Frank Herbert. Whipping Star (1969-77)

    Frank Herbert. Whipping Star (1969-77) Herbert has the knack for making an alien culture seem alien, yet accessible. His readers must work hard to imagine what he tells them, and even so his worlds retain that not-quite-intelligible strangeness that convinces. Abnethe, the universe’s richest citizen, has captured a Caleban in order to whip it; she cannot stand to see suffering, but she craves its appearance. Jorge X. McKie, Saboteur Extraordinaire, has the assignment of finding out what he can. He finds out that all sentient life will die if the Caleban dies. Finally, the forces of good triumph over the forces of evil (and stupidity: in Herbert’s world the two are twins). McKie manages to establish something resembling correct communication with the Caleban, and Abnethe’s plans are thwarted. A bonus is that McKie solves a few riddles, too: The Calebans are multi-dimensional sentients who manifest in our universe as stars. They also run the S’eye, a system of instantaneous transport between any two points in the human universe. True simultaneity has at last been achieved, despite Einstein’s discoveries.
      This book appears to antedate the Dune series, in which Herbert constructed a complete civilisation. In this book, he has certainly imagined one, but he leaves out almost all of the details. Nevertheless, well done. *** (2006)