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The Legends Of Dune - Volume 1: The Butlerian Jihad
The book starts out by giving a history of how the Titans took over the "Old Empire" after humanity had lost its drive and had relegated intelligent machines to handle the everyday tasks. The Titans used this lack of drive and the intelligent machine to quickly take over the Old Empire and conquered most of the known galaxy. Free humans rose up at the fringes of the galaxy to resist and push the Titans back, forming "The League of Nobels".
The Titans governed their planets with a increasingly sophisticated AI network and increasing brutality towards their human "slaves". In a bid to rule for centuries, and for possible immortality, the Titans underwent the transfiguration to "cymeks", robots with a human brain. After a century of Titan rule, one of the Titans, in a quest for more free time to indulge in hedonistic activity, relinquished too much control to his intelligent AI network. Eventually the sentient AI network computer evermind, which took the name Ominus, took control of all the Titan controlled planets and formed the "Synchronized Worlds".
After a thousand years of conflict and stalemate between the Synchronized Worlds and the League of Nobels the machines, with coaxing from the Titans, have determined that it is time to "corral" the wild humans and strike out, the logical target, Salusa Secundus, the center of government for the League of Nobels . Being so "unpredictable" to Ominus, the humans, taking huge losses, again resist the machine attacks. In part due to the AI scrambler shield invention of one Tio Holtzman that stops robots, but in an oversight, allowed the Titan cymeks, with their human brains, through.
Reconsidering their tactics, the machines instead move on one of the less vehemently defended planets, an industrial world with an abundance of resources, Giedi Prime. This time the machines manage to knockout the shield generator and take the planet. Once the league hears of this, the endless debates start within their government, as with any democracy, nothing gets done because all the politicians are afraid to commit. All except Serena Butler, she instead organizes a small band to sneak onto Geidi Prime and complete the secondary shield generator. This leads to Serena's capture and eventual transfer to the primary Synchronized World, Earth.
We get to see the first "friction" here between the Atreides and Harkonnen, the Sorceresses of Rossak with their telepathic and telekinetic powers are the beginnings of the Bene Gesserit. The foundation is laid for the Suk doctors, and the cover blurb that I read mentioned the Swordmasters of Ginaz, but I found only a slight mention of the planet Ginaz. Another cover blurb I read mentioned the Mentat school, but there was nothing in this book, one could see the use for them as the League of Nobels did not use any computers.
The book flows very well and I found myself drawn to read more and more. The book does not have the intricate plot within plot layout as the other Dune works, but then this book is being narrated from a historical perspective. Given this, I found most of the characters actions predictable, but I have read all other 9 books, so this being a "historical" narrative, this keeps the characters close to their roles that were hinted at/layed out in the previous novels.
I give credit to Brian Herbert for the foresight of enlisting the help of Kevin J. Anderson in the creation of the Dune "prequels" as he openly admitted that he did not possess all of the "tools" required to under take this project, kudos.
You can purchase The Legends Of Dune - Volume 1 from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
As for the Dune books, only the first two were ever worth anything. Frank Herbert himself couldn't keep the series going at a high level of quality, and his son's work qualifies as nothing more than shameless exploitation of a franchise.
And I think it explains somewhat what the honored maitres were afraid of. At about 1/3 of the book it foreshadows some very powerful force that was sent out into the galaxy to germinate, and that force is probably what scares the shit out of everyone inthe last Dune book by papa Herbert.
"This is the tenth Dune novel, and the fourth co-authored by Brian Herbert (the son of Frank Herbert)"
Can it get any better? L Ron Hubbard was involved too? Britney Spears going to be in the movie? Terry Pratchett doing the artwork? Nine inch nails doing the music?
Anyone else want to sell out and produce low quality bullshit for people who should know better, but unfortunately dont?
Cute troll. I like the touch of claiming that Dune (1965) stole from Star Wars (1977). Of course, this is science fiction we're talking about, so perhaps a time machine was involved, and George Lucas is really Frank Herbert's father...
Yes, Dune, originally published in the '60s stole from Star Wars. Genius.
On your second point, I managed to get to book 5 before quitting I think. Haven't tried re-reading since then, though I still think the first is excellent (and have reread it). If you have knowledge of world religions, Dune becomes a lot cooler incidentally.
Does this mean the butler did it?
This book was mildly interesting in a pure historical context, but the authoring style bordered on being the worst I've ever read.
It was dry, unimaginitive, cluttered and and it just "tried too hard."
I particularly found it annoying that the authors (as with the House * books) found it necessary to explain EVERYTHING. For example, you met a proto-Fremen and blam! He rides the first worm. You see a group of recluse women and BLAM!, they are the proto-Bene Gesserit.
It seemed that the authors went out of their way to CREATE connections, and with that in mind, they felt it necessary to connect to EVERYTHING. I find it hard to believe that in a Galaxy whose history is well over 12,000 years old, that we would see the beginnings of so many familiar settings within a span of a year. I would think they would be stretched out over a greater period of time.
There is so little good sci fiction in the world, its really sad when a decent series continues to be exploited to the point where its fans start to detest hearing about the next sequel.
Dune, while not the best book ever, was incredibly entertaining and some really unique concepts in it.
Pretty soon the Dune series is going to start showing up in the cheesey scifi book section next to the Star Wars and Dragon Lance crap. They should put the Robert Jordan stuff there as well since he seems to be writing an unending exploitation of his first couple of ok books.
Sigh.
Plus it seems like a lot of the ambience was stolen from Star Wars (Tatooine anyone?).
Read Dune's copyright. Dune was published twelve years before Star Wars was released.
At the risk of being moderated as a troll, axis-techno-geek's review wasn't a review at all, but just a summary of the book's contents. Except for the second to last paragraph, there was absolutely no analysis of the book.
It wouldn't be a bad idea for Slashdot to make informal arrangements with a couple contributors who are widely read in science fiction, and who are able to write reviews worthy of what quality sites Salon.com can muster.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
I got back to my brothers house in CT last week... and while at Heathrow Duty Free, the bookstore had the Butlerian Jihad on sale. I couldn't believe it (because I thought that House Corrino would be the end of the Dune writing saga, just shows how up to date I am).
My gripe is is that I didn't get the book at the Airport (because I'd already maxxed out on hand luggage with presents).. and I thought I'd get it in that US cheaper. Well the book was the paperback version at the airport (10.99pounds), but the book is the hardback version in Barnes and Noble (at $27.99).
Obviously I'm being a bit tight fisted with my money, but I've not been a fan of hardbacks.. does anybody know when the paperback is coming out? Either way, I'm really looking forward to the Jihad, the Herbert/Anderson combo did a great job with the prelude trilogy.. just wondering when SciFi (or anyone else) will get to doing the TV Movie versions of these (haven't they done Children of Dune yet?).
Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
You've got to be kidding.
People are still interested in new episodes to this old fossil? Would we be even remotely interested in Skeeter Verne's "30,000 Leagues Under the Sea" or Coco Bradbury's "The Saturn Chronicles"?
Gimme a break.
Best Windows Freeware
Why can't Brian revert back to what his late father did in his latter two books and write about superhumans having sex with sex godesses and human females being used as incubation chambers for various biological experiments?
They have a great universe, but neither of them is up to writing in it. It just gives me the feel of a couple of amateurs trying to be clever. They should stick to writing adventure storeis or some such. They can't handle the complexity Dune deserves.
Push the button Max!!!!
And the Jihad ended when cyborged Ibrahim Holzmann returned from his 400 year orbit, and was blow-up by some volunteer whose name escapes me.
I have nothing to contribute, I just wanted to add to the chorus of people pointing out that THAT WAS THE DUMBEST POST EVER.
I loved the original Dune series, all the way through Chapterhouse, must have read Dune 10+ times, and the entire series 3+ times (I know, no life). However, I was sorely disappointed by House Atreides, and couldn't even finish it. I found the the characters where extremely stiff, black and white, and uninteresting - totally lacking in the passion and subtlety found in the original series.
Anybody out there who had the same reaction to the first of Brian Herbert's Dune books have an opinion of whether things have gotten better or not? This review makes it sound like it might be worth it, but burnt once . . .
First Falcon-1 to orbit, then Falcon-9. Then I can die a happy man.
Something like Buttman Jihad.
Either that, or an image of legions upon legions of black suited butlers swarming over the ramparts of mansions, finally rebelling in a jihad for their centuries of indentured servitude.I know, pretty poor, but I am on the west coast, so it is barely past 8 a.m., and I haven't had any coffee!
First Falcon-1 to orbit, then Falcon-9. Then I can die a happy man.
I think Herbert and Anderson did an excellent job with the "House" prequels. The characterization was well done and there was...gasp...action! Original Dune is a great series but it really got dry as the series wore on. Herbert and Anderson have added much needed life to the series while remaining true to the original.
That being said I have not read "The Butlerian Jihad" but look forward to it. All the negative comments posted here don't deter me...just par for the course at slashdot. These are the same people raving about version 0.002 of some unfishished buggy software
I'll chime in a 'mee, too' about so about so many key events all happening so long ago, in such a short time.
But I'll add that this seems to be in part a Kevin J Anderson thing. Don't know if Herbert Jr. fought it, went along with it, or encouraged it. But my son is a big Star Wars fan, and reads the novels, including the KJA ones. These types of historical coincidence happen all the time in the Star Wars universe.
Maybe that's why I read only one or two for the 'good father' value, along with only one or two Redwall books a few years earlier.
Fan fiction tends to be that way.
At least in the later Dune (God Emperor of Dune+) novels by Herbert Sr. he had the good sense to allow some drift. Arrakis became Rakis, and other things got a little blurred over 3000 years. Yet we have 10,000 years of greater turmoil (probably leading to poorer bookkeeping) Atriedes, Harkonnen, Butler and the like come through with no corruption, and not even a giant worm to remember the correct spelling and pronunciation.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Why so long? They setup family names, institutions, types of government, nations. All of this is supposed to last 10,000 years?
Very little of any of these last more than a few hundred years just here on earth. Unless their universe goes absolutley stagnant for 10,000 years, what do they expect to be the same?
The rest of the history sounds interesting, but it would be more reasonable to set it less than a thousand years past. At least you could have some expectation that something would last to the "Dune" era in recognizable form.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
Here is a short story written by Herbert and Anderson whose story takes place before this book.
You see Xavier's parents as well as his brother and of course the Titans.
As for the remark about not mentioning the Mentats very much. I believe, in my humble opinion, that the head sorceress ( which is the beginning of the Gesserit ) husband is laying the foundation for it in that he is always seeking pharmaceutical ways to enhance men ( insert lame joke here ) so they can be on par with the sorceresses
" Plus it seems like a lot of the ambience was stolen from Star Wars (Tatooine anyone?)."
Yeah, cos you know how much variety desert evironments have.
Christ, what a couple of hacks. I swear, any significant author should kill his own son before he dies, just to preclude any possibility of what might be done in their names.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
Yes, it's supposed to be a grand, slow-moving epic, sweeping across the millennia.
No, it's not necessarily our own galaxy, or even our own universe for that matter. Things move more slowly. Humanity has slowed its pace, lost some of its pioneering, colonizing will. With the Guild Navigators' prescience, the Universe is open and available. No need to explore.
If you'd read the original books you'd understand that. Leto II's reign, for example. Lasted 3500 years. Not much changed. Planets changed, but attitudes didn't. That was part of the point.
"Nobel" is a surname. A "noble" is a feudal aristocrat.
"League of Nobles".
. We've got computers, we're tapping phone lines, you know that ain't allowed - Talking Heads, "Life During Wartime"
Um, it certainly invalidates this part of his thesis:
If the refutation of a proferred example doesn't weaken a thesis, then of course, a valid example itself cannot strengthen it... and that's just silly: The point of an argument is not the stating of an opinion, bald and without elaboration. It's the marshalling of fact and logic to support your point. Choice of a poor example -- one betraying a certain sloppiness in research -- most definitely does impugn the whole effort, and rightly so.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
I must preface this by saying I've not read this new book, so apologies if I'm off-base here, or if we're not up to the exact time in the timeline. This really makes me wonder if they're going to follow what was listed in the Dune Encyclopedia regarding Jehanne Butler being the cause of it all. Dr. Willis E. McNelly, the author of the Encyclopedia, was a friend of Frank Herbert, and Dr. McNelly was the only academic Frank Herbert trusted to do the work. Wish they'd put it back in print!
Brian, if you're reading this...
Your father was a very talented man, and we all enjoyed his work tremendously. Dune is my favorite work of SciFi. But...it's your father's work and not yours. If you'd like to please his fans and put a little cash in your own pocket, could you please take a lesson from Christopher Tolkien?
While your work is interesting, it's not Dune and can never be. Dune is the work of Frank Herbert, and none other. So, may I humbly suggest taking his unpublished work and notes and arrange those into a book? I'd throw down cash today for a Dune:Silmarillion type work. I'll bet a lot of other people would too.
Weaselmancer
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Ok, here's the short version of this post: letting Herbert Jr. and Anderson take over the Dune Franchise is a bit like letting Penny Marshall direct the next LOTR movie. We'd all go to see it anyway, but we'd cry because we know how much better Peter Jackson would have made it. So in my opinion, if anyone other than the dearly departed Frank should be allowed to embrace and extend the series, everyone should because surely someone would do a better job than this.
Here's the slightly elongated version:
I am huge Dune fan. I wanted to cry after I read the last line of Chapterhouse Dune, because I knew there would never be anymore, I had read the very last line of the very last dune book.
Well, imagine my surprise when the Dune:House N series appeared. I was torn but hopeful.
Well, the first two were like good fan fiction. They built a little bit of structure for events that happened later, were mostly consistent and pretty fun to read. But nothing like Frank's work.
The third book (House Corrino) was awful. I'll never get those hours back.
What bugs me is that no one else can add to the Dune canon except the copyright holders, so those of us who love it but do not profit from it are forced to watch in horror as the average quality of the official series is diluted.
I haven't yet read the book being reviewed here, and against my better judgment I probably will eventually but I'll be shocked if it's any good. It's just a shame that just because Herbert Jr. shares half a set of genes with Herbert Sr. that we have to be subjected to his inferior fan fiction while other, more talented writers who would like to add to the series can't publish and profit from their potential works for fear of legal reprisal.
Thank you for reading.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
OK, this is an honest question. I'm not trying to troll here.
But I have been a SF/Fantasy fan for most of my life. I am a huge fan of the classics, modern writing, and all of the (good) stuff in between. It should also be mentioned that I'm also not JUST a SF/Fantasy reader either--my reading stretches over a fair range.
That said, Dune is the ONLY book I have EVER failed to finish reading, once I got more than ten pages into it. In fact on my third (and last) attempt, I read some 400 pages of it, and couldn't be bothered to pick it up again.
I found Dune utterly uninvolving. Heavy, ponderous, dull, stilted, and just bloody painful reading. I had no interest in characters, stories, or outcomes in it.
So what am I missing that sequel #9, written by the son of the original author, is getting created at all, let alone cheered enthusiastically?
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
As one of those people who commented on PhysicsGenius's mistake, it does essentially invalidate his first paragraph. It shows he doesn't understand Dune's place. Really, not a big deal, but to make such an obvious mistake in essentially a first post - he might as well have claimed that Winston Churchill stole policies from George W. Bush.
The rest of his thesis is a naive, too. The original Dune series was five books long. That was the series. The four new books, and up to six more, are the serialization of the Dune universe akin to what's happened with Star Wars and Star Trek novels. They're novels which can't be taken too seriously.
Duh! Pay attention to what you're reading.
Star Wars was "...a long time ago in a galaxy far far away", whereas Dune takes place in humankind's future, 10191 AG.
So yeah, Star Wars came first. Dune is a total Tattoine ripoff. ;^)
Weaselmancer
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
That's why William Hurt was perfect casting for the TV epic. A perfect match of depressive dullness.
BINGO! Bang on the "money" (the key reason I think it's dragging on)! Back when it first came out in the early 90's (or late 80's??) I enjoyed "The Eye of the World", probably "the great hunt" as well as the 3rd installment.
Speaking of TOR (as someone else mentioned), don't waste your money on Terry Goodkind as he seems to get many of his ideas for the "sword of truth" series from Jordan's "wheel of time" (although one could probably argue all sci-fi/fantasy in the last 15 years is cud [regurgitated & chewed around] - i haven't read enough of it to seriously comment). Heh, maybe they're even the same person?
"God Emperor of Dune" is the third book, after Dune, Dune Messiah.
Herbert had an editor for the first, the second was too short to need an editor, and he was allowed to spew any old rubbish for the third and subsequent books.
There's much more to dune than the first few books, but almost all of it is complete and utter drivel.
Incidentally, I once tried to read one of Brian Herbert's books. That man should be taken out and shot. He's an incompetent hack who has no idea about writing fiction.
dave
In a fricken' universe of some hundreds of thousands or millions of worlds (don't recall which off hand, don't care), the only IMPORTENT ones are the ones which exist in the other books! Wow, 10,000 years eariler and the only importent planets are Giedi Prime and Salusa Secundus. And look, the only social institutions that exist other then The Big Bad guys are the ones that exist in later books: Mentats, Bene Gessirit, the Suk, and if the League of Nobels doesn't eventually become the Royalty of Dune's time, I'd be stunned.
Ten thousand years and nothing changes.
I don't know about everyone else, but I find this a distinct marker of lack of imagination on the part of the authors. Herbert himself was not so limited... in the last two books (best two of the series, IMHO), he brings in numerous players that have no existence in the earlier books. He wasn't limited by the stuff he established in later books.
Star Wars fiction also often suffers this problem, though not always. Some of it is very good and actually explores things not directly in the movies. Others would lead an impartial outside observer to believe that either A: There are only two planets in the entire galaxy or B: Endor is the capital of the galaxy, and Ewoks are the dominant race, because they never have any imagination and step outside of previous work. Oh, and the galaxy has a sum total of about 30 or 40 people in it, etc. etc. You get the idea.
Look, budding authors, if all I wanted to do was revisit the universe, I'd just re-read the books! Let me explore a bit... show me something new.
I heard Kevin in late September talk at a Denver bookstore.
So far in the series:
(1-6) Frank Herberts six Dune books.
(7-9) The three book prequel.
(10) First book of the Butlerian trilogy.
Coming:
(11-12) Second book of Butlerian trilogy done; third book being written.
(13-15) A fill-in-the-gaps trilogy between the prequels and #2 (Dune Messiah) on how Atriedes got assigned to Dune; How Paul's jihad went, etc.
(16) A "Road to Dune" book consisting of unpublished notes and short stories found in Frank's estate papers. Both authors are strongly opposed to a Christopher Toklein series, i.e. where Chris published 12 books on every scrap of paper his father wrote.
(17) A sequel to Frank's sixth book based on full outline found in the estate papers and initial work by Frank. (The amount of this material is highly controversial and we may being hoodwinked here.) Supposedly we learn more where the last no-ship went, who the mysterious farmer couple were, and something more about the scattering culture.
Kevin also mentioned how the co-authorship works. Both authors completely rewrite everything up to ten times in alternating shifts. Both authors work on other projects in the meantime. Brian H. does not fly in airplanes (a scifi tradition), so he rarely makes it out of the west coast.
I couldn't agree with you more about the new trilogy. I'm not as discerning as some people and tend to read most books for plot. But even I couldn't believe how poorly they were written -- at one point I promised myself if I heard Rhombur say "Vermillion hells!" one more time I'd stop reading and burn the damned thing. (Plus I think his sister should have been named "Trapezoidia" or something...) But I stuck it out through "Corrino", biting my tongue the whole way, just to see how they resolved things -- no way am I going to pick up this new series.
After reading the first two I went back and read through "God Emperor" of the original series. The difference was amazing, much starker than the difference between "Godfather III" and the first two.
Chris
M-x auto-bs-mode
I'll probably buy this book. When it comes to Dune I just gotta have it. Sorta like having to buy the latest Depeche Mode album even though it sucks rocks. There are some things in life you just gotta have.
But anyway, back to Dune. The House* prequel series were OK, I guess, even though they suffered from an all too apparent desire to come up with plausible explanations of the pre-Atreides dominated universe. For example, involving the whole House Vernius and the Ix thing was a great idea, but it was presented in a slightly crass way. You know? Frank Herbert could introduce new elements into his books (i.e., the Honored Matres) with subtlety but his kid just can't do that, no matter how much the other guy helps out. The twin Guild Navigator thing was also a good byline, but it wasn't presented very well. And so on.
One of the things I can't understand is *why* this guy can't go back to basics. He has tons of material to work with laid out by his father, yet he can't score a 10 to save his life. For example:
- Flesh out the story of the Fremen. The whole Missionaria Protectiva deal that's implied when Jessica and Paul find the Fremen on Dune as well as the migration of the Fremen throughout the centuries is a very interesting aspect of the books.
- The Sardaukar and Salusa Secundus. The House Corrino prequel book doesn't even come close to covering this area, which I think is very interesting.
- The relationship between the Bene Gesserit and "old world" religions like the Jews (Chapterhouse Dune) and so on. Very interesting byline as well.
I could go on and on. I believe Frank Herbert wrote Dune as a complex exploration of politics, religion, ecology, sexuality and the strength of the human spirit. These books are mushing those ideas to churn out nothing more than swashbuckler thrillers, and to be honest I really don't like it. They should open up the writing to other, more talented SciFi authors who grew up with Herbert and see what happens. I would *love* to see a Tales Of Sanctuary/Tempus-like franchise. I bet they would sell a crapload of books and keep us Dune fanatics happy for many years.Oh well.
Actually, Frank Herbert himself was the one that originally complained about Lucas ripping off the story. I've read in various places that he considered a lawsuit. He wrote several pages in a short essay within Eye about this topic where he points out that there are statistically too many similarities for this to be mere coincidence.
I actually finished this book last week. Although, you cannot even begin to compare the writing abilities of father and son, I've enjoyed the new books. Each book has gotten a little bit better and I actually enjoyed this book.. it had good pacing and got you involved in the story. SPOILER??... My only complaint is that it seemed to me that several things that were claimed on the book jacket, like the betrayal that made mortal enemies of Harkonnen and Atreides, were not actually in the story! Maybe I missed something?
I've read some of Brian Herbert's own works (I can't remember offhand who he was collab'ing with originally, but it didn't help), before he got involved in extending DUNE. Fact is, Brian is a dull writer who tends to beat what plot he has to death, and seems to mistake sufficiently convoluted for "intricate and detailed".
With the first Frank/Brian collaboration, I could tell TO THE WORD where Frank stopped writing and Brian took over. The difference in real content was that dramatic, at least to my writer/editor eye.
Anyway, after reading 3 or 4 of Brian's books and co-books (if that's a word.. well, it is now), I gave up on him entirely.
You're right that other authors can't write in the venue -- unless they get permission from the franchise owners (I'm not sure who the legal owner is at this point, having not followed it that closely). But certainly if someone really wanted to, they could ask to be licensed for a book. Tho for all I know, arguments over creative control, and whether Brian Herbert reserves the right to [gods save us] rewrite the resulting novel may be the real show-stopper.
(Now let's see if slashdot is speaking to me. It's been disappearing my posts ever since the move.)
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
The series really did peak at Dune Messiah, though. A short, simple story showing how a mob can take a movement intended to better humanity and pervert it into an excuse to kill and destroy anyone they don't like. In the end, it becomes a stunning critique of organized religion; how it can destroy even its leader.
Oh, and I agree with you about Brian Herbert. Shooting's too good for the bastard.
That's it. I'm no longer part of Team Sanity.
Dune takes place 10,000 years after the Jihad.
The Jihad is sometime in the future.
Star Wars was "a long time ago."
Perhaps Arrakis == Tattoine!
I've read ALL of Frank Herbert's works, including the non-SF. Some are better than others, for sure, and the most *readable* are those where he simply tells a story and doesn't get too much into heavy philosophy.
:)
I had one helluva time getting interested in DUNE. Took me several false starts, and then.. Well, I wound up reading the much-villified DUNE: MESSIAH first. The story is somewhat weak, but it's more *readable*, and it showed me something else:
The series is NOT about Paul and his family and their doings. It's about *Duncan Idaho*. HE is the thread that binds the entire series together.
I don't know what that made a difference, but after noticing that, I found the courage [g] to plough thru DUNE and the rest of the series (tho I exited stage left once Brian took over entirely -- as I say in another post, he's a bloody dull writer). As someone else replies here, GOD EMPEROR had some real problems, and sometimes the series gets bogged down in motivations and philosophy, but overall it proved worthwhile. Even so, I think many people mistake its sheer *scope* for "excellent writing", and fact is they are not necessarily contiguous conditions. If I wanted to introduce someone to Herbert, DUNE would definitely not be my first choice.
BTW I don't think this "I loved everything whoever wrote EXCEPT his acknowledged masterwork" response is all that unusual. Frex, I also like sea novels, and I've read and loved everything Herman Melville wrote -- *except* MOBY DICK. I simply cannot get started on that book. It's turgid with symbolism, to say the kindest thing I can think of.
Someone once pointed out that most "classics" are in fact plodding, overblown, overrated, dull as dirt, and not worth the paper they were written on, but by damn they've been *defined* as "classics" so you'd better believe they are Great Works, or your Literature teacher will do Bad Things to you! While this overstates the case, I think there is considerable merit in the observation.
A warning to authors: if you believe something is your masterwork, chances are it's not.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Dune was one hell of a novel. Frank Herbert's subsequent Dune novels got worse and worse. Now his relatives are milking the franchise for all it's worth, and the brand equity of a franchise like Dune is worth a great deal.
This has nothing to do with writing good science fiction novels. It's got everything to do with somebody wanting a new Mercedes -- and with the semi-literate droolers who buy what passes for "science fiction" nowadays. Something is very wrong when the alleged "science fiction" section in your local bookstore is dominated by franchises (Star Trek, Star Wars, some alternate history bonehead whose name escapes me, but who publishes books at too great a rate to be writing them himself, yada yada yada, the list goes on). When most of those franchises are derived from mainstream-mass-market cheap imitation SF movies and TV shows (when, in other words, the tapeworms crawl out of the gut and seize power), something is worse than just "very wrong".
Yeah, well. You can't win 'em all. In the end, of course, the morons always drown in their own waste products, which is just what they deserve. The field has recovered from worse slumps in decades past. It will recover again. After all, SF even at its worst is no worse than the rest of the publishing industry at its best: Just look at the drivel John Updike gets away with.
"Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive" -- hey, that's me!
According to the Dune Encyclopedia House Washington defeated House Japan in 14225 BG (1945 AD). Roughly, 2000 AD Corresponds to 14200 BG. The Butlerian Jihad was begun in 200 BG (16000 AD), 10,009 years before the events in "Dune".
Hey, that's MY back yard they're plagiarizing! :)
:)
There's this gadget you can buy that goes whap-whap to scare away gophers. Friends have one, and I keep warning them about the worm problem..
(Tremors, anyone?
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Are there really people out there who read this same pseudo-intellectual tripe 9 times and then demanded an additional book?
A more meaningful question might be, "Are there really people out there who get bent out of shape by what books other people read or what music they listen to?"
Somebody wants to read the back story to Paul Atreides' Grocery List, or the novelization of the latest George-Lucas-Made-For-Burger-King-Promotion movie, or "Gor #48: Trans-Op Sex Slaves of Gor," or "Remo Williams #97: The Story Begins," or "BattleTech #63: Operation: Audacious Legacy," or the fourth volume in R.A. Salvatore's Dark-Elf Trilogy, "Gygax, the Wife-Beater," or Proust, or Wilde, or Stephen King, or Ayn Rand, or William Shatner Writing as Kirk About When Picard went Back in Time to Rescue Janeway while Trapped in Archer's Body, or the online version of the New York friggin' Times, WHAT Do You Care? What friggin' *DIFFERENCE* does it make in your Life on a Friday afternoon?
So long as people are READING something, I am happy. If they are reading, they are not killing or brooding. If they are reading they are using their imagination. If they are reading *They* are happy. Does that upset you?
Of course, were these people to all of sudden See The Light and begin to read what you are reading, you would no doubt stop reading that because it had become so trendy...
And in the Bible people were fond of waiting around a hundred years or so before having their first kid...
Of course Dune ripped off Lawrence of Arabia, right? :)
KJA took the storyline of Timothy Zahn's good "Heir To The Empire" Star Wars books and turned it into Star Trek-esque technobabble, "My goodness, how will Luke and friends save the galaxy today?" and "Oh, let the precocious little tykes fix everything" nonsense. That opened the floodgates for other Trekkish hacks like Vonda N. MacIntyre (yes, the same one that wrote a thousand bad Trek novels) to try their hand at Star Wars. Her "Crystal Star" was particularly wretched, even by the standards of her fellow (I know the word is overused in this post, but it's just so damn appropriate) hacks. Take your average Trek book, switch "Enterprise" for "Millenium Falcon" and throw in a stock "Leia's Children Go Missing Yet Again" sideplot, and that's what you end up with. More technobabble and less plot than your average Voyager episode.
:)
Not even Michael Stackpole and Aaron Allston (best known for their original ideas in the X-Wing series) and Zahn's return could salvage the whole steaming pile that is "New Jedi Order".
And as for shameless exploitation of a franchise, I'd like to mention a few Foundation sequels being authorized by Isaac Asimov's estate (ie relatives who want to milk the old guy's corpse for all they can get). Poor Isaac. At least he'll never have to suffer through the eyesore that is "Foundation and Chaos".
Hey, I enjoyed this. Is there any chance for me to be a paid book critic? Anyone hiring?
If I remember correctly, the original Dune took place beginning in the year 10,191. If the Buterlian Jyhad actually took place 10k years earlier, That would make it year ~200. 200 years after what? I had always assumed the Imperial subjects were still (for some reason) using our quaint reference frame for time, I guess not.
Green-voting, republican-registered, socialist-libertarian.
The oldest European family lineages date from the eighth century A.D. Everything else was lost in the dark ages. The Romans used trace back 500 years, but that information was cut off.
On the Asian side, the Japanese royal family claims 2,000. Some Chinese clans claim back to 2,500 years, including Confucius's family. In the Middle Eat they remember lineages back to the establishment of Islam or 1,400 years.
Of course Dune ripped off Lawrence of Arabia, right? :)
Exactly.
If this thread doesn't demonstrate the absurdity of copyrighting, I don't know what does. These stories have been passed down for thousands of years...only the names have changed.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
The error is an important one.
Why? Because it allows the reader to ignore that Dune is an influential work in the genre. Certainly George Lucas borrowed from it liberally. By misunderstanding the relationship of Dune and Star Wars, the main argument (paraphrased: Dune sucks.) is undermined.
I agree with other posters that Dune (Frank Herbert's Dune I'm talking about here, not movies or miniseries or works by other authors) is heavy reading. It is devoid of any sense of humor. Characters tend not so much to speak as to make pronouncements. However, when I first read it, Dune affected me similarly to how LotR seems to affect other people. I was fascinated by the scope of it, the cultures, the technology, the society, and all the themes.
It's interesting to me how similar the criticisms leveled at Dune and LotR are. It's dull. It's slow. It's ponderous. It's overrated. The derivative works of the son don't live up to the original by the father.
But one should not judge the quality of the original work by the derivatives. Dune and LotR are both indicators of this.
--
bachiatari na torisetsu o yome!
I disagree, I liked God Emperor (and Chapterhouse) myself. But almost as a book of philosophy more than a novel.
Wasn't the first one originally meant to be two books? Dune: Desert Planet and Prophet of Dune IIRC.
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
With this nick I couldn't pass up the opportunity of this gratituous post.
<grub> Reading
You do realize that these books are based almost exclusively on Frank Herbert's notes and plot outlines, don't you? In that sense they are much more like Unfinished Tales and the History of Middle Earth series by Christopher Tolkien than like Star Wars or Star Trek. They should be taken quite seriously, although not as seriously as the original six novels. These are essentially Frank Herbert's unfinished works finished by his son.
Thanks for the tip. After seeing the s.f. channel miniseries recently, I've had an urge to go through the series again.
thanks
Personnally, I don't have time for any of them. Brian is not Frank in either imagination or skill. Not that this is a major insult, Frank was a master.
However, Brian did recently find his father's COMPLETE OUTLINE for Dune 7. So, Brian and Kevin will write that, which I will gladly purchase, after they are done with their prequels. Hurry up guys!
"We shall party like the Greeks of old! You know the ones I mean." - HedonismBot
Co-books (hey sounds good to me) are almost always bad. The only ones I ever really enjoyed were the Niven & Pournelle stuff, they maanged to keep things together. I couldn't every really figure out who wrote what. Even the Niven, Pournelle and Barnes book (can't remember the name) was well done.
Actually, I thought that worked pretty poorly. I read the whole series in sequence last summer, and found then when you read them back to back, a lot of it doesn't hang together well.
In particular, there's a pretty rough disconnect between "Dune" and the first sequel; and then there's another harsh disconnect between "Dune Messiah" and "Children of Dune". Once you get past that, it mostly hangs together pretty well. But the start is really very bumpy and inconsistent.
-Mark
Lord of the Rings? Now handled by J.R.R. Tolkien's son, Brian Tolkien. Thats Christopher Tolkien, not Brien Tolkien.
Lucifer's Hammer would be cool too, but it's kinda dated now, and that genre's been done to death
That's true, but I think the world needs a comet-from-space, end-of-the-world movie where the comet hits 30 minutes into the movie. That hasn't been done before, unless you could The Day After, which was too depressing to be entertaining.
I can read the part of Lucifer's Hammer about the impact and the immediate aftermath again and again.
I write in my journal
That's the one. Thanks. 'T' for "Turtledove" is right near 'V' for "Vance"; I always look to see if anything by Jack Vance is back in print (there's also a remote but tantalizing possibility that we'll see another new one from him before he passes on... or is he gone already?) but all I ever see is a phalanx of these Turtledove monstrosities and some Vinge (more Vernor than Joan these days, I think, but I don't pay too close attention to either). 'V' is for van Vogt, too, and IIRC there's a second Slan novel that I don't have, but van Vogt's not exactly well represented either.
As for The Diamond Age, Stephenson has been fluttering around the edge of competence for his whole career. When he's good, he's good, but even at his best he has a real weakness for giving in and going for something cheap, obvious, and amateurish at just the wrong moment. Too many of his characters are cartoons or strawmen. Too much of it panders to the reader. He's good sometimes, but he's never great.
Oh, and of course they need to devote three feet of shelf space to nine different editions of LotR, eight volumes of Tolkien's laundry lists and phone bills, and a dozen slabs of semi-related cash-in detritus that Tolkien didn't even write. The original trilogy is selling like hotcakes, naturally; too bad nobody actually reads it... If they did, they might begin to suspect that it's a bit overrated. Wonderful imagination, Tolkien, absolutely spectacular; there's nobody like him... too bad about the prose, though.
"Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive" -- hey, that's me!
I agree, most co-books have their problems. Niven & Pournelle have an unusual synergy in that their respective failings and strong points tend to balance one another. As to the Barnes collab, Steve did the grunt work with Jerry and Larry (sounds like a comedy team!) leering over his shoulders like a pair of slave drivers. Quite funny as they tell it. I don't recall the name either (not being a fan of any of 'em).
I've done co- and group-writing myself. Sometimes everything flows well among the group, other times there are conflicts that wind up as sticking points in the story. But whoever is the best EDITOR in the group should do the final cut, as that way more of the rough spots get polished.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Dune was one hell of a novel. Frank Herbert's subsequent Dune novels got worse and worse.
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On the contrary. the first dune book was a complex book, a wonderful book, but the basic story is a (quite banal) coming-of-age defeat-the-badguy story.
It is only the later stories, the fall of paul and Aliah, and the rise of leto and it's toll on humanity where the depth of F. Herbert's genius really comes to light. The motive of human's impact on ecology only comes to fruition in leto's story, when arakis has been terraformed. The notion of prescience's degenerative affect is also one that is not dealt with in the first novel.
All in all, I think one must read the first 4 books, at least, to understand the first one. They should IMHO be treated as parts of the same work no less then the three parts of the LOTR.
While it may be said that the later F.H. books (the post-tyrant books) were not as good, and perhaps did have a more financial reason for being than an artistic ones (I don't know), the first books have firm literary, consistency and completeness reasons for being made.
Now his relatives are milking the franchise for all it's worth, and the brand equity of a franchise like Dune is worth a great deal.
Well I'm not sure this is due to greed. B. Herbert had a remarkable father. He cannot fill a tenth of his father's shoes. Seeing him try and fail so miserably actually makes me pity him. I think he really wanted to succeed in writing as much as his father and it is not his fault he doesn't have what is takes (I don't know if anyone does, definately not too many do
What is worse, being greedy or being pathetic ? I do not deride B.Herbert. I pity him.
That said, his editor and publisher must have known he was on the way to total disgrace. The fact they published his works is both a professional disgrace (for them) and apparently a very nasty thing to do as human beings.
But "some publishers are scum" is no great news either
Working for necessity's mother.