The Green Brain

By: Frank Herbert

Narrated by: Scott Brick

In an overpopulated world seeking living room in the jungles, the International Ecological Organization was systematically exterminating the voracious insects that made these areas uninhabitable. Using deadly foamal bombs and newly developed vibration weapons, men like Joao Martinho and his coworkers fought to clear the green hell of the Mato Grosso. But somehow those areas that had been completely cleared were becoming reinfested, despite the impenetrable vibration barriers. And tales were coming out of the jungles - tales of insects mutated to incredible sizes, of creatures who seemed to be men but whose eyes gleamed with the chitinous sheen of insects....

©2002 Frank Herbert (P)2010 Tantor

Another Herbert / Brick Gem!

Where does The Green Brain rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

In the top ten. I like Frank Herbert already and had read The Green Brain but Scott Brick really nails it when he reads Herbert novels and this was no exception.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Green Brain?

If I told you I would spoil the book...so go listen. ;)

What does Scott Brick bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

He has a solid sounding voice, he is clear spoken and doesn't stumble over weird science fiction names and places. The recordings of Scott Brick are (so far) always really high quality with no distortion or hiss, no loud spots and then soft spots. The clarity he brings makes it easier to get lost in the story.

Any additional comments?

It's about sentient insects dude!!! Read it...it's killer!

cool story

Very imaginative! takes you on a journey of wonder and mystery ✨ Get ready to step into another dimension!!

creepy

I'm going to have to listen to it over again it's an amazing Tale of insects creating a hive mind brain and going to war to save their homes along the way colonies using human forms integrate with the regular public a masquerade of beetles on the human skeleton it is a creature leaves a cold spot in your goulash

Very interesting story

While the plot seems a bit simple, it is a shorter book than my usual fare so I’ll give it a bye for that, and engaging from start to finish. Interesting ideas throughout, and very clean world building, as always. The ending left some things unanswered, and I will now search for a sequel if there is one.

nice idea loses it's way

I like the opening of this and had high hopes but it really loses track of itself about halfway in. It's almost as though Herbert forgot what the story was about and wrote something related but not nearly as interesting. It starts out as an eco-thriller perhaps, with the earth "fighting" back with some type of composite bug creature that can mimic humans and then that very interesting character and premise is forgotten.

At about the 3 hour mark the whole story derails into some lame river survival thing wherein the people are worried about the bugs but nothing really happens until last 10 minutes when we finally get back to Green Brain intelligent creature and what it's up to but never back to mimic man. There is an excellent short story by Wolheim i think called Mimic which the movie was made from that I thought this was going to do something similar but this really gets boring. It ends where it should have gotten to by half way point and then gone on.

And Brick, who used to be a decent narrator has really picked up some bad habits with his breathless whispering and tone of voice that always sounds on the verge of crying. Irritating and all the characters and voices end up sounding like whiners.

Not impressed with this one. Dune is still by far Herbert's best. And after slogging through entire Dune series and several stand alone novels I'm afraid Dune is only one I can recommend to people.