtube, but I'll report back when I do to compare it to Frank's book. But anyhow HH had a lot in common with FH's other works, especially the aspect of looking at alternative views on civilization and on planning for the future. There was something Bene Gesserit-ish about the Hive's special culture and quasi-religious (without being actually religious) dogmas, and their centuries-long plan going along with genetic breeding. Other comparisons with Dune that come to mind:

Nils Hellstrom: he strikes me as being a Liet-Kynes type character, a sort of weird visionary who is not *quite* like those he leads (in this sense it's more like Pardot) but is recognized as being superior and worth following. Viewing him as Liet essentially places the hive members in the role of the Fremen, which is peculiar because in Dune the reader is really meant to side with the Fremen and, I think, to respect their peculiar culture and find it intriguing. Contrast that with the hive, which for multiple reasons is supposed to come off as alien and disgusting.

The hive:It's a funny bit of PR on Frank's part, because realistically I think most modern people would view the Fremen as being utterly brutal and merciless, regressive in passive on wives (or perhaps old-time Mid-Eastern), and rigid to the point of insanity. The word "jihad" probably doesn't play well so well now, after 9/11, compared to when it was written (to say the least). Yet for all that I find the Fremen endearing but in HH was on Janvert's side in hoping he'd escape to report the monstrosity he'd seen. The hive really comes off as a horrible dystopian nightmare, reminiscent of Huxley's Brave New World in controlling everyone chemically and dehumanizing everything so that we're just working units like ants. But it does take some close inspection to really say what the difference is between this and the Fremen, who for some reason I've come to not see as monstrous at all. I guess part of it is that the Fremen were really shaped by their environment and by being enslaved through the ages, whereas with the hive they seem to be more like a terrorist cell trying to destroy other forms of life just because they can.

The ultimate weapon: Almost identical to Paul's gambit with threatening the destruction of spice; in this case the threat is to shatter the world. FH built on Paul's threat and added a wrinkle, which is the idea that having an ultimate weapon actually places the power in those you threaten, because if they tell you to go ahead and use it you're just destroying yourself. So half-measures are needed for the threat to be useful in a one-sided way. So in HH they threaten to destroy cities, unlike Paul who threatened to eliminate all space travel essentially forever (or at least to force the Guild to go back to using an older and worse drug). But again, Paul's threat would cause each planet to live by itself, but still live, whereas in HH they are talking about holding the only planet we have hostage, which seems more sinister. Also while the Fremen were seeking what they saw as freedom, the hive seemed to be seeking a Nazi-esque world dominion because they actually craved the power itself. There is a bit of lip service given to how society would never accept them, sort of implying oppression in advance (even though it never actually happened), but that's really not the same in my book as literally being enslaved for millennia and trying to finally end it.

The characters: none of them compare to anyone in Dune, so from a narrative perspective this was weaker than Dune. That said, I did like some of them, including Janvert and the #2 in the company whose name I forget. He writes intelligence very well here, as he does elsewhere, but their personalities didn't come through all that clearly here compared to people like Gurney, the Baron, and so on.

Sexual enslavement: we have a proto-version of that here, which is seen much more in the later Dune books.

Genetic breeding program: check.

Secret society that has to keep its identity and numbers hidden until the time is right: check.

Geopolitical view of a small group threatening a much more powerful group: check.

Our sympathy: The funny thing about the book is that the writing is super-vague about who you should be rooting for, if anyone. In Dune you are clearly meant to be on Paul's side, and against the Baron and Emperor (duh). But here some pains are taken to make Nils Hellstrom a protagonist, even though I think this fails to an extent, but pains are also taken for you to sympathize with his antagonists. Overall, despite their political infighting, I generally felt the government agents are the 'good guys' in this book, and are pretty reasonable. So that sort of makes this book anti-Dune, where the Fremen are the evil freaks and we're afraid of what happens when they take over. Maybe that's a reflection on what FH shows us in Messiah, about the insane nature of their jihad.

Technological ethics: Both sides here mostly believe the ends justify the means, but there are cultural limits, and the hive has a far more inhuman tolerance for butchery and other things. While they are not low-tech, the hive does feel like it has an emphasis on bio-tech and chemistry, making them more like the Tleilaxu than the BG. This is especially so due to their use of sexual stumps, very similar to FH's depiction of the Tleilaxu breeding methods. This alone is probably enough to liken them to "filthy Tleilaxu" and thus make it essentially impossible to have much sympathy for them. This mishmash of methods and culture may end up being at cross-purposes with any intention FH had of showing us any good sense to the hive's purpose. In the end, as a reader, you mostly just want them destroyed and ended.

My final review is that I thought it was a good book, engaging and entertaining, although it was a bit slow to get into at the start. He's going for a slow ominous intro but this works badly against sucking the reader in. Parts of it are middling as far as FH goes but it's still strong sci-fi. It's light years away from being a Dune, and doesn't even come close to D:V, but as I'm new to reading FH's expanded works I can't say how it might rate compared to his other books. I've only read the Dune and Pandora series so far, and Under Pressure (which I also thought was better than this one).

It is new to me too the book is based on a film. You can find the film on youtube here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVZpzLUoGU0

I agree with basically everything you wrote in your review. I found the book very entertaining and also see the obvious similarities with Frank's other work. It has been some time since I have read it, but isn't also the Axolotl tank used here?