DUNE: c/d

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"

they have tried to kill my son!

i mentioned this one the dune movie thread, but i avoided reading it for so long bc of the same 'draggy vibe' assumptions, and was pleasantly surprised to discover its a legit page-turner

Yeah though the first one is best, as I said upthread. Although I did stay hooked through most of the rest.

You guys this book is WILD

Finished “Chapter 1” and I am kinda reeling from all the reveals and uber-intrigue - this is much more of a rollercoaster than i expected

Lady Jessica def my fave (I expect disappointment but don’t tell me either way)

second least-fave word after ‘thopter: lasgun

lol

i have also realized why it is so hard to turn the book into a movie- so much of the drama (that i’ve read so far) lays within a character’s internal thoughts & suspicions, which seems like it would be a tall order to convert into visual

have you seen the (first) movie? because you are otm -- there are a lot of awkward voiceovers

i havent seen any adaptation ever
oh but i will when i am done mark my words

Veg that was always my take too. won't say the particular theme i remember thinking "it'd be hard to get this in a movie, and it's one of the coolest things in this book" about. but yeah 100%. and yet... i'm optimistic about the new one! some elements of the trailer made me think they were aware of this hurdle and that they want to go out of their way to make the thing i'm thinking of workable.

sidebar: i will never forgive Frank Herbert for deciding that a tent needs a “sphincter”

you should blog your reading of this book imo

or if you just keep telling us here that's cool

xp oh dear wait til you get to the detailed stilsuit description

t/s lynch's dune vs cronenberg's dune

Series 2 of the TV show Togetherness has a funny subplot of two friends resurrecting their teenage dream of putting on an avant garde puppet show adaption of Dune.

GHOST RIDE THE WORM 🐛

how far in are you now?

Like all old things, "Dune" is now somewhat controversial but I still love it. It held up strongly on a re-read a couple of years ago.

thopter is a good word (not bad) bcz it sounds like the sound a thopter wd make

Out here still waiting for the new Dune Allman

i am now halfway through the final “chapter” so not much left to go- still no idea how it’s going to end!

harkonnen just got spoilered & the padishah emperor just showed up .. he seems kinda disappointing after all the buildup? idk

oh and princess irulan finally showed up though i was so bored by all her stupid book excepts that i didnt even care when she finally appeared

the only interesting thing princess irulan ever did was provide the name for my tumblr

lol

Can't thopt won't thopt keep keepin on sandworms!

aaaaand done

it kinda just ...ends, huh?

enjoyed v much, 10/10 would knife-fight again
though i have to say the sheer level of detail did become overwhelming at times, v hard to store all the knowledge Herbert’s downloading on you at any one time —and a couple of times he assumes knowledge where there is none which i dont mind but it’s like, OH CMON THROW ME A BONE JFC
so i did scurry to the interwebs for a little clarity a few times

but i didnt feel any hokey datedness at all & am still blown away by the depth of the worldbuilding, and even how much really quite modern psychology he drew on for the mental readiness exercises etc

🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛🐛

Yeah Dune is a hangout book really, whatever the narrative offers is very secondary to getting to live in that mental world for a few hours. I must have read it ten times, and every reread it’s like all the background and extra detail are even more familiar, so I find myself nodding my head and saying yeah, absolutely on the money.

it kinda just ...ends, huh?

you got five books to go!!

SO many NAMES of THINGS

I remember owning a 700pp battered copy of the The Dune Encyclopedia (1984). A searchable PDF is much more convenient.

my kindle version had a terminology section but its definitions were more annoying than helpful lol

veg your responses are making me want to reread this thing. think i've only ever done it twice, once for a high school class and once maybe around college or a little after. so probably at least 15 years, and some things are still very vivid, but they're mostly locales/vibes and all the Liet-Kynes ecosystem stuff... not a ton of specific scenes, and certainly no dialogue. "hangout book" feels right for that.

he becomes a better writer as the series goes along, imo, which is your reward as things become increasingly insane

as i mentioned, my friend & i did this as a bookclub together

in all honestly, nerd feelings aside, *should* we read Dune Messiah?

is it good y/n and if so why
& will i need more dune dictionaries y/n

i am still mad pissed that Hetbert killed off Kynes. like, WHY?? he was one of the best characters.
after he got swallowed into the pre-spice bubble or whatever i had a fleeting theory that he was going to become a worm 😂

dune messiah is my least favorite of the bunch but i think others rate it more highly. and it cannot be accused of being predictable sequel fare

My recent re-read of Dune Messiah made me not want to continue the series. Perhaps I should give Children a chance.

I don't like it much either, it's the comedown of politics and consequences after the rush of the first one. But mookieproof otm, and its unpredictability does a good job of setting up bigger and more interesting things down the track. At least it's short!

hmm

well we will decide in a week or two - it’s either this or LOTR (which we have both read but not in a VERY long time)

I remember liking Dune Messiah and have it on my re-read pile but it was a long long long time since I read it.

i like DM too -- it's deliberately very small-scale tho, macchiavellian court politics