The Santaroga Barrier is a 1968 science fiction novel by American writer Frank Herbert. Considered to be an "alternative society" or "alternative culture" novel, it deals with themes such as psychology, the counterculture of the 1960s, and psychedelic drugs. It was originally serialized in Amazing Stories magazine from October 1967 to February 1968, and came out in a paperback from Berkley Books later in 1968. The book has been described as "an ambiguous utopia," and Herbert told Tim O'Reilly that The Santaroga Barrier was intended to describe a society that "half my readers would think was utopia, the other half would think was dystopia." O'Reilly writes:In deliberate imitation of [B.F.] Skinner's Walden Two, the story is organized around a "conversion" theme, in which a hostile outsider is persuaded of the merits of a society he initially criticizes. Where Skinner makes a sincere attempt to sell a utopian ideal, however, Herbert's deeper concern is to re-create the process by which a man gives up his individual perspective for a group dream.

Franklin Patrick Herbert Jr. was an American science-fiction author, best known for his 1965 novel Dune and its five sequels. He also wrote short stories and worked as a newspaper journalist, photographer, book reviewer, ecological consultant, and lecturer.