The Santaroga Barrier

This is a sorta Bradbury esque horror attack of the pod people subtle down home lets conform and all is well book. Like his other great(er) book THE GREEN BRAIN it takes on evolution of a society without a wage of sin or shame in front of it. Is it cool for you to abandon your humanity for a better world, what the hell is "better" anyways?

The book has the word Jaspers in it a million times. Everyone is into Jasper style down home co-op product food. Everyone eat Jaspers! The rest of you can go to hell. With a society there is a conspiracy to always eliminate any kind of deviancy: in merry old china they used to kill entire families that had one relative that would kill or steal.

Assured destruction in total. Vigalanties made hangings a great bonding throughout the west south and over Europe. Yup. Conspiracy to create a murder victim, the very glue of the human ape brain. Well this book explores that sort of conspiracy of bonded society brand Elmer Jasper glue, but the guy in here -is he just a freaked out paranoid psychiatrist? He's always talking to himself. Or does everyone just know his name cuz he's an outsider?

It's an OK quick read with a statement about Santa Rosa California maybe? Dunno, maybe. These little towns of the world (now big usually) had their own deal with not letting anyone mess up the status quo by introducing anything into their bloodstream unless fully processed. Linear thinking. Anyhew: GREEN BRAIN and WHIPPING STAR are still top faves by Herbert.