The Race for God - Softcover

Brian Herbert is the author of multiple New York Times bestsellers. He has won a number of literary honors including the New York Times Notable Book Award, and has been nominated for the highest awards in science fiction. After more than five years in development, he published Dreamer of Dune, a moving biography of his father (Frank Herbert) that was a Hugo Award finalist. His acclaimed novels include the Timeweb trilogy (Timeweb, The Web and the Stars, and Webdancers); The Stolen Gospels; The Lost Apostles; The Race for God; Sidney’s Comet; Sudanna, Sudanna; and Man of Two Worlds (written with Frank Herbert). He also wrote the Hellhole Trilogy (Hellhole, Hellhole Awakening, and Hellhole Inferno) and many international-bestselling Dune-series novels with Kevin J. Anderson. Recently, Brian published Ocean, an epic fantasy novel about environmental issues (based upon a concept by his wife, Jan). The premise of Ocean is highly original and revolutionary—the ocean and its dangerous sea creatures declare war against our civilization, in retaliation for human-caused pollution and other abuses to those waters. Like many of Brian’s novels, it exposes an important social issue in a thought-provoking way. Brian’s highly original SF novel, The Little Green Book of Chairman Rahma, came out in 2014—the imaginative story of a green utopia that is not a utopia for those living in it—the ecologically oriented government enforces its edicts with deadly police state methods. Publishers Weekly referred to this work as “a fresh and forbidding near-future world.” That was just one of many excellent reviews that Brian’s works have received, going all the way back to his first SF novel, Sidney’s Comet, which Publishers Weekly described as “unusually inventive and original.” He recently completed a new SF novel, The Assassination of Billy Jeeling, and is working on another one. He and Kevin are also polishing up their 14th Dune series novel, Navigators of Dune. Many of Brian’s novels are highly original, and involve not only environmental issues, but issues involving politics, religion, and the history of human civilization. His new short story collection, Dangerous Worlds, includes many of his original ideas, including the startling premise for the collaborative story he wrote with Bruce Taylor, “Death of the Internet.”

After a promising start, Herbert's heavy-handed work rapidly disintegrates into uninspired philosophizing and potshots at organized religion. God uses an unlikely spokesman, Evander McMurtrey--who as a lark had founded the Interplanetary Church of Cosmic Chickenhood--to issue an unusual invitation to the people of the planet D'Urth: although he doesn't explain why, God would like them to race each other to visit him on his remote world of Tananius-Ofo, and provides a fleet of computer-piloted spaceships for transport. On McMurtrey's own ship are the embattled followers of various religions, such as Krassianism (read Christianity), Hoddism (Buddhism) and Middism (Judaism), who squabble their way toward God (even the computer is accused of blasphemy). McMurtrey is an engagingly eccentric character, but Herbert ( Prisoners of Arionn ) laces his meandering text with banal observations ("every experience in life is a lesson") and tiresome irreverences, such as this attack on Catholic absolution: "Confess to murder and rape, say you accept Krassos Christ and you get a ticket to Heaven. What a sick, sic e-vile religion!"
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