ConSentiency
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The ConSentiency is the first of three volume-spanning universes created by science fiction author Frank Herbert. The others are the Dune universe and the "Ship" universe he co-created with poet Bill Ransom. The ConSentiency works are Herbert's only stories with humans living on an equal footing with extraterrestrials (the novel The Heaven Makers features aliens as masters and The Godmakers presents them as primitives). The books are densely plotted and deal with many of the same subtle philosophical issues that marked Herbert's other material, but generally the ConSentiency works have been overshadowed by Dune.
Elements of the ConSentiency universe first appeared in the 1958 short story A Matter of Traces but it was not until 1964's The Tactful Saboteur that the ConSentiency was systematically presented. In this time, human beings live together with alien races such as the Gowachin, Laclac, Palenki, Wreaves and Pan Spechi, to name only a few, guided by a loose federation of governments and corporations whose power is checked by the Bureau of Sabotage. Communication between the far-flung star systems of the ConSentiency is through the agency of the Taprisiots, who facilitate mind-to-mind trances. Travel is provided by Caleban jumpdoors.
The crisis documented in Whipping Star involves the threatened destruction of the entire ConSentiency itself. In the second novel the migration of the population of the planet of Dosadi into the rest of the ConSentiency, mirroring the Fremen Jihad of the Dune books, alters the character of the galactic civilization forever.
[edit] Books in the ConSentiency universe
- Herbert, Frank. A Matter of Traces (1958) (short story) Fantastic Universe, 1958
- Herbert, Frank. The Tactful Saboteur (short story) Galaxy, 1964
- Herbert, Frank. Whipping Star (novel) Galaxy, 1969
- Herbert, Frank. The Dosadi Experiment (novel) Berkeley, 1977.
- Herbert, Frank The ConSentiency and How it Got That Way Galaxy, 1977
