Frank Herbert's Other Books: The Dosadi Experiment, Destination Void, Hellstrom's Hive

0:21 Hi guys, it's Quinn here. If you appreciate my content, consider hitting the like button. It's the best way to get the YouTube algorithm to notice this channel. If you want to do more to support this channel, consider checking out the Patreon link in the description. So, continuing the quick video series that I've been doing discussing various aspects of science fiction literature while I'm preparing to release my long history of science fiction video, I decided to discuss more about some Frank Herbert books other than Dune.

0:53 Because I always get asked about Frank Herbert books other than Dune. Are they any good? So let's talk about some of them here. And then maybe in the future we'll dive into some of these books and stories in a dedicated video. Now, when you read several books and stories by Frank Herbert, you start to recognize that there are ideas that show up in all of them.

1:17 And this is true for I think most, if not all, authors that write over long periods of time. If you look at George R. Martin's older work from like the A Thousand Worlds universe, you have a lot of similar themes and ideas that pop up in the Song of Ice and Fire book series much later. Now I've talked about Hellstrom's Hive before on this channel, and Hellstrom's Hive is a 1973 book by Frank Herbert about this group of humans that start living as insects, essentially.

1:48 They live underground and they're basically like this hive collective. Now, this book was obviously written after Dune, but it carries on some themes and ideas like it's very interested in human evolution and the best way for humanity to evolve. Also, themes of genetic engineering crop up, the idea that one must continually adapt to survive.

2:12 Definitely check out the full video that I did on this one if you want to know more. Another great one is Destination Void. Destination Void also has three sequels that really take the entire thing in a very bizarre direction, but essentially the story starts off as this mystery where you have this crew of clones on board a spaceship.

2:39 They are on ostensibly a colonization mission. And the really interesting thing about this vessel that they're on is it's governed by two fundamental systems. So there is a mechanical computer system on board the ship, and there is also a brain, a biological brain, that came out of what the story refers to as a genetic monster, and these brains are alive and sentient.

3:11 Now there's three brains on the vessel, only one is ever activated at any given time, but they encounter a very bizarre problem is that these brains start to basically go insane. And the mystery of why this happens is something that I think pushes this book forward and makes you want to keep reading.

3:32 The idea of a conscious, alive brain, disembodied, forced to control a vessel, essentially enslaved, is extremely interesting to me and also terrifying. There's also a part of the book where they talk about what the brains would start to say as they began to go insane, and it's all very chilling. I have no incarnation.

3:57 That may have been the only accurate thing in her jabbering, after all, except for gray matter, she had no flesh. But then, remember, after a long silence, she said, I'm counting my fingers. She had no fingers, no conscious memory of fingers, and that final question. The best guess is that any meaning in these statements and questions was purely accidental.

4:23 I think she was referring to us. The crew, Bickle said. It's nuts, yes, but it was a direct question over the vocoders. And we were the only possible audience. Now, this is gonna be kind of a spoiler, so if you really want to read this book and this series yourself, then maybe stop, but if spoilers don't bother you as much, continue forward.

4:47 I'll also try and put timestamps for the different books so that you guys can skip around in this video. So Myrtle is the first brain. She goes insane, dies essentially. Next, they awaken little Joe, also goes insane, dies eventually. Next, they awaken Harvey, goes insane, they put him out of his misery.

5:12 And as these brains are going insane, there's also anomalous events that are happening on board the vessel. A few crew members actually are killed because of these events. Apparently, Little Joe once roared over the intercom. I'm awake, God help me, I'm awake. The brain known as Harvey apparently screamed, You're forcing me to be unhealthy.

5:35 So what's going on here? Why are these brains doing this? What's happening? The answer is a lot more sinister than you would think. Now, you know very early on in the book that this particular vessel is the seventh version of this vessel. Ostensibly. This is Earthling 7. So there have been six missions launched, ostensibly with the same purpose, that have failed.

6:03 But the truth is that this failure was orchestrated, and the death of the brains was also orchestrated by the powers that be on Earth. This is all an experiment. These clones are being cloned over and over and over again. Sent out on this mission to outer space with 3,000 sleeping colonists, by the way.

6:29 The brains are supposed to die. It is a stress test to see if they will eventually do what the powers that be actually want them to do, which is to create a consciousness inside of the ship's computer itself. It's the only way that their ship could actually function in the long term. For the powers that be, it's all about the experiment.

6:55 All of these clones, the thousands of clones, are expendable. They are property, they are objects. None of the other crews of clones that have been sent before them have ever been able to get to this point and do this. So Earth Moonbase does not care about this crew. And this mission is not actually about colonization.

7:15 All they care about is this experiment. And when this crew eventually gets back to them about the nature of what's happened about the death of the brains, that's what they suggest. They suggest create a consciousness inside of the computer that can replace the brain. And without spoiling too much more, like I said, I might make a dedicated video.

7:35 This gets very out of hand and it extends to god-like proportions. Now, you might have noticed the dune-like similarities in this one. Um, there's some I didn't even mention. Like there's direct mentions of Axolotl tanks in this, right? The cloning of people over and over and over again. Um, the creating a machine and the likeness of a human mind, um, creating AI and it getting out of your control, because that's basically what happens at the end of the book.

8:02 The thing that they create, they cannot control. I do think Destination Void is a really interesting read. I don't want to spoil too much, but if you're a Frank Herbert fan, I think it's worth the read. I also think the Jesus incident, uh, the follow-up book, is worth the read. But if you're adventurous, read the entire Pandora sequence.

8:20 Alright, so now let's talk about the Dosati experiment. So this is one is kind of a must-read if you're into Dune. So Frank Herbert has this knack for building these incredibly deep layered worlds where politics and environment and human psychology all kind of just mixed together. And the Dosati experiment is kind of right up there.

8:42 So, first off, both books just kind of throw their characters into brutal environments to see how they adapt. In Dune, you got Rakis, Harsh Desert, that turns the Frimen into the toughest people in the galaxy. And Dosati, it's a toxic, overcrowded city planet, like a ecumenopolis. Actually, not quite an ecumenopolis because it's not the entire planet.

9:05 It's kind of just the only livable part of the planet where only the smartest, most ruthless people survive. Uh, this basic idea is the same. When life is brutal, evolution is sped up. So that's a theme that both books share. And then there's the manipulation of entire societies. In Dune, you of course have the sisterhood, the Bene Gesserit.

9:27 We all know about the Benijeret breeding program. But Frank Herbert does something that he does not do in Dune. In Dosadi, he introduces an alien race called the Caliban. And Dosadi is actually their experiment. They've used their technology to seal off this entire planet. And this is all basically just their giant social experiment.

9:50 So we see the thematic thread in the Dosadi experiment and in Dune, that there are these behind the scenes groups pulling the strings behind every society. So the Dasadi experiment just drops us into this secretive, off-limits planet, uh, where humans and this alien race, they're called the Gawachin, have been trapped in this overcrowded city for generations, right?

10:14 And this planet is sealed off behind this impenetrable barrier. But then there's also the consentiency. Now, the consentiency is like this alliance of planets. Think a way less structured, way more chaotic version of the Federation from Star Trek. There's multiple species, including humans, the Gowachin, and other intelligent species.

10:37 And the Bureau of Sabotage is a part of the consentiency. And the Bureau of Sabotage was created basically to slow down the government on purpose. They're essentially trying to make sure the government doesn't become too powerful. Now, the consentiency and the Bureau of Sabotage both appear in other Frank Herbert stories.

10:59 The Dosati Experiment is the second full-length novel published in the series that also includes short stories. So this story is actually set within an ongoing universe. The Caliban, who created the Dasadi experiment, interact with the consentiency, but they're not directly under that government. They're outside.

11:22 The Bureau of Sabotage essentially realizes that something deeply illegal and dangerous is happening on Dosadi, and that this is an experiment that could potentially destabilize the entire consentiency, so they send one of their top agents to basically figure out what the heck is going on. Now, the reason that they're afraid that this could destabilize the consentiency is because they believed that if Dosati's population ever escaped into the wider galaxy, they could wreak havoc because they had been forged into hyper-intelligent, hyper-ruthless people, unlike anything in the rest of the consentiency.

11:57 This is obviously very similar to the Frimin on Arrakis in Dune. So if you're into like big sci-fi ideas that kind of make you think about systems of power and what it means to evolve, I think DeSadi is the type of book for you. So I hope you guys will go check out some of those recommendations and tell me in the comment section below what some of your favorite Frank Herbert books are outside of the Dune series.

12:22 And also make sure you like and subscribe for more Quinn's ideas.