A par for the course theme with a great beginning, slightly disappointing second half, and a satisfying end. ( )

This story had real potential but had a truly disappointing ending, which ruined the story. The basis of the story involved futuristic genetic manipulation and ex vivo gestation. The different factions involve those who are sterile or fertile,those who do not age or do age, and cyborgs. The story was fine up until the capture of the underground runaways. The demise of the Optimen is truly irrational and ridiculous. It is sad that such a famous author wrote such a lousy story. ( )

This short novel unfortunately isn't Herbert's best. Set into the distant future the humanity divided into several classes ruled by immortal übermensch. The description of the world is a bit sketchy so not much will be known about these 'supermen', the illegal cyborgs or the ordinary people. The book is over fifty years old and unfortunately it shows. The biological descriptions and explanations look a bit funny today. ( )

Set in the far future in a time when Optimen lived for tens of thousand of years, The Eyes of Heisenberg is kind of like 1984 on Steroids. In this society, the rulers only allow certain people to procreate, and when they do so, genetic engineers manipulate the embryo seeking to make these superhumans, who can virtually live forever. The concept is okay, but I thought by and large the execution is poor. For one thing, I think to fully understand the story, you need an advanced degree in biochemistry. Secondly, it was never fully explained why things were happening. Why the embryos are engineered, what was so important about the embryo belonging to the Durants, which is the focus of the story, that makes all hell break loose. The other thing that really annoyed me was how Herbert jumps from one scene to another skipping all sorts of scenes in between that are necessary to set up the scene. It almost seemed like I was reading an abridgement. So although the concept was interesting, and there was good character development in the story, I found the novel more exasperating than anything else.
Carl Alves - author of Blood Street ( )

Dystopian sci-fi set around the themes of the engineering of the human body, immortality, and man as god. Scarily relevant stuff considering it was written in the 60's, but then that's sci-fi for you.

More book reviews at http://talesfromfoxglovecottage.blogspot.co.uk/ ( )