The difference between sentiment and sentimental: I doubt that I will ever bother to listen to this book again, and that is something I really look for in audio books. For that reason, I was ready for the book to be over about two hours before it ended. While the story is well told, I really didn't care a lot about any of the characters. In the final analysis, however, I only give the book three stars. This could become tedious, but is instead well paced and interesting. We are allowed to see the new world as it is walked by the protagonist. What is the author's vision of the remolded world? Again, Herbert does a credible job imagining what things would be like and throws in some interesting twists. Another aspect of the 'let's knock off a huge percentage of the human race and see what happens' genre is how the aftermath is handled. Given the advances in genetic engineering since those days, I suspect that Herbert barely scratched the surface of what could be accomplished now by a brilliant, or even mediocre, genetic engineer, but I give him high grades for his vision of the future. It's especially interesting for its portrayal of the terrorist mentality from the perspective of the 1970s and 80s, when the most commonly reported terrorist attacks were those of the IRA and the Palestinians. The White Plague is a decent story, well told, with good narration. The White Plague is a prophetic, believable, and utterly compelling novel. John Roe O'Neill is a molecular biologist who has the knowledge, and now the motivation, to devise and disseminate a genetically carried plague - a plague to which, like those that scourged mankind centuries ago, there is no antidote, but one that zeroes in, unerringly and fatally, on women.Īs the world slowly recognizes the reality of peril, as its politicians and scientists strive desperately to save themselves and their society from the prospect of human extinction, so does Frank Herbert grapple with one of the great themes of contemporary life: the enormous dangers that lurk at the dark edges of science. It tells of one man's revenge, of the man watching from the window who is pushed over the edge of sanity by the senseless murder of his family and who, reappearing several months later as the so-called Madman, unleashes a terrible vengeance upon the human race. The White Plague is a marvelous and terrifyingly plausible blend of fiction and visionary theme. From the second-floor window of a building across the street, a visiting American watches, helpless, as his beloved wife and children are sacrificed in the heat and fire of someone else's cause.įrom this shocking beginning, the author of the phenomenal Dune series has created a masterpiece. Suddenly, a car-bomb explodes, killing and injuring scores of innocent people.

A warm day in Dublin, a crowded street corner.

The white plague by frank herbert