The Dosadi Experiment

Rating:
Summary: exit Jorj X. McKie...
Review: ...and enter McKie plus, a Bureau of Sabotage agent profoundly changed by his experiences on a lonely planet subject to warfare, confinement, and eventual destruction. I relate to his disenchantment with the ConSentiency and his willingness to side with a marginalized people. Exciting and complex. Keila Jedrik, where are you...? ; )

Rating:
Summary: Herbert's Best, which says a whole lot
Review: Frank Herbert deserves his rep as one of the greatest science fiction writers. Dune, his most popular book (with 2 film adaptations) is an incredible epic. This book, however, is something that has stuck with me and improved with every reading. It a superior work in a lot of ways.

Some spoiler-free background:

Like a James Bond in the future, 500-year-old Jorge McKie is an agent for the government. The government in question is the ConSentiency: an amalgam of all sentient races in the galaxy worknig to keep the peace. This alone is an incredibly difficult prospect, for surly a race with a different biology and a different culture would come up with a different set of laws. How could such a thing as a ConSentiency exist? Making things more difficult are two relatively new uphevals: 1> that stars are sentent beings, and 2> stars themselves allow instant travel from place to place in the galaxy.

And now, as our story starts, the uneasy peace is threatened by an experiment: 200 years previously, a race of aliens has created Dosadi: a poison planet inhabited with kidnapped humans and aliens who have had their memories erased and been dumped on the planet to fend for themselves. How will they survive when cut off from the rest of the galaxy and not given enough resources?

The makers of Dosadi hope to learn how to improve their own race, but their creation becomes something else entirely. It is horror enough that this world exists, but what to do with the experiment? McKie, with the fate of the entire planet in his hands, is ordered to visit the planet and discover for himself.

All of this is revealed in the first few chapters, and I won't go into any more plot detail. The beauty of this book, though, is the extremes of the ConSentiency and Dosadi; and the truly alien nature of the aliens. Herbert fills the ConSentiency and Dosadi with many layers of meaning that unpeel before the readers eyes. McKie is a character who has dedicated his life to reaching for the alien shore (his expertise is in alien law and ethics). When McKie travels to Dosadi, he will find how life-altering his vocation can be.

I'd also like to add that few authors could write a book that includes a courtroom drama so completly alien and so compelling.

This is a wonderful book. Some passages ring so piercingly that you just have to put the book down and absorb them. Dosadi is an unpleasant world, to be sure, but it works as a nice stand-in for our own. And there are a ton of ethical questions abounding in this book, not that Frank is one to hit you over the head with them. For in addition to all of the philosophy and metaphysics, it is a ripping good yarn.

Note: "The Dosadi Experiment" takes place in the same universe as "The Whipping Star" and "The Artful Saboteaur", but it is NOT a sequal and it can be read on its own.

Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: Five stars are not enough.
Review: Frank Herbert's brilliant novel, THE DOSADI EXPERIMENT, explores the gulf between that which is legal and that which is moral -- and how the former can be manipulated to undermine the latter. As such, it is perhaps the greatest literary rumination on the moral deficiencies of the law ever written. Briefly, the Gowachin race, utilizing legal constructs, has fostered an immoral structure on the planet of Dosadi -- specifically, a savage city whose residents have been exposed to brutally toxic conditions in order to turn them into the strongest, most resilient life forms in the universe. The purpose? So the Gowachin can transplant their souls into Dosadi bodies and live forever. Jorj X. McKie, "Saboteur Extraordinary" -- who previously appeared in Herbert's wonderful WHIPPING STAR -- ferrets out this grotesque scheme. It's a deftly written novel, fully developing the theme of strength through environmental conditioning that Herbert explored in DUNE. Virtually every page is filled with epiphanous concepts that make the reader gasp. This is science fiction and literature at its finest. As far as I'm concerned, it is Herbert's greatest achievement and one of the finest novels ever written.

Rating:
Summary: back in print!!!
Review: i've had the great pleasure of getting to know frank herbert's writing over a decade, starting when i was 13. its taken me that long just to read all his works and to actually find his non-dune books. many of which i acquired from used book stores. many of them are coming back in print. i recently re-found the dosadi experiment at barnes & nobles. a nice, bright, shiny one with an actual cover on it. there's nothing i can say that other reviews have not, im just expressing my pleasure at finding it again. true it is not a well developed story as dune, but there are only a few books that can compare to the complexities of dune. just enjoy it.

Rating:
Summary: more of Herbert's mastery of the closed society topic
Review: If you read Dune (or almost any other Herbert book) you know that one of his favourite themes is that of the sequestered/closed society in a harsh environment. No one ever did it as well.

_Dosadi_ offers a lot. It offers a very interesting alien race (well, more than one, but one that gets the most attention) that is truly alien, with a fascinating legal system that questions the basic assumptions we start with. The plot unfolds like a sunrise, letting out bits of information gradually until the reader comes to understand just what a monstrous timebomb has been created by shortsighted beings. The protagonist and other main characters are well-described and interesting, as is the interplay among them.

This is not light reading, but if you like fiction that inspires you to question your assumptions, this is one of the best examples of same. Especially recommended to those with an interest in the topic of law and legal proceedings, or to anyone who has already decided they like Herbert's style.

Rating:
Summary: Fun read but much more
Review: It's rare to find a book that combines such complex ideas with such an engaging story. Once I started reading, I couldn't put it down. Now that I've finished I continue to ponder the ideas expressed in the book.
Dosadi explores some of the same issues of power that Herbert explored in the Dune series. The futuristic world he created isn't as detailed as Dune, but I came to really care about the characters in Dosadi despite the fact that they aren't as well developed. On one level it is a fun page turner but the underlying, though provoking questions it raises makes the book truly interesting.

Rating:
Summary: Fun read but much more
Review: It's rare to find a book that combines such complex ideas with such an engaging story. Once I started reading, I couldn't put it down. Now that I've finished I continue to ponder the ideas expressed in the book.
Dosadi explores some of the same issues of power that Herbert explored in the Dune series. The futuristic world he created isn't as detailed as Dune, but I came to really care about the characters in Dosadi despite the fact that they aren't as well developed. On one level it is a fun page turner but the underlying, though provoking questions it raises makes the book truly interesting.

Rating:
Summary: Gone astray...
Review: Poor Mr Herbert. How far are the times of "Dune"...
This novel is based on a paper-thin plot, with an insufficient character development, an excruciatingly slow pace and no particularly interesting "galactic" order.
The main character is unfortunately as cardboard as a Campbellian SF hero and the other characters are not much better.
Another main race besides humans, the batrachian-like Gowachin, is described with few details, and thus their behaviour appears most of the time rather inexplicable.
The conclusion is as foggy as the whole novel, with lots of subplots still pending (hopefully no sequel is planned).
I did like very much Herbert's early work, but this novel is definitely below par, as it does not achieve "suspension of disbelief". Not recommended.

Rating:
Summary: The Experiment Behind the God Wall
Review: The Dosadi Experiment is a brilliant, and complicated book. The concepts Herbert indulges in here will keep you pondering for weeks, months and years after you read it. Essentially an experiment is conducted on a planet enclosed behind a created protective barrier called the 'God Wall' to keep the inhabitants from leaving. A series of hostile conditions are created complete with toxic waste, hunger and war. The inhabitants are all unknowing 'test subjects' in a grand experiment, and develop into the most dangerous people in the universe, frightening their creators with their abilities. As events unfold, the inhabitants of Dosadi actually learn how to pass through the 'God Wall' unleashing themselves on the universe and the culmination of the tale winds up in the most unusual trial you will ever read. All in all quite a facinating exploration into a broad new territory for Herbert, marking him as one of the great pioneers of the genre of Science Fiction. This book is currently out of print and the copy I have is very old, but it is well worth searching used books stores to read this one. It is actually Herbert's sequel to 'Whipping Star'.

Rating:
Summary: A Classic of the calibre of Dune
Review: The Dosadi Experiment is Herbert's second greatest achievement (after Dune of course) (I have read probably 99% of his works). It is set in a universe populated by several conflicting alien races. The 'hero' Jorj X McKie is a human who works for BuSab - the Bureau Of Sabotage, a secret service set up to slow down the wheels of government. He is summoned by the Gowachin, a froglike species, to help them deal with their experiment on Dosadi which has gone horribly wrong. Dosadi (surprise, surprise) is a largely unhabitable planet, apart from one City into which are 80 million beings are crammed - all either Gowachin or Human. The conditions are so harsh that the people have become super-tough : McKie, BuSabs best agent, is treated like a gormless cretin when he first arrives. The plot follows his attempt to discern the nature of the problem and fix it, in Herbert's inimitable style. I CANNOT believe this book is hard to find - it is definitely one of the best pieces of Science Fiction writing I have read.