Jorj X. McKie, while lesser known than Paul Maud'Dib, could have been just as popular had Herbert dedicated more writing to tell McKie's stories.

His title is "saboteur extraordinary", working for the Bureau of Sabotage. Though, "working" isn't exactly the right word to describe what he does for BuSab, as McKie loves doing his job.

As part of a plot to uncover nefarious uses of the jump gate technology (that is, technology that allows instantaneous travel from one point in the universe to another), McKie discovers Dosadi, a world cut off from the rest of ConSentiency via a practically impenetrable barrier called the God Wall.

McKie befriends Dosadi's Senior Liator, Keila Jedrik, and the two do what McKie does best: sabotage, sabotage, sabotage, in hopes of liberating the people trapped on Dosadi, and to prevent the other bureaus from gaining too much power.

Not as great as Dune, but still definitely Herbert's excellent prose. Recommended for true fans of Frank Herbert. ( )

Dosadi is difficult. Frank Herbet is notoriously complex, and I had trouble negotiating my way through parts of this book, which were thick with subjects scientifically exclusive to me. I am no scientist, no practised philospher, and it seems to me that such foreknowlege is essential to this sort of reading.
Nevertheless, Frank Herbet is one of the greats. While his work is difficult at times, it's just this sort of elaboratness that lends a vivid reality to such exciting hypotheticals.

My Bookspotcentral review ( )

This is a very difficult novel for me to review. It is brilliantly written and extremely deep in a philosophical sense. Too deep, in fact, for me to simply read and enjoy. I read for pleasure and this book requires either extreme intelligence or more effort than I'm willing to expend strictly for pleasure reading.

I read and enjoyed Dune very much. One of my favorite novels of all time. This novel is very similar to some of the sequels to Dune (God Emperor of Dune, Chapterhouse Dune) which I felt got too bogged down in deep philosphical discussions that quite simply lost me.

I am a very well educated person and no idiot, however I'm definitely not smart enough to fully appreciate this novel. I read the book and followed the story line, but feel like I missed so much of the underlying meaning that it was a waste of my time. I could probably read, reread and ponder many sections and ultimately gain a greater appreciation, but I'm challenged sufficiently at work. I read to relax and decompress. This is not relaxing reading.

Bottom line: If you are very intelligent and/or a deep thinker who reads in order to broaden your mind or challenge yourself, this novel will certainly do the trick. If you read strictly for pleasure and want science fiction, read Asimov instead. This book is Dune on steroids. ( )

Many themes from Dune show up here, and some are explored more thoroughly. In particular, the notion of a harsh planet creating a superior people is the main focus of this book, while it is simply presented as fact in Dune.

I would recommend this to anyone who loves Dune, except for the drawback that it really relies on the reader being familiar with Whipping Star, which is set in the same universe but is a quite different book. ( )