Dune Part 2 2023 (24, 25, 26...)
- Thread starter wayoung
- Start date
Yes, of course it was. I usually refer to Kevin J. Anderson as KJA because it's easier than typing his name out all the time. People usually know who I'm talking about.
Did he use "Talifans" to describe people who didn't like his Star Wars books? I know there are plenty of readers who don't like them.
Having personally met KJA, I find it doubtful that he would've made such a comment without cause or provocation.
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Oh, please. It didn't matter to him if the critical review or post came from someone who was polite about it or basically said, "this is a piece of shit." He used that term for all of us.
He may be more polite in person, if the reader he's talking to doesn't go out of their way to be rude. My own interactions with him were on MySpace, back when that was a site where people actually could have conversations. But I really found it offensive to be tarred with a derogatory word he used for anyone and everyone who didn't like his books.
^ To clarify, I wasn't condoning his comments, merely stating my opinion that I don't think he would have engaged in toxic behavior unprovoked.
Provoked or otherwise, however, I do agree that comments like that are unproductive and only feed into the fractured nature of the Dune fandom and fandom toxicity in general.
Provoked or otherwise, however, I do agree that comments like that are unproductive and only feed into the fractured nature of the Dune fandom and fandom toxicity in general.
Provoked or not if you start to call your customers/readers names you will lose in public opinion.
I am pretty sure that most public figures, i.e. authors, entertainers, politicians, are itching to truly speak their mind on a daily basis but even if they're objectively right to call someone out for comments or stepping over the line they have to maintain a level of moderation in their replys because people who use derogatory language are just waiting for the other side to stoop down to their level.
So you're still excusing him? I could see him getting pissed at specific people; I know of a couple who have been incredibly rude to him, one crossing the line in so many ways by posting online attacks against KJA's wife. That's not okay. She didn't write the books, and I've never heard that she engaged in blanket insults of people who don't like his books.
The guy who did that is BS!C - he started stalking me around the internet years ago when I failed to be sufficiently rude to KJA and I welcomed prequel fans to Arrakeen even though that forum's overwhelming view was that the nuDune books were crap. In my view it was an opportunity to persuade them to try FH's books and teach them to think logically about the infamous claims of the Holy Notes That Frank Left (that as the years go by I have more and more doubts that they ever existed as anything but normal story notes that any author would keep, rather than some trove that keeps expanding and shrinking, depending on what spin KJA wants to put on it that day). He then left off for some years until some weeks ago when he found me on a YT Dune channel and started up again.
But regardless of what one or two people (those who were among the worst offenders) did, that is still NO excuse to tar an entire fandom with a derogatory term for the offenses of a few. It's not a crime to not like someone's books.
Yep.
Authors who are rude to me for reasons of their own ego (they couldn't stand me saying I didn't like what they wrote, even though I wasn't nasty about it) get banned from my bookshelves. Why should I pay $$$ to someone who calls me names or makes an arrogant demand to know my "credentials" that would give me the "right" to criticize their writing?
As I said to the one who asked me that, the only "credentials" I will ever need to express a negative opinion of anyone's writing is that I am a reader. As in someone they want to give them money so I can read what they write. Someone they hope will spread the word and recommend their books to other people.
Insulting a reader is an odd way to persuade them that $$$ and a recommendation should be the reader's response. Authors who insult me get no $$$ and a recommendation for people to avoid buying their books.
I agree.
No.
Toxic behavior is wrong regardless of who's engaging in it.
Not that I know of, but his pal Karen Traviss used the term for her own detractors.
I have never heard of her. What does she write?
EDIT: It's okay; I just looked her up on Amazon. I take it people don't care for her Star Wars books any more than they do his?
Depends greatly on the person and the book.
But she feels free to insult people who have read them and don't like them? For that reason alone, she has locked herself out from ever selling anything to me.
From what I've heard over the years, I think it mostly had something to do with her novels having some weird axe to grind about how she thought Jedi were dumb and Space-Viking-Spartans-Mando were the best thing ever, and their dad could totally beat up the Jedi's dad. That's about the tone I get from what little I've read, anyway.
Personally, I fell off reading EU books after Vector Prime, so I missed that whole thing.
Yeah, I haven't read her stuff either, but that pretty much sums it up. Her books seem to be kind of a love hate thing, I've seen a lot of people who seemed to think they were one of the best parts of the franchise, and others who hated them. I also read that she got really really pissed when they brought the Mandalorians onto Clone Wars, and they were totally different from the versions she wrote in her books.
She should take a leaf from Diane Duane, who wrote about the Romulan culture in her Rihannsu novels many years before TNG and the other modern shows made them into militaristic Vulcans with all-identical hairstyles, goofy foreheads, and an incredibly bad fashion sense.
The TV shows completely upended everything Duane wrote in her excellent novels, changing a fascinating people whose separation from their Vulcan ancestors was explained and turned them into cookie-cutter boredom. Yet Duane never stomped around, calling people names if they didn't like her novels.
(I suppose there are some who don't like her books - shame if true, as they're very good; she's one of the best of the '80s Trek tie-in novelists)
I gave up on Star Wars a long time ago. I found the prequel trilogy more boring than watching paint dry, and of the last set of movies, I gave up when Han was killed off. He was my favorite character, so after his demise, I never had a reason to watch further. I gave up even earlier on the novels. I've got the movie adaptations, ADF's novel, and the Han Solo and Lando Calrissian books. I read the Mos Eisley cantina anthology... and that's it.
But to bring it back to Dune... in one of my many forays into fanfiction, I found a Star Trek/Dune crossover that has a different crew accidentally crossing over and time traveling to the vicinity of Caladan, shortly before the Atreides leave for Arrakis.
Was the Guild ever pissed off when a warp-capable starship showed up...
Fans and authors could learn from this. I never understood only wanting one interpretation of a fictional work. Diane's Romulans sounds interesting and appealing to me as a TOS Romulan fan. But TNG was fine too, as aliens go on that series.
As for Dune, the original was fine for me. Any further novels felt after the fact.
I just have to say, I love Karen Traviss' Star Wars books, her Republic Commando books are literally my favorite SW books ever, and would rank highly on my favorite books of all time. People don't like that her books didn't worship the Jedi, and that she had a much different (and in my opinion much better) version of the Mandalorians then Lucas or Filoni did.
That said, she might be a jerk when it comes to interacting with people, I don't know anything about that and wouldn't condone stuff like that if its true, I'm just someone who really liked her SW books but never really followed her as an author outside of them
As for Dune and KJA, I maintain that Paul of Dune/Winds of Dune were legitimately good books. I also thought that the House series of books were pretty decent, and that the main series followup books (Hunters of Dune and Sandworms of Dune) were flawed but vastly superior to Frank Herbert's last two Dune books (Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse Dune, which range from stupid to disgusting and are overall awful). Of course, again, I can't speak to KJA as a person, just to my thoughts on the quality of his work that I've read.
It's safe to say that most authors that write for existing franchises know the score, know they're playing with someone else's toys and have no ownership of what they invent.
I think it's understandable for fans to be a little passionate about stories they enjoy, and it's not that unreasonable to find some validation if it gets referenced or included in some other media . . . to a point, of course.
I think what's less forgivable is supposedly professional writers bickering with fans in public. Just from a career perspective, it's not a good look, and probably an excellent way to not get hired in the future.
What I don't forgive is KJA/BH's attempts to de-canonize FH's work. Writing a scene in Paul of Dune that dismisses Dune as nothing more than in-universe political/religious propaganda Irulan wrote at Paul's orders and that only the KJA/BH version (ie. the Houses trilogy) is correct is a slap in the face to the older fans and spitting on Frank Herbert himself. You cannot convince me that anything they wrote was part of The Holy Notes That Frank Left. Trying to erase some of the established facts about the main characters and changing the basics about the Bene Gesserit are NOT okay with quite a few fans. And then going on to insult said fans when we made our views known... and KJA wonders why some the fans dislike him so much?
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