Whipping Star

This Frank Herbert fella wrote the book Dune which was a semi sleeper for me as it walked around this barren planet with some aristocracy stuff going on, got to try to read it again maybe I'm missing something?

This other "WHIPPING STAR" is swell though. Frank's little obtuse and abstract words and concepts hobble around and die and later get picked up and slapped back to life when you are completely confused and he nonchalantly needs to explain the word/concept for the story's sake which works most of the time in this book. Imagine (children) in the distant future people can instantly travel anywhere so there are planets for swimming, hospital hatcheries, entire planets of libraries etc. relying on these wierd spheres who bend space to make it seem next door/through a door. Some old kooky dominatrix takes on any and many a sentinent being to torture (with a whip for starters) for entertainment and discovers she can torture one of these wierd spheres which house a formless mass that reacts to leather whips. She forms contracts with these sphere/mass things and one by one kills them off thru her one armed multi legged hate servants who enjoy beating the hell out of anything.

It's so abstract in parts trying to talk to these sphere things since you have to be on some kinda drug to deal with them that it makes the book interesting, plus the idea of torturing a mass that's abstract makes me revel in the perversity panties on my head and cassette tape all over my toes. That's the beginning of the book folks, theres a fertile pile of concepts that go with each alien race introduced with the idea of if everyone was isolated to their own system what the hell would happen. The food and hospital supplies closed off from the rest of the worlds etc. The book is able to cover a lot of ground since the concept of bouncing around from system to system/world to world keeps it fresh and active.

A 4 and a half hour read for me, never set it down, and didnt eat. Wanna lose some weight? Five Black Holes!!