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A review by angrywombat
The Green Brain by Frank Herbert
1.0
OK - this is going to be a very quick review, as I dont have a lot to say about this one.
I picked this based solely on looking for a bok published in 1966... I saw Frank Herbert, thought Hey, dune was ok and gave it a read. I'm not regretting it, but I'm not so happy with the time read either.
The story is an interesting idea - humanity is "cleaning" the world of unhelpful insects in what amounts to an all out war, but it seems that the insects are fighting back with new and strange mutations... and a new intelligence! The prelude chapter follows a strange character - a hive of insects that is mimicing a human and is trying to get through the border barriers into the "green zone" of human habitation. After this surprise we follow three characters - Joao: a brazilian "pest hunter" who fills the role of the "heroic laborer" and is the designated hero. A chinese official who is just a walking stereotype of manipulative/cheating bureaucrat. Finally we have the role of "love interest", filled by a irish entemologist who part times as a seductive spy for the bureaucrat...
As I said, this has aged very badly, with some glaring plot holes (eg, how does a country hide massive desertification and starvation in an age of satellites?) and no real "character" to any of the characters. I really had to double check the "said's" to make sure I knew who was talking at any particular moment. Also the "jumping heads", where we hear the thoughts of various characters, was especially disconcerting as we swapped very quickly... sometimes we have character A talking, character B's thoughts, then back to A for their thoughts - all in the same paragraph...
I wouldn't recommend going back to read this - stick to Herbert's later (and much much better) work.
Really not to my tastes.
I picked this based solely on looking for a bok published in 1966... I saw Frank Herbert, thought Hey, dune was ok and gave it a read. I'm not regretting it, but I'm not so happy with the time read either.
The story is an interesting idea - humanity is "cleaning" the world of unhelpful insects in what amounts to an all out war, but it seems that the insects are fighting back with new and strange mutations... and a new intelligence! The prelude chapter follows a strange character - a hive of insects that is mimicing a human and is trying to get through the border barriers into the "green zone" of human habitation. After this surprise we follow three characters - Joao: a brazilian "pest hunter" who fills the role of the "heroic laborer" and is the designated hero. A chinese official who is just a walking stereotype of manipulative/cheating bureaucrat. Finally we have the role of "love interest", filled by a irish entemologist who part times as a seductive spy for the bureaucrat...
As I said, this has aged very badly, with some glaring plot holes (eg, how does a country hide massive desertification and starvation in an age of satellites?) and no real "character" to any of the characters. I really had to double check the "said's" to make sure I knew who was talking at any particular moment. Also the "jumping heads", where we hear the thoughts of various characters, was especially disconcerting as we swapped very quickly... sometimes we have character A talking, character B's thoughts, then back to A for their thoughts - all in the same paragraph...
I wouldn't recommend going back to read this - stick to Herbert's later (and much much better) work.
Really not to my tastes.