The novel “The Green Brain” by Frank Herbert was published for the first time in 1966. It’s the expanded version of a novelette titled “Greenslaves” published in 1965 in the magazine “Amazing Stories”.

To try to remedy the overpopulation, nations such as China and Brazil are looking to expand their habitable areas in the jungle. Among the work needed there’s the total elimination of insects with actual weapons but that causes a series of unexpected consequences.

Joao Martinho and his team are supposed to clean up an area of ​​Mato Grosso in Brazil but are hampered by insects that seem immune to elimination attempts. Giant insect sightings seem just nonsense or fraud but even the assistance of the Chinese scientist Chen-Lhu and entomologist Rhin Kelly bring no progress. The insects seem to be under the control of an intelligence but who or what can it be?