The White Plague

By: Frank Herbert

Narrated by: Scott Brick

Length: 19 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's summary

A warm day in Dublin, a crowded street corner. Suddenly, a car-bomb explodes, killing and injuring scores of innocent people. From the second-floor window of a building across the street, a visiting American watches, helpless, as his beloved wife and children are sacrificed in the heat and fire of someone else's cause.

From this shocking beginning, the author of the phenomenal Dune series has created a masterpiece. The White Plague is a marvelous and terrifyingly plausible blend of fiction and visionary theme. It tells of one man's revenge, of the man watching from the window who is pushed over the edge of sanity by the senseless murder of his family and who, reappearing several months later as the so-called Madman, unleashes a terrible vengeance upon the human race.

John Roe O'Neill is a molecular biologist who has the knowledge, and now the motivation, to devise and disseminate a genetically carried plague - a plague to which, like those that scourged mankind centuries ago, there is no antidote, but one that zeroes in, unerringly and fatally, on women.

As the world slowly recognizes the reality of peril, as its politicians and scientists strive desperately to save themselves and their society from the prospect of human extinction, so does Frank Herbert grapple with one of the great themes of contemporary life: the enormous dangers that lurk at the dark edges of science. The White Plague is a prophetic, believable, and utterly compelling novel.

©2007 Frank Herbert (P)2008 Tantor

Critic reviews

"A tale of awesome revenge." ( The Cincinnati Enquirer)
"A speculative intellect with few rivals in modern SF." ( The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction)

The difference between sentiment and sentimental:

"The difference between sentiment and being sentimental is the following:
Sentiment is when a driver swerves out of the way to avoid hitting a
rabbit on the road. Being sentimental is when the same driver, when
swerving away from the rabbit hits a pedestrian."

Frank Herbert's The White Plague holds up remarkably well over the decades. I recently took a class in genetics and the plague the "Madman" creates seems completely plausible to me.

The story starts out with John Roe O'Neill in Ireland doing research when his wife and twins are blown up in an IRA bombing. He is a genetic engineer and in his grief he splits personalities and becomes the "Madman" John O'Donnell. He creates a disease that will kill only women but make all the men carriers. He tries to keep it in Ireland(the bombers), Great Britain(the cause of the strife),and Libya (the training ground), but it becomes impossible to contain.

The story shifts to the various scientists, governments and religious factions to see how they will all handle a world without women, or with women a scarcity, if they can find a cure in time.

The only parts of the story I disliked was the young woman in the tank and even the women left are all treated as "breeders" or conniving bitches. The best female character in the story was a scientist who dies early on.

Herbert's vision of life in a plague state is very plausible and frightening. The main theme of the book seems to be that we should fear knowledge and progress, as long as man is an imperfect beast.

Scott Brick does a wonderful job with the accents in his narration.

Scott Brick is a Stellar Reader/Narrator

As a huge fan of Frank Herbert's (the Dune series and the Pandora Sequence are no less than absolute masterpieces), I am certainly no stranger to hearing those stories in Scott Brick's voice. However, even after having heard Scott's performances dozens of times, this one in particular was pleasantly surprising: Brick's mastery of language included spot on voice inflections and native-sounding accents of Irish, Scottish, British, French, Russian (and more) made each character come alive!

Makes you think when you finish it.

This was a good story. some parts were long and drawn out. I think a lot of things could of been left out. It was hard to follow some of the characters which some didn't seem relevant to the story. However the plot and ending really make you think Especially if you are are a womab.

White plague: a modern pandemic

Written in the early 80s this story is about a plague that’s unleashed on mankind. The efforts seem remarkably familiar in today’s age of COVID-19. While some of the technology is out of date the general concept of the story is timely. A must read.

Absolutely Amazing

Very fascinating, apocalyptic story, told by a fantastic story teller and read by a great narrator.

Engaging story

Definitely a good read, worth the time to sit back and enjoy. Another nice thing is that it’s relatively clean. I’d give it a PG-13 at worst, and I find that refreshing.

Great book and not a rip off

I just finished this book a couple minutes ago, and I enjoyed it very much. This story is about a plague that only affects women. It doesn't seem to be like most of the other Frank Herbert books. That made it even more enjoyable and thought provoking.
The book I listened to right before this book was a Stephen & Owen King and it too coincidentally is about a plague that only affects women. The Herbert book was excellent and the King book was trash and seemed to be ripped off from The White Plague.

Good story once through

The White Plague is a decent story, well told, with good narration. It's especially interesting for its portrayal of the terrorist mentality from the perspective of the 1970s and 80s, when the most commonly reported terrorist attacks were those of the IRA and the Palestinians.

Given the advances in genetic engineering since those days, I suspect that Herbert barely scratched the surface of what could be accomplished now by a brilliant, or even mediocre, genetic engineer, but I give him high grades for his vision of the future. Another aspect of the "let's knock off a huge percentage of the human race and see what happens" genre is how the aftermath is handled. What is the author's vision of the remolded world? Again, Herbert does a credible job imagining what things would be like and throws in some interesting twists. We are allowed to see the new world as it is walked by the protagonist. This could become tedious, but is instead well paced and interesting.

In the final analysis, however, I only give the book three stars. While the story is well told, I really didn't care a lot about any of the characters. For that reason, I was ready for the book to be over about two hours before it ended. I doubt that I will ever bother to listen to this book again, and that is something I really look for in audio books.

Topical for current times

While this book was written some years ago and thus sometimes is dated the subject matter is very topical for current times.

There is interesting investigations into the social consequences and reactions within the book.

Not up to the standard of Frank Herbert's other books but still worth listening to if the subject matter is of interest or wish to enjoy another Herbert book.

Scott Brick the narrator could perk his narration up however.

"WOW" This is really Scarry

"WOW" This is really Scary
It's well thought out and makes you think because This could really happen in the near Future in fact I don't understand why it hasn't
I Liked it A lot...