no, it's excellent.
the "insect" angle is very overstated and a bit of a letdown. it's more about people living in a hive-like society, more like a THX-1138-type vision of society than some sort of lovecraftian insect cultist thing.
on the other hand, a big part of the novel is herbert's take on intelligence agencies (competing CIA / FBI / military etc elements) which is excellent, excellent, excellent. there is a very paranoid vibe and an extremely dry and pessimistic humor in these parts that reminds me strongly of heinlein.
there is a lot of feinting-and-stabbing dialogue between dudes who are trying to figure out which captures the vibe of the best dialogue parts from stuff like "god emperor of dune" and "heretics of dune", but without the sci-fi baggage weighing it down it comes across much more natural.
there are big digressions on human evolution and sexuality that are done with so much more clarity than the similar elements in "heretics" and "chapterhouse" that you sort of wonder why he even returned to those themes.
all of the chapters are intercut with "primary texts", stuff like reports and what not (a la the "dune" series) but again they are done with much more clarity, and in this case are actually topical to the novel so it actually makes the novel even more tense and urgent instead of less so
finally there is a lot of back-and-forth between "good guys" and "bad guys" and you very quickly get mixed up between who's who and as it accelerates towards the climax things get very blurry. this reminds me a LOT of the primest philip k dick.
so basically it's like mixing up the best parts of dune, thx-1138, philip k dick and robt heinlein into one novel. sold? i can YSI a pdf, if anybody wants.
― moonship journey to baja, Sunday, 3 June 2007 18:23 (sixteen years ago) link