Author:	Frank Herbert
Copyright:	1966
Date Reviewed:	6/1/84
Rating:

Synopsis: The purpose of Project Consciousness on Moonbase is too create an artificial consciousness. To do this, it sends out to the stars a colony ship with 3006 clones on board. Of these, 3000 are in hibernation and when the story begins, three have just been killed. The four characters are Bickel some sort of genius, Flattery a Chaplain/Psychiatrist, Timberlake the life systems engineer, and Prudence a biochemist and mathematician. The ship starts out with three OMC units, brains charged with running the ship. These suddenly go mad a die. With nothing running the ship, the crew of four try to create a consciousness that will take over that job. Throughout the book there is a discussion of the technical and moral meaning of consciousness. When at the end, they finally create it, it becomes a God.

Review: This novel is bad. It is one of the two worst novels I've read this year (the other being "Computerworld"). The entire book (at least the first 90% of it) is all talk about the characterization and definition of consciousness. This talk is incredibly boring. The conversations are overflowing with meaningless double talk and buzzwords. Here is an example taken from a random page: 'pulse-time distances', 'artificial nerve nets', 'psychological space'. It also seems as though each crew member is quick to glare, and grow angry towards the other members. They never even try to work together. Also, each is charged with spying on another. Overall, most unbelievable. "Destination: Void" is one of the few novels that I read quickly just to get it over with.