Published : 1973Pages : 332
Overall Mark : 9/10
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 immediately dispatched to discover its true purpose.
What they found was a nightmare more horrific and hideous than even their paranois government minds could devise.
FRANK HERBERT (1920-1986)
Frank Herbert was born in Tacoma, Washington and worked as a reporter and later editor of a number of West Coast newspapers before becoming a full-time writer. His first SF story was published in 1952 but he achieved fame more than ten years later with the publication in Analog of 'Dune World' and 'The Prophet Of Dune' - amalgamated in the bestselling novel Dune in 1965, and winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards.
VERDICT
Herbert's portrayal of a secret experiment into human DNA manipulation is inspired. The characteristics of those affected by the hive-like changes in behaviour are sublime, and his slow progression into the government's realisation of what is happening is paced perfectly, as well as being a nice reversal of the usual roles where it is the government trying to hide the truth from the public.
