Some sandworm questions

[Vaughn]

Picked up Dune last night, read the desert crossing scene again...

1) Why did Paul plant a thumper to attract a worm when they were trying to sneak across the desert? Seems like worse odds if you definitely bring a worm near your location.

2) If a worm is are 80M across at the mouth, how much of the body is above the surface? I always pictured about 1/2 so let's say 40M. I get how the first person gets on the worm, but the rest are scaling a moving, curved 40M high creature with hooks? Like ice climbers? GTFO.

3) Later on when attacking the Emperor's base, the Fremen are jumping off of the worms to have at the imperial troops. From 40M? Seems like a good way to twist an ankle or worse.

I guess if worms are mostly below surface, like an alligator at the top level of a pond, it makes sense. That's never how I pictured it from the book though.

Still the greatest scifi novel of all time.

[Leofric]

1.  You always assume a worm is close, so you use the thumper as a distraction as you stagger-step away from it.

2. The bigger worms prefer the deep desert where the sands are deeper because they travel below the surface, they come up the the surface to feed.  The first man on the worm has ropes trailing behind him that play out as the worm rolls to keep the gap in its segments caused by the hooks out of the sand, the rest to climb using the ropes, they don't use hooks to climb as that would cause the worm to roll again. 

3.  They may be belaying down the worm's sides using the ropes, or the worm only keeps enough of its body above the surface to keep the gap caused by the hooks free of sand, so they are not jumping down half the worm's diameter.

[Zorral]

Dune -- no other space operas ever came close to the enjoyment and wonder it provided, even after multiple re-reads over many years.  Now I know it just too well to re-read, but still never have found anything remotely like this.

[shortstark]

Yeah Dune rocks, fear is the mind killer is i think the first quote from a sci/fi novel to make it into popular lexicon.. I had previously thought Herbert had lifted it from somewhere else.. 

[polishgenius]

Dune rocks.

It's not a space opera, but it rocks.

[Zorral]

He got so much from Turkic, Ottoman and Arabic culture, history and religion -- as well as Persian and Renaissance European co-evals -- and the language and titles and offices.  The older I get, the more I learn within these areas myself, when so young and ignorant at first readings, the more Herbert's brain and acquisition of this knowledge and how he used it for such up-to-date and ahead of his time issues with AI, computing and the rest -- all because of the Big Oil jobs in Africa and the Middle East!  Gads, he was a brilliant synthesist -- which says something about his conception of Paul Atreides's character and avatars too.

He knew the Koran, the legends of Muhammad's life and what we know factually about his life really well too.

I knew little to nothing of any of this back when reading Dune the first time when I was 18.  Now that I do, well, it only inhances my admiration.

Dune is space opera by Allah!    (though of course no good Muslim would drink cerveza)

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

He got so much from Turkic, Ottoman and Arabic culture, history and religion -- as well as Persian and Renaissance European co-evals -- and the language and titles and offices.  The older I get, the more I learn within these areas myself, when so young and ignorant at first readings, the more Herbert's brain and acquisition of this knowledge and how he used it for such up-to-date and ahead of his time issues with AI, computing and the rest -- all because of the Big Oil jobs in Africa and the Middle East!  Gads, he was a brilliant synthesist -- which says something about his conception of Paul Atreides's character and avatars too.

He knew the Koran, the legends of Muhammad's life and what we know factually about his life really well too.

I knew little to nothing of any of this back when reading Dune the first time when I was 18.  Now that I do, well, it only inhances my admiration.

Dune is space opera by Allah!    (though of course no good Muslim would drink cerveza)

The six Dune novels (and only six) are wonderful.  Chapterhouse: Dune was the first hardback first edition I ever bought with money I had earned myself.

 

[Werthead]

17 hours ago, polishgenius said:

Dune rocks.

It's not a space opera, but it rocks.

I moderated a WorldCon panel where this subject proved divisive. I think we concluded that Dune is a space opera universe but the original book is not a space operal novel, although the last two are.

Dune is great but it's supposed unassailablity in the genre is as tiresome as whenever anyone says the same of Tolkien. There are plenty of SF books which are as well-written or have a grand, coherent vision which is delivered well, such as The Stars My Destination, Hyperion, The Reality Dysfunction, Chasm City and maybe the Gap Saga. Dune is also much less actual SF than those books, being more of a science fantasy akin to Star Wars. Herbert put at times bafflingly little thought into how his planet and his setting actually works for a work of science fiction.

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

he Stars My Destination, Hyperion, The Reality Dysfunction, Chasm City and maybe the Gap Saga. Dune is also much less actual SF than those books, being more of a science fantasy akin to Star Wars. Herbert put at times bafflingly little thought into how his planet and his setting actually works for a work of science fiction.

Disagree entirely.  Moreover those titles aren't anywhere near as juicy joyful immersion reads -- not even close to what Dune provided when new to young(er) readers.  It was real old-fashioned space opera adventure, and o so more stylish than previous one.  As for little thought into how Arrakis worked?  O come on!  This is before hardly anyone even knew "Environment" and "Ecology" as words, much less what they involve.

[Caligula_K3]

I re-read Dune this summer for the first time in probably 15 years and it was still amazing. I do think it is a pretty singular achievement, just as Lord of the Rings is. That doesn't take anything away from another great book like Hyperion, but its status as a classic is well earned.

I'm less sold on the sequels, which I tried reading for the first time this year. Dune Messiah was pretty good, but Herbert lost me in Children of Dune.

[polishgenius]

5 hours ago, Werthead said:

Dune is also much less actual SF than those books, being more of a science fantasy akin to Star Wars. Herbert put at times bafflingly little thought into how his planet and his setting actually works for a work of science fiction.

 

To be fair there's no science whatsoever to the main high concept behind The Stars My Destination either. SF is a pretty broad church. Obviously does have some crossover with fantasy though.

[Werthead]

3 hours ago, Zorral said:

Disagree entirely.  Moreover those titles aren't anywhere near as juicy joyful immersion reads -- not even close to what Dune provided when new to young(er) readers. It was real old-fashioned space opera adventure, and o so more stylish than previous one.  As for little thought into how Arrakis worked? 

They were for me, although Dune is not really an "old-fashioned space opera adventure". It's the story of the rise of a tyrant who murders billions, believes he is justified, then realises he isn't and has an existential breakdown and goes mad.

If "old-fashioned space opera adventure" is what you get from Dune, you're reading it wrong.

[Vaughn]

On 8/20/2020 at 1:40 PM, Leofric said:

1.  You always assume a worm is close, so you use the thumper as a distraction as you stagger-step away from it.

2. The bigger worms prefer the deep desert where the sands are deeper because they travel below the surface, they come up the the surface to feed.  The first man on the worm has ropes trailing behind him that play out as the worm rolls to keep the gap in its segments caused by the hooks out of the sand, the rest to climb using the ropes, they don't use hooks to climb as that would cause the worm to roll again. 

3.  They may be belaying down the worm's sides using the ropes, or the worm only keeps enough of its body above the surface to keep the gap caused by the hooks free of sand, so they are not jumping down half the worm's diameter.

Ropes? There's no mention of ropes. I suppose next I'll find out you think the Balrog had wings. Good day.

[Vaughn]

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

They were for me, although Dune is not really an "old-fashioned space opera adventure". It's the story of the rise of a tyrant who murders billions, believes he is justified, then realises he isn't and has an existential breakdown and goes mad.

If "old-fashioned space opera adventure" is what you get from Dune, you're reading it wrong.

Ok, first - you're describing the series not the actual book here. Second, if anything, he is the victim of a centuries long plan to breed a human with prescience. Once that 'gift' is awakened, he is doing what he believes is the only possible path to prevent the bloodshed which ensues anyways. He is not correct, but he was acting without malign intentions. Third, 'Hyperion' is hardly better thought out than Dune- time travel, AIs and a bunch of nonsense.

I mean, this is basically the 'a young girl travels to a new land, kills the first person she meets and immediately gangs up with four strangers to try to kill again' summary of the book.

What is your criteria for science fiction? There's an interest concept of space travel, galactic conquest, a deeply described alien ecosystem, laser weapons, only two female characters of any note- it meets all the criteria for classic scifi.

[polishgenius]

11 hours ago, Vaughn said:

Ok, first - you're describing the series not the actual book here.

Mostly, but he realises in the first one that he's caused the Jihad and can't stop it. And while he was acting without the intent of causing it he always knew it was a risk of raising the Fremen.

In any case even if Wert's wrong about what exactly comes when he's bang on about if someone read Dune as a classic space opera adventure novel they've just not understood it. 

[LongRider]

I see I need to read Dune again.

[Zorral]

22 hours ago, Werthead said:

f "old-fashioned space opera adventure" is what you get from Dune, you're reading it wrong.

You are wrong in how you are reacting / disagreeing; in other words you have fashioned a categorization-label niche sheet all your own, which doesn't map on to my own category-label niche sheet.  Renaissance / 100 Years War / nobles and emperors topes and endless empires and endless once upon a time this was happened and now we have this unbelievably stable for unknown length of millennia structure / plus space travel / several planetary locations / AI / breeding programs with objectives established in the far past manifesting today / invaders from space PLUS omighawd ecology and geology and biology and casts of thousands and a stampede of sand worms -- SPACE OPERA (which are westerns in space -- so Arakis -- the ranch everybody fights over and water AND spice too!

[polishgenius]

23 minutes ago, Zorral said:

in other words you have fashioned a categorization-label niche sheet all your own, which doesn't map on to my own category-label niche sheet. 

That's not how genres work, there's generally some kind of definition already in place people work from, although we already said how Dune splits opinion.

In any case when Wert said you're reading it wrong I'm fairly sure he was referring to the 'old fashioned adventure' part not the 'space opera' part. I know that you like to look down on all SF and fantasy as the same kind of pulpy old school lark but that's just you.

[sologdin]

i like the dune-as-western reading. paul as encroaching rancher who goes native in desperate bid to defeat the colonial planter elite.  that reading can't capture everything--the spice can't be both the railroad and the reason that the railroad was built, say. but it's cool.

[Vaughn]

12 hours ago, polishgenius said:

Mostly, but he realises in the first one that he's caused the Jihad and can't stop it. And while he was acting without the intent of causing it he always knew it was a risk of raising the Fremen.

I don't get this argument. Paul's family and their forces are nearly wiped out and he's forced into the deep desert. Next, he and his mother save their lives by convincing the Fremen to take them in. At that point, is your argument that he should have just let Rabban brutalize the planet without fighting back to avoid the jihad? That seems like it would have required him to also have the Fremen give up their collective dream of a green Arrakis. Or what, he should have just jumped in front of a sandworm and killed himself? If your choices are try to achieve a collective good in the face of brutal evil or die, I think the jihad is the unintended consequence of the right choice.