Dune

[NoneofYourBiz]

Stop after God Emperor of Dune, the rest aren't worth it. And especially not the prequels and fake sequels, they're all garbage.

Agreed. Honestly I could have stopped after Children of Dune and been happy. That was the last book that really entertained me. I did really enjoy the first three though.

[Sword Of Mid Afternoon]

A strong case could be made that the Dune series - the original 6, mind you - is the greatest series of all time. As intelligent as it is entertaining. And it is extremely entertaining. Herbert was a genius. His critical analysis of government, philosophy, religion, economics, mythology could be extracted and submitted to any number of scholarly journal with minimal alteration.

Read Herbert's original 6. As for the prequels and sequels... though well intentioned, and not hard to read, they are staggeringly inferior to the original.

[honeyed chicken]

A strong case could be made that the Dune series - the original 6, mind you - is the greatest series of all time. As intelligent as it is entertaining. And it is extremely entertaining. Herbert was a genius. His critical analysis of government, philosophy, religion, economics, mythology could be extracted and submitted to any number of scholarly journal with minimal alteration.

Read Herbert's original 6. As for the prequels and sequels... though well intentioned, and not hard to read, they are staggeringly inferior to the original.

Have you read Hellstrom's Hive?

I would argue that while Dune - the first volume was a masterpiece & a work of genius if you want to call it that, most of Herbert's stuff falls short of that standard - in the case of trash like HH - a long way short.

[Sword Of Mid Afternoon]

God Emperor Of Dune was very enjoyable. Leto's soliloquies were a vehicle for Herbert to analyze government, human nature, religion, and economics. I enjoyed it at any rate. He furthered some of those thoughts in the Opening bits of each chapter in Heretics & Chapterhouse.

I didn't have a problem with the BG merging with the Honored Matres... that's a typical BG response... the action seems like a capitulation in the here and now, but the Bene Gesserit's plans are rarely made on such an immediate scale. Any Honored Matre that survives the agony will be far, far more Bene Gesserit than they will be Honored Matre. Bene Gesserit victory in the long term.

[Sword Of Mid Afternoon]

Have you read Hellstrom's Hive?

I would argue that while Dune - the first volume was a masterpiece & a work of genius if you want to call it that, most of Herbert's stuff falls short of that standard - in the case of trash like HH - a long way short.

I've only made a few forays into Herbert's other works.... but I believe he spent more time, effort, research, etc. on Dune 1 than all of his other non Dune works combined. His story telling requires several refinements, but the final product is a magnificent thing.

In one of my laments over GRRM's ever expanding publishing timeline, I looked back at Frank Herbert's timeline... Not encouraging. That's my greatest fear... that we will never see the end of ASOIAF.

[honeyed chicken]

In one of my laments over GRRM's ever expanding publishing timeline, I looked back at Frank Herbert's timeline... Not encouraging. That's my greatest fear... that we will never see the end of ASOIAF.

Ugh. yeah it would be awful if he doesn't finish.

I'm also a big fan of Robert Caro's LBJ series and he was supposed to do 4 books (the first came out in '88, I think. The 4rth in 2012). The most recent one was supposed to be last - instead he's added a 5th and Caro's now in his 70's. In some ways that's OK, because the first few books covered the LBJ the public (and certainly me) did not know and it's a fascinating story. His presidential years will yield far fewer insights, imo.

[peterbound]

That's my greatest fear... that we will never see the end of ASOIAF.

I'd avoid those types of comments around here. People don't take them very well.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

SotMA,

I throughly enjoyed HoD and ChD. I rather liked the open ended nature of the end of ChD. It wasn't until years later that I heard the Dune series was "unfinished".

[Sword Of Mid Afternoon]

SotMA,

I throughly enjoyed HoD and ChD. I rather liked the open ended nature of the end of ChD. It wasn't until years later that I heard the Dune series was "unfinished".

What I want to see is something not unlike what Christopher Tolkien did with his father's works... charting their creating and evolution... done with Frank Herbert's work. I want to see the "Dune 7" files that Brian allegedly found and "based" his "conclusion" on....Brian totally, utterly, awfully tarnished the series with his "conclusion".

The prequels were okay... a sort of well publicized fan fiction.... Brian wanted to continue his father's legacy, good on him. Then I heard he was trying to conclude the Dune Saga, having found some previously undiscovered manuscripts of Frank's... which Dune fans the world over have been pining for for decades... I was thrilled. Beyond thrilled. Then what happens.... Brian Herbert completely shits the bed... falls back on his cliché-constructed typical B-list crap, inserting his father's characters.... and calls it a conclusion.

And does his best to ruin a legacy. Bah.

[sologdin]

Brian Herbert completely shits the bed

IS

NOT

DUNE

DEFECANT?

[Serious Callers Only]

Herbert came into Dune with some many great, fresh ideas. In terms of new concepts he never came close with any of the subsequent books, although I like them all to some extent. I too was not keen on the fish speakers and HM, though the HM seemed a little more fleshed out as an idea, where with the fish speakers I kept thinking there has to be more to them. There's so little reason to have them at all, they're so slight.

I agree that Dune Messiah is boring, but there's also something Shakespearean abut it that I like and admire.

The great man trapped in his own myth web - which isn't necessarily a story Shakespeare did, but I see parallels.

The end of Chapterhouse leaves me queasy as well. The BG merged into the HM?? Lordy.

1 ) the fish speaker 'main idea' is that leto wanted a stable (== loyal) military/police force that was also less prone to atrocities like rape and looting. So he made a amazon corps that annually had to 'share' in his prescient trance with the Siaynoq ritual (which was based on the sharing of the metabolized water of life all the way back to the fremen custom). This makes sense. So the fish speakers are mostly inoffensive to me (although Siaynoq had a weird manipulation and sexuality component since Leto was using the Voice during it too). They're a cult.

The honoured matres were a offshot of bene gesserit (probably acolytes, not RM) and fishspeakers (a police power) in the scattering that lost contact with the main BG leadership, and that had to substitute the water of life for the agony (it is mentioned explicitly on Dune that the agony can be induced by more poisons than the water of life). Since they don't have other memory anymore, i guess it didn't work out for them without a RM handy to tell them what they were doing wrong. So the HM apparently started to forget most of the BG training and started to depend on a few of their 'tricks' to exclusivity to the point of overusage (sexual slavery) and forgetting others completely (Voice). My suspension of disbelief is tweaked by the sexual slavery part - they control whole planets by conditioning leaders - the original BG make a point of reminding many times that the 'tricks' aren't to be overused because that leads to eventual 'immune response' from the 'species' (such as killing the witches). So they also make a bit of sense, as a BG that forgot not to be involved directly with political power, but whatever, i don't like it.

2 ) dune messiah is at it's best near the end when Paul is narrating about the 'prescient trap' right. At it's worst on the annoying and stereotypical 'conspiracy meetings' of the anti-imperial factions. The Tleilaxu are a bit of bright spot because you can already see their arabic metaphysics clusterfuck mentality peeking through, although it's still secretive (Tleilaxu later have a secret hermeneutic religion worshiping Leto as a living god and Paul as it's prophet, which makes a bit of sense, if you think of their technology).

3 ) yeah Sword of mid afternoon nailed the 'plan' of the BG (+/- the amusing powerstruggle and she-thinks-i-think game that consists of most of chapterhouse Dune better parts). Still annoying

In the larger sense the later than GEoD books have a bit of a theme problem in that the Golden Path is realized and the books are 'just' about the preservation of the core of the old Empire surviving institutions, so the main meta-narrative of the series vanishes without a substitute - although the Sheena character has a tantalizing character arc that appears to hook back into the mystical and Leto's 'pearls of awareness' on the sandworms, so i'm not sure there was nothing intended at that level. I have my doubts that Herbert would have pulled it off though.

[Sword Of Mid Afternoon]

Good thoughts. I'd like to respond when my mind is clearer, but lets give 'er a go...

GodEmperor was enjoyable for many reasons... not the least of which was to see just exactly what it was that Muad Dib saw... the future that he walked into the desert to escape.

I also found Leto's theories on male/female soldiers to be intriguing... as I did Duncan's response.

And the Duncans in general...

The moral dilemma inherent in Leto's actions... he's become infinitely worse than the corrupt Corrinos or the ultimately corrupt religion of muad dib... yet he is doing this because the only alternative is premature contact with the hostile forces that were ultimately encountered in the Scattering upon Leto II's death... by premature I mean before the Scattering had run its course.

The Scattering was the embodiment of Leto's Golden Path... the natural reaction to the un-natural enforced tranquility of "Leto's peace" was it ensured that humanity would be flung so far across the universe that it could never be obliterated...

If Humanity was an arrow nocked and ready to be drawn, Leto's Peace drew that bow so far back that the arrow, once loosed, would fly beyond the reach of any outside force(s).

The bit of prescience that Leto shares with Siona leads me to believe that machines were very much the threat that drove Leto II... and perhaps even Paul in his final years... a lot of folks on the Dune thread disagree with me... saying that Leto just generated that scenario in his mind, or it was from his memory.

They hotly contest my thought that it was a view of the future. They said if it wasn't just some scene Leto contrived in his mind, then it was some vision from the past in Other Memory.

I say it couldn't be Other Memory, because the vision was a glimpse into the life of person/persons actively being eradicated by thinking machines of some sort. How could Leto have Other memory from someone who was eviscerated in a deep dark cave.

I could be wrong, but this is my take.

The old man & woman, Marty & Daniel, however, were pretty clearly face dancers... face dancers that had evolved into completely independent beings. They even remarked just how amusing they found it when Tleilaxu masters tried to use their facedancer control whistles.

It probably began with facedancers in the Scattering experiencing what happened to the facedancer Tuek in Heretics... the replication was so very thorough that they began to believe they were that person.

Marty and Daniel clearly went one or more steps forward in awareness.

[Toshio.Keepiru]

Stop after God Emperor of Dune, the rest aren't worth it. And especially not the prequels and fake sequels, they're all garbage.

I disagree about stopping after God Emperor...

The unfinished Arc that is comprised of Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune are quite good and actually are good at showing the results of Leto II's Golden Path.

He is correct in that anything not written by Frank Herbert is not the real story. There are two pivotal but minor (in terms of pages in which they appear) characters whose nature is totally altered by KJA and Frank Herbert's son that really bothers me.

Ignore the people who don't like Heretics and Chapterhouse. They're great books and well worth the read. Opinions vary but at least give them a shot. Just don't ever read Sandworms of Dune and Hunters of Dune. They're complete crap and not even close to true sequels to Chapterhouse Dune.

Listen to this guy Heretics and Chapterhouse:

Dune are very strong editions to the story and I suspect that if Frank Herbert survived long enough to conclude the story then it would have been my definite favorite series. Especially 5, 6, and (the sadly nonexistent 7).

*e2a*

Sword of Mid Afternoon,

I am pretty much in near complete agreement of your last post's analysis of God Emperor and the last two books.

[Jukka Sorasti]

I love Dune. There wasn't anything wrong with the others, but I personally did not like them as much as the first book. As for the Brian Herbert books, well...some sons (Christopher Tolkien) treat their father's work with respect and ensure that we get to read any previously unpublished masterpieces, and some other sons take a huge shit on their father's work and write a bunch of books of lower quality than said pile of shit to cash in on their father's name.

[SeanF]

So much word.

IMO, each progressive book got worse and worse, and the non-Frank Herbert written were totally unreadable. But even the ones he did write weren't very good, except Dune itself which was fantastic and has a good enough conclusion that there really is no need to keep reading- those are a telling a different story, and not a very good one.

I loved Dune, hated Dune Messiah, thought Children of Dune was good, if not as good as the original, and couldn't get into God Emperor of Dune.