Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
London : Corgi, 1982, c1973.
Description
America is a police state, and it is about to be threatened by the most hellish enemy in the world: insects.When the Agency discovered that Dr. Hellstrom's Project 40 was a cover for a secret laboratory, a special team of agents was immediately dispatched to discover its true purpose and its weaknesses-it could not be allowed to continue. What they discovered was a nightmare more horrific and hideous than even their paranoid government minds could devise.First published in Galaxy magazine in 1973 as "Project 40," Frank Herbert's vivid imagination and brilliant view of nature and ecology have never been more evident than in this classic of science fiction.
User reviews
LibraryThing member CBrachyrhynchos
A science fiction political thriller. Suffers from awkwardness and a trouble building sympathy for any of the characters.
LibraryThing member crazybatcow
Well... it's definitely a novel from the 70s.
The first quarter of the novel has a lot of characters to keep track of which takes a bit more concentration than some novels might. In fact, a lot of the characters aren't fleshed out anyway so I'm not sure why they're even in there - for the most part
The story itself is almost good... Part of the problem with the story is that we aren't led to care about any of the characters - they are all rather plastic. Female characters are all cardboard cutouts and exactly what you'd expect from 1970s science fiction (but, to be fair, the males are also cardboard cutouts).
So unless you're on a hunt to fill out a reading collection (Herbert, 70s sci-fi, etc) I wouldn't waste time with this.
The first quarter of the novel has a lot of characters to keep track of which takes a bit more concentration than some novels might. In fact, a lot of the characters aren't fleshed out anyway so I'm not sure why they're even in there - for the most part
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they all seem to be interchangeable. The story itself is almost good... Part of the problem with the story is that we aren't led to care about any of the characters - they are all rather plastic. Female characters are all cardboard cutouts and exactly what you'd expect from 1970s science fiction (but, to be fair, the males are also cardboard cutouts).
So unless you're on a hunt to fill out a reading collection (Herbert, 70s sci-fi, etc) I wouldn't waste time with this.
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LibraryThing member jseger9000
There's a secret under Oregon. A group of people have decided to model a society on insects. They have secretly built a hive beneath a farm in Oregon. It is now fifty-thousand strong. A shadowy government organization has taken an interest in this odd farm. Will they discover the horrors of
Hellstrom's Hive takes a different and quirky idea and runs with it. Inspired by the '70's quasi-documentary The Hellstrom Chronicle, Frank Herbert decided to write a book examining the concept of humans adapted to a hive-like society.
The book starts out strong, with the eerie atmosphere of a horror novel. The first bunch of pages fly by as we follow an intrepid investigator who is keeping an eye on the farm. There's no real activity to speak of, but the situation is unsettling nonetheless.
Unfortunately, after that strong opening, the book settles down into a much more stable pace. There are no chapters in the book. Rather there are continuous sections, each representing one of the several viewpoints we follow through the course of the story. It is all interesting and there's always something happening. But the sense of urgency and tension the book starts with aren't present, making the rest of the book seem almost sedate in comparison.
Still, Hellstrom's Hive isn't meant to be a potboiler. Frank Herbert is unique among the sci-fi that I read in that he focuses on ecology and society rather than the technology and futurism that is the focus of most of the science fiction I prefer.
Here, Herbert does a very good job of explaining in detail how his imagined society would work. His characters are pretty flat (though still better and more lifelike than the characters in most contemporaneous sci-fi), but his hive-society is richly imagined and detailed. It would have been easy to make the hive-society a stand-in for communism, even inadvertently. But Herbert never even comes close. While several aspects of the hive society are horrific to us, he never paints them as villains. The 'heroic' side is shown to be much more evil as an organization, though they aren't presented as the bad guys either.
Several different agents from the never-named government agency are followed, along with Nils Hellstrom, the current leader of the hive, who passes himself off as a maker of entomological documentaries. The sections are also peppered with quotes from agency reports, a hive manual, the words of the former hive brood-mother and other sources that add color and depth to the story.
I'm not clear why the the government agency he created is so shadowy. I suppose he wanted to use their back-stabbing as a juxtaposition to his hive people, but he could have accomplished the same thing using a real agency. Why not the FBI? Maybe he just wanted his characters not to be bound by the rules and laws a real agency has to follow. But all of the mystery surrounding this agency seemed to act as a distraction and it never really goes anywhere.
I have a few complaints. The book is dated, the pacing is off and I feel like the book maybe didn't live up to its idea's potential. But what it set out to do is well done. If you've never read Frank Herbert, read Dune. But he deserves to be remembered for more than the series that over-shadowed him. If you enjoyed Dune and would like to see what else he's written, either Hellstrom's Hive or The White Plague are good places to look.
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Hellstrom's hive?Hellstrom's Hive takes a different and quirky idea and runs with it. Inspired by the '70's quasi-documentary The Hellstrom Chronicle, Frank Herbert decided to write a book examining the concept of humans adapted to a hive-like society.
The book starts out strong, with the eerie atmosphere of a horror novel. The first bunch of pages fly by as we follow an intrepid investigator who is keeping an eye on the farm. There's no real activity to speak of, but the situation is unsettling nonetheless.
Unfortunately, after that strong opening, the book settles down into a much more stable pace. There are no chapters in the book. Rather there are continuous sections, each representing one of the several viewpoints we follow through the course of the story. It is all interesting and there's always something happening. But the sense of urgency and tension the book starts with aren't present, making the rest of the book seem almost sedate in comparison.
Still, Hellstrom's Hive isn't meant to be a potboiler. Frank Herbert is unique among the sci-fi that I read in that he focuses on ecology and society rather than the technology and futurism that is the focus of most of the science fiction I prefer.
Here, Herbert does a very good job of explaining in detail how his imagined society would work. His characters are pretty flat (though still better and more lifelike than the characters in most contemporaneous sci-fi), but his hive-society is richly imagined and detailed. It would have been easy to make the hive-society a stand-in for communism, even inadvertently. But Herbert never even comes close. While several aspects of the hive society are horrific to us, he never paints them as villains. The 'heroic' side is shown to be much more evil as an organization, though they aren't presented as the bad guys either.
Several different agents from the never-named government agency are followed, along with Nils Hellstrom, the current leader of the hive, who passes himself off as a maker of entomological documentaries. The sections are also peppered with quotes from agency reports, a hive manual, the words of the former hive brood-mother and other sources that add color and depth to the story.
I'm not clear why the the government agency he created is so shadowy. I suppose he wanted to use their back-stabbing as a juxtaposition to his hive people, but he could have accomplished the same thing using a real agency. Why not the FBI? Maybe he just wanted his characters not to be bound by the rules and laws a real agency has to follow. But all of the mystery surrounding this agency seemed to act as a distraction and it never really goes anywhere.
I have a few complaints. The book is dated, the pacing is off and I feel like the book maybe didn't live up to its idea's potential. But what it set out to do is well done. If you've never read Frank Herbert, read Dune. But he deserves to be remembered for more than the series that over-shadowed him. If you enjoyed Dune and would like to see what else he's written, either Hellstrom's Hive or The White Plague are good places to look.
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LibraryThing member mtnbiker1
This was an interesting story about a perfect society, but one based on insects. Compelling storytelling made it move along quickly, with intrigue from government agency's involvement in the story, but it wasn't great, just good.
LibraryThing member comfypants
There's a nice (and particularly horrifying) science fiction concept behind it. But everything else about the book - the plot, the characters, even most of the prose - is straight out of a B movie. It is actually based on a movie, which is now out of print, so I can't tell what's being faithful to
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a bad source and what's just bad, but I guess it doesn't matter much. Still, it's certainly a unique and memorable book. Show Less
LibraryThing member Doey
Unconvincing when I read it 30 years ago, unimproved upon a recent second reading.
LibraryThing member gglockster
Not Herbert's greatest work and a bit dated by modern advances in biology. Nevertheless, this is still an interesting study in alternative human anthropology.
LibraryThing member .Monkey.
Not the world's greatest book, but an interesting premise. And while the ending was slightly underwhelming, I really enjoyed the fact that the way he wrote it, even though you'd think there ought to be a pretty clear "good guys" and "bad guys" divide here, you're left a bit conflicted on who you'd
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actually want to come out on top. Or maybe the answer is neither? In any case, while it certainly is no Dune, his aim is still clearly on bringing some attention to ecology and how humans interact with the planet and everything on it, and I think he did that fairly well. Recommended to those who are Herbert fans, and those who are curious and have open minds. Show Less
LibraryThing member EntreNous
This was a really good read; I'd give it a 4.5 if I could. The tension mounts as the story builds and you cross your fingers that it can't be real. The small sub sections that are fit into the main storyline give interesting insight into the Hive's history and are reminiscent Dune.
I watched the
I watched the
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related 1971 drama/documentary, "The Hellstrom Chronicle", when I was about halfway through to get a feeling for where Frank Herbert was coming from in regards to Nils Hellstrom, his movie making business and his warnings to the world. While the film was just interesting, how Herbert expanded on it is exceptional. Show Less
LibraryThing member NurseBob
Alternately compelling and infuriating, Herbert's rumination on mankind's possible evolutionary path combines a bit of Cold War paranoia (the enemy amongst us!) with a satirical nod aimed at 1960's counterculturalism...or more precisely, the rising interest in Ecology and communal harmony. And it's
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all wrapped up as a sci-fi horror show! An emotionally exhausting novel (he manipulates his readers like a true literary sadist) but to fully appreciate what he's done you really must follow up by watching the Oscar-winning 1971 pseudo-documentary "The Hellstrom Chronicles" on which the book is based...LOL! It's free on Youtube. Show Less
Awards
Prix Apollo (1978)
Original publication date
1973-11
Physical description
312 p.; 19 cm
ISBN
0552120561 / 9780552120562