Time Traveler Show #24: Missing Link (Frank Herbert)

[james_davis_nicoll]

Missing Link (Frank Herbert)

A hapless junior officer is put on the job of working out if a newly discovered group of aliens can be reasoned with or if the human ship in orbit will have to kill them all. The key to friendly relations turns out to lie in Insane Troll Logic combined with some extremely dubious North American anthropology.

The performance is fine; my snarking is directed at the story. Why was Herbert a Big Name Author, again? How low was the bar set in his hey day?

Comments

[fridgepunk.livejournal.com]

Because he wrote that one book that had some of the best ecological science fiction ever... which someone at some point mistook for being insteresting because of the Characters and Plot, thereby leading to an unfortuante number of sequals where stuff not focused on the ecology of arrakis happened, or worse; In which arrakis stopped being a desert planet entirely.

Which is weird considering the book is CALLED "Dune", not "Emperor of Spice" or anything. The protagonist of the book was in the title man.

The anthropology and religious themes and characters all kind of sucked (oh look a feudal political landscape based off of the holy roman empire under charlemagne with kung-fu TERF nuns playing the role of the catholic church, oh look "zen-sufi" religion that happens to be indistinguishable from catholicism, oh look mysteriously brutal magical native bedouins, GIANT PENIS WORMS EAT YO HYDROLOGICAL EMPIRE *yawn*, and the plot of jesus christ superstar to tie it all together)

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I've always bounced hard off the first few pages of Dune. I don't know what it is, but I can't read that thing. I never get as far as the ecology stuff.

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

I spent twenty years under the impression that I'd never finished reading it, so I got a copy.

I was wrong.

You did the right thing.

[rozasharn.livejournal.com]

You don't need to "get as far as" the ecology stuff. It's all in an appendix. Just get hold of a copy and turn directly to the back of the book.

[nelc.livejournal.com]

You make it sound like a great read. I'm sure my golden-age self would have read it, even if he hadn't already.

[neowolf2.livejournal.com]

It's a shame the putative level of ecology in the book wasn't matched by comprehension of thermodynamics.

[ext-2116956.livejournal.com (from livejournal.com)]

Add total pseudo science of memories passed through parents' gene plasm. Talk about breaking suspension of disbelief! I tried to ignore that part for the sake of the rest of the story, but it was a distraction.

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

Frank Herbert seemed to like the idea.

So did Lafayette Hubbard.

I don't know if there's a connection. It's entirely possible they both just thought it would be a great timesaver.

I expect it never occurred to either of them to wonder, if this worked, why it is that after so many generations of consistent examples, Jews and American Indians aren't BORN thinking, "Don't trust this asshole!"