Dune - The Book and the 1984 film *spoilers for both*
- Thread starter Aldo
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What did you think of the twins' being only 9 years old and trying to handle all the stuff thrown at them?
Oh, and you should also tackle the Dune Encyclopedia (Frank Herbert approved of it, even though it only covers the first 4 books and FH's later novels contradicted parts of it).
And then there's the parody National Lampoon's Doon - it's written in the style of Dune, and is hilarious!
It was 3000 years between the end of Children of Dune and God Emperor of Dune. Therefore Leto existed as the Tyrant for slightly over 3000 years.
Then it's another 1500 years between that and Heretics of Dune.
Considering they were both pre-born, and we already saw how that affects a child with Alia in 'Dune.' I had no issue with it, it made them really interesting characters, actually. There was one hiccup I had, occasionally I would slip into picturing James McAvoy as Leto II since he does portray him in the mini, but since in the book he's nine, I quickly got back to picturing a nine year old
After I finish the six main books I may give it a read. I also intend to delve into the prequel novels...despite everyone warning me against them
I hadn't intended to give that one a look, but I just may if it's as funny as you say it is.
The antics of Pall-Mauve'Bib and Revved-Up Mother Jazzica will definitely amuse you. 
In my Dune reread, I finished rereading Children of Dune (this is probablt atleast my 5 time). Its actually a bit of a harder read than I remember. Thats probably because I've read it enough times that I want to get on to God Emperor, which I've only read once, so I've just wanted to get through it. Its a good book, although its my least favorite of what I think of as the three main Dune books (Dune, Messiah, and Children of Dune) and thats probably why I've taken so long in reading it (I'm a fast reader, but I put reading this on hold to read the newest Star Trek book, which is why it took longer than normal for me to finish).
The TV mini series (the sequel to the mini of the Dune which combined Messiah and CoD and had most of the same cast, exceopt Jessica's actor was replaced by the borg queen from First Contact) is actually my favorite way to experience CoD. The Dune mini was great, and this one was just as good if not better. Even though its very loyal to the book, it doesn't have some of the annoyances of the book, plus Leto and Ghani are teenagers played by adult actors, which I honestly like better than the really young versions in the book. Also, the guy who plays Leto is the same good actor that plays Professor X in X-Men First Class, which is cool.
The book left me with the same questions it always does, mostly about why the hell Jessica did everything in her power to seemingly try to turn Leto into an abomination, but its not enough to ruin my enjoyment of the book. It went overboard with the parts of the first books I thought wasn't done well, like all of the poorly explained vision stuff. It also starts talking about (and never really explaining) the stupid "Golden Path" that turns out to be absolutely pointless in the end, and stuff like that is why its my least favorite of the first three books. But, it still has a lot to enjoy and isn't a bad book by any means, its just not as good as Dune and Dune Messiah.
Next up is God Emperor. I read it once a long time ago, so it will be interesting to see how it is on a second read, this time while I've been reading most of the series in a short period of time. I'm just going to say that, from what I remember, this will probably still be the weakest of the main Dune books, but I remember liking it. I don't remember if its heavier or lighter on stupid vision stuff and the "golden path" than CoD, although I'm not holding my breath for it being lighter.
The TV mini series (the sequel to the mini of the Dune which combined Messiah and CoD and had most of the same cast, exceopt Jessica's actor was replaced by the borg queen from First Contact) is actually my favorite way to experience CoD. The Dune mini was great, and this one was just as good if not better. Even though its very loyal to the book, it doesn't have some of the annoyances of the book, plus Leto and Ghani are teenagers played by adult actors, which I honestly like better than the really young versions in the book. Also, the guy who plays Leto is the same good actor that plays Professor X in X-Men First Class, which is cool.
The book left me with the same questions it always does, mostly about why the hell Jessica did everything in her power to seemingly try to turn Leto into an abomination, but its not enough to ruin my enjoyment of the book. It went overboard with the parts of the first books I thought wasn't done well, like all of the poorly explained vision stuff. It also starts talking about (and never really explaining) the stupid "Golden Path" that turns out to be absolutely pointless in the end, and stuff like that is why its my least favorite of the first three books. But, it still has a lot to enjoy and isn't a bad book by any means, its just not as good as Dune and Dune Messiah.
Next up is God Emperor. I read it once a long time ago, so it will be interesting to see how it is on a second read, this time while I've been reading most of the series in a short period of time. I'm just going to say that, from what I remember, this will probably still be the weakest of the main Dune books, but I remember liking it. I don't remember if its heavier or lighter on stupid vision stuff and the "golden path" than CoD, although I'm not holding my breath for it being lighter.
*sigh* Jessica wasn't trying to turn Leto into an Abomination. She wanted him tested to see if that's what he was. Because he had Pre-Born memories of the gom jabbar test Paul went through, it was pointless to test his humanity that way. The method they used in the book was the only way they could figure out how to do it.
God Emperor of Dune is simultaneously one of the most complex - and most boring - books I've ever read. It's taken me over a dozen re-reads to even begin to understand it, and that's with the help of people who have done a deeper study of it than I have. I'd tell you where to contact them if you're interested in this, but I warn you - they HATE people who like KJA/BH's crap.
It's not "light" reading, by anyone's standards.
I don't find God Emperior's story to be that difficult, and thats the most important part. I tend to just glance over the boring philosophy stuff and everything involving visions/the golden path in the books after Messiah, and I definately remember the books after GE not being so full of that stuff, so I'm fairly sure my opinion of GE won't change. It has a decent story thats not as good as the first three books, combined with probably the stupidest looking tyrant/villain I've read in a sci fi book (Leto shpuld have just stayed as a human in a living suit, whenever I imagine him as a giant worm with tiny arms and a human face I just find it funny, and not very threatening). I call him the villain because he's the biggest evil in the series up to that point (although you could arguably call Paul Atredies the most evil character, but I'm sure Leto beat Paul's kill count early in his reign). The villains of Heretics of Dune and the other later books were worse, but Leto is the probably the worst villain in the history of Dune's universe up to that point outside of the Thinking machines.
If that's what works for you, great.So you mean my preferred method of reading it while watching tv and also surfing the net is not a good idea?
I read about forty pages of 'God Emperor' last night and really found it to be off to an enjoyable start.
By ignoring the "philosophy stuff", you're missing out on a huge part of the story. Leto II as the Tyrant is a repository for millions of humans' memories, from uneducated ditch-diggers to scholars, rulers, and all kinds of others. It gives him a philosophical perspective that no other person in the history of the human race has ever experienced.
I won't disagree about his being a villain, though. I found Leto II thoroughly unlikeable even in his baby character at the end of Dune Messiah, and he only gets worse.
Well it's true if you read KJA/BH's magnum opus, the Golden Path doesn't really protect humanity from the scourge of the rejuvenated machines that survive the Butlerian Jihad. Of course they miss the entire point of where Herbert was developing both Heretics and Chapterhouse towards, it wasn't just about the enemies from the scattering, but rather the maturation of humanity that both Leto and the BG had worked towards. It's just Herbert died before we got the sequels further developing that thread.
If that's what works for you, great.So you mean my preferred method of reading it while watching tv and also surfing the net is not a good idea?
I read about forty pages of 'God Emperor' last night and really found it to be off to an enjoyable start.
That was meant to be a joke actually, I almost put "J/K" but thought that would be too on the nose. No, when I read I actually sit in a (very) quiet room so I can soak in everything I am reading. And with Herbert there are a few times I may have to reread a paragraph, or stop and put the book down just to contemplate what I read.
In other news, while I was out today getting my comics I figured I'd stop off by the bookstore and pick up Heretics. So now I have all six books
School is fast approaching so I'm not sure if I'll be able to get to them once school starts, but at least I will have "God Emperor" read by then.
I liked their ending, and it was nice to not have a lot of the stupider stuff from Frank Herbert's stuff muddle up their books. The Golden Path was just not a good idea, having it be completely pointless is a good thing in my opinion. You could take it to show how people who "see the future" are, in the end, not only not perfect, but can even be very, very wrong. Then again, you could also say that, while Leto was wrong in his interpretation of the future, his actions did eventually lead to Duncan "evolving" and doing what he did in the end, so his "golden path" did save humanity, just not the way he thought it would.
I do have to say, while I still think Dune and Dune Messiah are the best books in the series, I like BH/KJA's writing style more than Frank Herbert's style. There is more story, and I don't have to spend time reading pages of stuff that doesn't move the plot or characters forward at all and seems to just be there for page count, like basically every word of Leto at Jacarutu. There was seriously probably only enough plot to fill one or two pages, but its filled out with a bunch of vision stuff that I really couldn't care less about and was just annoying to read. To me its the one big flaw in Frank Herbert's Dune books, how he liked to just shut down the actual plot to go on tangents with the characters talking about visions/philosophy that went nowhere and were almost never explained well. I don't care if Leto sees a future where he's sleeping with a random fremen woman or what his justification is for becoming the stupidest looking tyrant in sci fi, just get to him escaping and actually becoming the worm, please. Jessica/Farad'n's talks were also half gibberish.
I do like CoD, even if it doesn't seem like it. But, when it gets off course with the plot, it really degenerates in a way Dune and Messiah never did. You could probably cut 20-40 pages of stuff from CoD and improve it a lot. Cut down the Jacarutu stuff (actually, you could probably cut down a lot of Leto's stuff from the time he "died" to the time he returned, it had important stuff but it also had a lot of pointless stuff that isn't essential), cut all of the philosophy stuff between Jessica and farad'n (just leave a bit about his training because besides that most of their talks are the most gibberish of anything in the book, especially his "graduation"), and some of The Preacher's speechs (although to be fair his stuff was somewhat straightforward, or atleast not boring) and I think the book would work better.
I do have to say, while I still think Dune and Dune Messiah are the best books in the series, I like BH/KJA's writing style more than Frank Herbert's style. There is more story, and I don't have to spend time reading pages of stuff that doesn't move the plot or characters forward at all and seems to just be there for page count, like basically every word of Leto at Jacarutu. There was seriously probably only enough plot to fill one or two pages, but its filled out with a bunch of vision stuff that I really couldn't care less about and was just annoying to read. To me its the one big flaw in Frank Herbert's Dune books, how he liked to just shut down the actual plot to go on tangents with the characters talking about visions/philosophy that went nowhere and were almost never explained well. I don't care if Leto sees a future where he's sleeping with a random fremen woman or what his justification is for becoming the stupidest looking tyrant in sci fi, just get to him escaping and actually becoming the worm, please. Jessica/Farad'n's talks were also half gibberish.
I do like CoD, even if it doesn't seem like it. But, when it gets off course with the plot, it really degenerates in a way Dune and Messiah never did. You could probably cut 20-40 pages of stuff from CoD and improve it a lot. Cut down the Jacarutu stuff (actually, you could probably cut down a lot of Leto's stuff from the time he "died" to the time he returned, it had important stuff but it also had a lot of pointless stuff that isn't essential), cut all of the philosophy stuff between Jessica and farad'n (just leave a bit about his training because besides that most of their talks are the most gibberish of anything in the book, especially his "graduation"), and some of The Preacher's speechs (although to be fair his stuff was somewhat straightforward, or atleast not boring) and I think the book would work better.
I'll just have to say I disagree with you completely on that count. What I find most interesting about these books is going into the characters heads and learning about prescience and how certain characters deal with it.
Take that away and all you're left with is adventure novels, which seems to me what you'd wish they were, which is fine, there's nothing like a good adventure yarn. In fact that's why I was (at first) a little disappointed with 'Dune' because I was expecting more adventure, but as I've come around to FH writing, I've enjoyed the pseudo-religious sides to his stories much more.
Take that away and all you're left with is adventure novels, which seems to me what you'd wish they were, which is fine, there's nothing like a good adventure yarn. In fact that's why I was (at first) a little disappointed with 'Dune' because I was expecting more adventure, but as I've come around to FH writing, I've enjoyed the pseudo-religious sides to his stories much more.
I am beginning to suspect that kirk55555 is actually Brian Herbert...
Or one of the many "prequelites" (the polite form of that term; there is a much more rude form which I won't use here) who infest the Dunenovels forum and drive the Orthodox Herbertarians away for lack of intelligent conversation.
Kirk55555, how do you square Frank Herbert's assertion in Dune that Paul was born on Caladan with KJA/BH's nonsense that he was born on Kaitain? That was the first major bit of retconning that infuriated a lot of Dune readers. But unfortunately, it wasn't the last.
I just accept what they say in their books, that some of the stuff that doesn't add up (like Paul being born on Caladan, and never elaving Caladan before going to Dune) was all a mistake by Irulan when she was acting as historian. Sure, some of that is mentioned in sections that weren't related to Irulan's writings (I think his never having left Caladan was mentioned in dialog in Dune) but I can deal with retcons like that, especially when they're interesting and written well. Yes, there are a few things that don't quite fit, but its not like they contradict really important stuff, and most of them aren't ignored, even if you don't like the explanation. I like almost all of the additions of the House books (and Winds/Paul of Dune) so even the few rough spots of continuity with the old books are ok with me.
Also, just because people seem to not like it, even when I read the books for the first time (years before I heard aboput the BH/KJA books) I always thought the Butlerian Jihad was against evil AI, that always seemed to me to be what Frank Herbert was talking about, and I'd bet that was definately in the notes BH/KJA used to finish the series. Of all the complaints against them, I can usually kind of understand (even if I don't agree) with the complaints. But, the complaints about the thinking machines just never made sense to me, it seemed to be exactly what the older books were talking about. Even if BH/KJA basically made the golden path pointless, which might have been a bit different than if FH had finished the series, the thinking machines were exactly what I thought they'd be since I first read Dune.
FFS!
Saying that the events of Dune - you know, Frank Herbert's original novel - were all just propaganda written in-universe by Irulan - is so much BULLSHIT. It's spitting on Frank Herbert's legacy.
Paul was born on Caladan. He never left Caladan until the crossing to Arrakis. It says that in Dune. Therefore, anything else is BS and has as much validity as fanfic.
Now I suppose you're going to tell me that the meeting place to hammer out the Orange Catholic Bible was on a space station somewhere, instead of on Hawaii on Old Earth...
Mate, I'd quit while you're ahead. You'd have better luck trying to persuade the north face of Everest that it's a ballerina named Bernard the Effulgent than trying to reason out kirk55555's personal preferences.
Many have tried.
"They tried and failed?"
They tried and gave up.
Many have tried.
"They tried and failed?"
They tried and gave up.
Oh, I know that fanatical prequelites are immune to logic, or even the notion that it's disrespectful to dismiss a Hugo and Nebula award-winner's legacy as "in-universe propaganda."
I keep having a forlorn hope that these people can be taught to reason, instead of merely going for the lowest common denominator.
I keep having a forlorn hope that these people can be taught to reason, instead of merely going for the lowest common denominator.
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