DUNE: c/d

Hmm, did a search and thought this was an ILE thread...

Hey so, is there really any reward in reading past the first one? I've read it maybe three times over the last, let's say 10-12 years...I like a lot of the Big Ideas (mainly the whole notion of a character realizing he is the Prophesied Chosen One and being really freaked out about it), but the characters/plot sort of ooze together in the last third or so and I've just never been tempted by the sequels - they feel like cash-ins, but are they?

http://www.moongadget.com/origins/dune.html

An awesome seriously in-depth looks at the Origins of the Book.

really loved the first one and the fourth (god emperor of dune). The Brian Herbert ones are uniformly terrible.

Before I read it, Dune always had a certain mystique to me. That was the result of some combination of the cover, the fact that my older sister had a copy of it and spoke reverently of it, and my failed attempt to read it when I was too young. (I really couldn't handle long-playing novels until I was in 7th, maybe 8th grade, and still didn't read many then.) When I finally read it many years later, I definitely enjoyed it, but I couldn't get into whatever the followup was. I wasn't that thrilled with Herbert's writing even in Dune, but the story and the whole framework carried it for me.

rereading these right now

there is such a dropoff in quality between dune and dune messiah

about to start children of dune, remember it being better, hopefully?

he really is just making this stuff up as he goes, huh

I remember liking all the sequels I read (up to God Emperor, which is teh total amaze).

but cripes, that God Emperor cover above is astonishing.

rereading dune! can't figure out why these are so eminently rereadable to me, but i've read them a million times. even though there's a bunch of stuff that would normally make me not like it, somehow the story makes it all ok.

finally got the dune encyclopedia, what's the best way to read this shit?

http://lparchive.org/Dune/Update%2001/51-vyrw2f.gif

skinless gifs

what game is that from?

Dune the PC Game. I'm on a Let's Play roll these days.

http://lparchive.org/Dune/

is that the isometric RTS one, where you pick one of three houses?

i don't recall the screen looking quite like that but its been, oh, about 20 years since i've played

(that link is blocked for me)

I think you're thinking of Dune 2, which was a strategy game. The first is an adventure game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JROGmTAnS-g

that dune gif is offtm because a sandworm would have disposed of the body long before it could decompose

dune 2 was sweet as hell

never played dune 1, will dosbox

oh wow i just looked at the top of the thread - didn't remember i had started it!

it's nice to read some people talking about how they like the Dune sequels. So I am not alone in the world. But I never finished Heretics or started Chapterhouse.

I am very envious of anyone who has that Dune Encyclopedia. I remember marvelling at it in shops.

they have some good parts but as a whole they are not that great, honestly

my dune encyclopedia is a PDF ;_;

I take it that all the prequels etc. by Norbert Herbert are complete nonsense?

depends how much you like things like licensed star wars or star trek novels

but yeah IMO utter shite

i mean i think like SW or ST novels they have little in the way of the spark of creativity that made the originals great and they are basically just boilerplate sci-fi stuff w a thin layer of in-universe flavor on top

I never knew about the dune encyclopedia! Any good?

I plowed thru the first 3 books in my reread. Books 2 and 3 are much worse than I remember, but something abt this series requires that once I start reading, I have to read it through its entirety... I recall the last two being a return to the quality of book 1 so am curious to see how I feel about it this time around.

relieved to be finished with god emperor of dune so i no longer have to stand around in the subway trying to hid the crazy looking cover...

http://images.wikia.com/dune/images/b/b6/God_Emperor_of_Dune_Cover_Art.jpg

is it weird that I really love Herbert's prose in Dune? feel like a lot of people arent into it but i love it, his descriptions of topography feel like action even when its purely descriptive

Yeah, "planetary romance, " like it says on the Science Fiction Encyclopedia site: not that much science, but what there is (re early use of ecological themes in SF, anyway) enhances the power of the setting, which is also a character, in effect.
Really enjoyed the first two books all through, rooting for the rebellious children of Destiny, but the struggles of the main character in Children of Dune, trying to make (a new) sense of his future(s) get so torturous and sometimes inchoate--appropriately so, but still it got to be too much for me: like, how much of this is to be sympathized with, and waited out, 'til we get to the cool plot twists again---and they do come!--but also, wondering how much we're supposed to take as stunning insights, rather than characters grasping at straws. (Also, some of the secondary and tertiary characters can make pretty stupid moves).
My recent thoughts on God Emperor of Dune, and what might lie ahead, are general impressions, though still may possibly be considered spoilery:
ThReads Must Roll: the new, improved rolling fantasy, science fiction, speculative fiction &c. thread

just finished Dune, read it for the first time. Honestly....I really enjoyed reading this, but the ending seemed kind of dud. Everything seemed to wrap up really quickly without too terribly much struggle. And Paul strikes me as kind of a dick. Will reading Children of Dune make me happier?

Dune Messiah is the second,Children is third, incl. in quality, though it has its strong sections/pages. But If you don't already sympathize with Paul's struggles vs. his fucked-with nature and destiny, go no further (if you do, God Emperor mostly smells like ass, Heretics of Dune is yer Return To Form, but not enough to send me in a timely fashion to Chapterhouse: Dune, the last Dune by series creator Frank Herbert. But I'll get there someday, and could see how the follow-ups written and co-written by his son might work okay as space opera, minus any overload of philosophical etc. elements.

thanks -- yeah, most of the time I rooted for him, but some of the time it was clear he was just as capable of being corrupted by power as anyone else. He struggled with it, but also took advantage of his power at times (and also seemed to have an inability to actually deal with the bad stuff that happened to him, other than just shutting it out completely). I guess that's the point? I've also read that in further books, characters that were once "villains" can become more sympathetic.

Yes, they can---they're all crazy, fucked-with and fucking with, in the cultural midst of cultural imperatives---even the God Emperor means to gradually implode the Order of Things by advancing it, teaching "Don't Follow Leaders, Watch The Parking Meters", but sure does take him a long time, and even though as a comic premise it's funny that he likes torture his followers with huge clouds of philosophical bullshit---like he's Mr. Natural, and everbody else, incl. loyal readers, is Flakey Foont, or Dudley Moore in "Bedazzled"---this isn't as good. But as one of the fucked-with Children of Dune he's more sympathetic. And I'd like to know just how the Bene Gesserit got that way, but anyway they do indeed try to save the day in Heretics--maybe trying too hard in Chapterhouse, judging by sneak peaks, but that tends to the Dune way (incl. that of its creator) after all.

in the culturalmidst, I meant

THE ONLY GOOD ONLINE FANDOM LEFT IS DUNE

https://theoutline.com/post/5333/dune-revival-2018-david-lynch?zd=2&zi=bljps3pa

Loving the critical reassessment of the Lynch film

well, it's nowhere near as shit as the book

I read the series way back in the 80s, but could barely recall it. Re-read the first book recently and was surprised how much I still liked it. Also re-read Dune Messiah, and that book is an utter mess. May still continue on, but I don't have high hopes for the rest.

hadn't realized my fucked-up library sale copy is a first edition

dune messiah is bad. heretics/chapterhouse are pretty good tho

I read them all in middle/high school but I stopped in the early/middle of Chapterhouse when the (spoilers) Literal Jews In Space showed up

finally reading this, almost done. princess irulan sure wrote a lot of different books about the same exact thing.

lol

oh yes . . . i forgot to tell you

Really dislike “‘thopter” as a word.

hahah

*spits on table*

hello I am reading Dune for the first time :D

my bff back home in Oz and I started a quar-bookclub for the two of us last weekend & decided to read Dune.

We set the first half of Chapter “Dune” as our first goal. I thought it’d take me a week bc it just seemed to have a draggy vibe as an outsider? Seemed like such a “boys’ own scifi” to me? like ugh politics and worms and ecology biiiiig woop.
but: breaking news is that it’s great, I’m already caught up and dying to read more.
Thrilled by how it clips along, the pacing is much more brisk than I expected. Love how Herbert sets the table plotwise, it’s v impressive. And all the intrigues, larger political intrigues, personal intrigues, so much subterfuge between subsets & individual characters! All that AND I’ve barely even started learning about sandworms or spice so I’m excited.

My only gripe: SO many NAMES of THINGS that i keep forgetting what they are and have to keep going to the glossary to refresh my memory.

Thopter is truly the worst word.

also Bene Gesserit morphs into Rene Russo in my brain

so glad you're digging it! lol re: "thopter"

the word "honnete" in my corporate acronym has people asking a lot of questions already answered by the word "honnete"

Kyle MacLachlan and Frank Herbert: The Boys pic.twitter.com/xcGURGQ4IL

— Patrick (@Pilgrim945) August 25, 2021

uniting eastern and western WA

a prime up-the-arse corner candidate

in the introduction to Dune Messiah, Brian Herbert claims, unprompted, that Frank Herbert would have been one of the all time great US Presidents (?) had he decided to do that instead of becoming a writer

— caroline (going woman) (@soonrightaway) February 24, 2024

caroline (going woman) @soonrightaway: in the introduction to Dune Messiah, Brian Herbert claims, unprompted, that Frank Herbert would have been one of the all time great US Presidents (?) had he decided to do that instead of becoming a writer

dune messiah continues to deliver

Now I can't get the image of a sandworm with Trump's face on it out of my mind.

spice force

Make Arrakis Great Again

^^ https://www.tiktok.com/@loloverruled/video/7342915568074247454

I didn't have a huge desire to read fhiz but it's one of mum's favourite books - she read all six! -- and I wanted to talk to her about it.

A strange book! Dense and hardgoing and very, very long -- but I enjoyed it. I haven't seen any of the films.

I'm curious though - I spent the whole book thinking the Irulan segments were written in the future about an aged Paul p- but (much more straightforwardly) they're just about the current Emperor, as I discovered when Irulan turns up at the end.

Is this a deliberate misdirection or was I just not paying attention?

deliberate misdirection imo

thopter

Is it ever explained why it is so important to make a million clones of Duncan Idaho?

we need more of this kind of guy

Since it's kind of a plot spoiler, in the first place it was to demonstrate reinstating a ghola's pre-death memories to Paul, by conditioning Idaho to kill him - his history of loyalty shocked him into full recollection. The Bene Tleilax then offered Paul a restored Chani after she died in childbirth, but Paul killed Scytale to escape the temptation. After that Leto II found Idaho a valuable constant in his millennia of rule, and the Tleilaxu would obligingly supply him with a replacement every time one died, as a subtle way of retaining influence on the God Emperor. And then I think Frank Herbert was just in love with the idea of a guy who was reincarnated thousands of times to link the sequels to the original book.
Ironic that Pattinson played Mickey 17 and now Scytale!
I fear I've revealed my full nerd colours there. Please be kind.