America is a police state, and it is about to be threatened by the most hellish enemy in the world: insects.
When the Agency discovered that Dr. Hellstrom’s Project 40 was a cover for a secret laboratory, a special team of agents was immediately dispatched to discover its true purpose and its weaknesses---it could not be allowed to continue. What they discovered was a nightmare more horrific and hideous than even their paranoid government minds could devise.
First published in Galaxy magazine in 1973 as “Project 40,” Frank Herbert’s vivid imagination and brilliant view of nature and ecology have never been more evident than in this classic of science fiction.
A popular type of science fiction story involves the revelation that there are those among us who are not OF us. In Herbert's novel, Hellstrom is a complex society based on the social organization of insects whose members live for hundreds of years as they go about their nefarious business. Scott Brick creates an atmosphere of tension as inquiry into Hellstrom's activities leads to high places but few answers. His projection of both calm and anxiety on the other creates undercurrents throughout the story. His characterizations accentuate the ordinary in the inhabitants of the hive and a hint of the creepy in the governmental officials. Just what agency do they work for anyway? J.E.M. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
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