Dune

[Jackolsman]

Dune is by far my favorite book now, and I look forward to continuing with the other books soon.

[Ice fyre]

To some degree I agree with you all (some feat I know)

Dune, I agree with a friend of mine, really isnt filmable but the David Lynch version I feel is a fairly good stab at it. The film changes a lot of things but as quoted earlier they had to think of the bladder rule! Also quite a few things wouldnt have worked. The mini series stuck fairly much to the book as I recall (havn't really seen it in a while) but the casting and costumes were not to my taste at all.

On a slightly different note I have read the first prequel in the dune series and the first in the Butlerian Jihad trilogy and didnt really enjoy them. I was put off as it bears no relation to the Dune encycolpedia I've got. This book puts forward the theroy that the imperial family are in fact Sardurkar themselves among other ideas that I quite liked! Right or wrong I love the work done in it.

Oh well toodles and hope to see you all soon.

[The Wanderer]

Dune is a phenomenal work, unfortunately, most science Fiction/Fantasy work these days pales in comparison - but in the 60's great writers were standing on the shoulders of giants rather than dwarfs standing on Gnomes like the 00's

[Tickle]

Originally Posted by purple_kathryn

What do people think of the Brain Herbet & Kevin J Anderson prequels? I enjoy Kevin J Andersons writing and i've been tempted by the books.

I've read ALL of the Dune books and seen both the movie and mini series. I liked Brian's and Kevin's prequels. I thought it gave very good background information and did a good job of showing how it all began. I liked the Butlerian Jihad, Machine Crusade and Battle of Corrin. I think a lot of people didn't like those because it wasn't the same world we were used to. Even the House books still centered around worlds that were familar to us from Frank's books, but the others were centuries before and on different planets and with a different culture, but it was still good imo.

I would definetly recommend them.

I also thought Hunters of Dune was pretty good. I have to read the next books, but it whet my appetite after waiting so long after Chapterhouse to see what happened to Duncan and them.

[Alia of The Knife]

I enjoyed the mini-series I think it explained more and was very close to the books. As for the casting I thought Baron Harkonen was near perfect, but the rest were not a patch on the original film cast. In the mini-series I thought the man who played Gurny Hallek was wooden,he was no were near as good as Patrick Stewart, it would have beeb better if they had kept the original cast. Only problem is Kyle Mclachlen who played Paul is about 45 so Idont think he would pass for a 15 year old

[dekket]

I enjoyed all the Dune books, including the Prequels and Sequels by Brain Herbet & Kevin J Anderson. However the style of Brian and Kevin is very different to that of Frank Herbert, and a lot of people I have spoken to don't like the change in style.

But I believe that they did a good job, especially in Hunters of Dune and Sandworms of Dune, where they have used Frank's notes to finish of the Dune Saga (completing the story that had been left unfinished) while voicing it in their own unique style (which is a much better alternative to trying to write the novels while trying to mimick the original Dune style).

[iansales]

I don't doubt the existence of the notes KJA/BH used to complete "Dune 7", but I find it hard to believe Frank Herbert intended to introduce such daft concepts as brains in jars, Omnius and the magical Oracle of Time. It's certainly not clear from the ending of Chapterhouse Dune that Daniel and Marty are thinking machines - if anything, the series up to that point suggests they're super Face Dancers.

[Tickle]

Originally Posted by iansales

I don't doubt the existence of the notes KJA/BH used to complete "Dune 7", but I find it hard to believe Frank Herbert intended to introduce such daft concepts as brains in jars, Omnius and the magical Oracle of Time. It's certainly not clear from the ending of Chapterhouse Dune that Daniel and Marty are thinking machines - if anything, the series up to that point suggests they're super Face Dancers.

Why can't the thinking machines masquerade as super Face Dancers. They certainly have the technology to do it (based on the Titans and everything in the prequels), so why not.

[iansales]

Frank Herbert didn't write the prequels. So it's unlikely he was intending to reveal Daniel and Marty as thinking machine pretending to be super Face Dancers. Which makes no sense anyway. Why would so-called thinking machines even want to masquerade as Face Dancers? As far as I can tell - and I'm not alone in thinking this - the thinking machines as they exists in the prequels are entirely BH & KJA's invention. FH's notes are unlikely to describe some sort of supercomputer spread across thousands of worlds, or a group of cyborgs who enslaved humanity. FH wrote a book about personal computing - Without Me You're Nothing - so you knew something about the subject.

[Tickle]

IMO - That really doesn't mean anything. No one knows what FH told BH over the years. Everyone is focused on what the notes FH left behind stated. But FH and BH could have discussed everything about the Dune universe from where all these people came from to what type of toothbrushes they used. If FH was my father and I read his story, I would have hounded him for all details (as I'm sure most of us would). Especially things/ideas that he discarded. None of us Dune fans knows if any of the plot lines in the prequels originated with FH. We only know what BH and the Herbert family tell us, or what FH decided to go into detail about in his other works. I just think that even though BH and KA's style is different from FH doesn't mean the ideas didn't start with FH and if you like the Dune Saga, then enjoy it for what it is and stop comparing son to father (they are different people).

(Quote from Iansales - "Frank Herbert didn't write the prequels. So it's unlikely he was intending to reveal Daniel and Marty as thinking machine pretending to be super Face Dancers. Which makes no sense anyway.")

And also as to the above statement - Again, I say why not? Why doesn't it make sense. If the machines had contact with the woman who became Honored Matres (I believe they were a combination of Bene Gesserit and Fish Wives???) then they would have known/found out about humans as they were then and would have heard of the face dancers and their abilities and adapted their plans to take advantage of that, and what better way then to disquise yourself as humans known for disguising themselves. Makes sense if you think of it that way.
At the end of Chapterhouse, we had no clue as to what the huge threat the Honored Matres were fleeing and no clue as to who the people with the net were. They could have been flying monkeys for all we new. Them being machines with a human skeletons or whatever, isn't that far fetched for this universe (machines being the evil/bad/sinister? thing that started the way of life and skills for this civilization) and that they are connected to the reason for the flight/fear of the Honored Matres.

I wonder if the prequels were never made, but Dune 7 came out as is, if people would still think that it couldn't all have come from FH's notes or if they would just say, "WoW!!! I didn't see that coming???"mmmmmm......I wonder.

[iansales]

Originally Posted by Tickle

...if you like the Dune Saga, then enjoy it for what it is and stop comparing son to father (they are different people).

Comparisons are inevitable. It's (allegedly) the same series of books. The same story, even. And it shows a marked drop in quality between those written by FH and those written by BH/KJA.

Originally Posted by Tickle

At the end of Chapterhouse, we had no clue as to what the huge threat the Honored Matres were fleeing and no clue as to who the people with the net were.

The thinking machines as introduced by BH/KJA did not fit in with the hints of the Imperium's history as given in the novels by FH. And if you read any of FH's other sf, you'll see he was not so unsophisticated as to introduce brains in jars. That's straight from bad 1950s B-movie sf, and that's not what FH wrote.

But this is an old argument. I don't doubt the existence of the Dune 7 notes. I don't doubt that BH/KJA used them in writing the two Dune 7 novels. But I think a lot of it was also their invention and not what FH would have done. I also think the two Dune 7 books are appallingly written.

[Alia of The Knife]

Sorry to sound picky Tickle, but they were called Fish Speakers, not Fish Wives. I agree with you the new books are good, they are not the same as the originals, but as said the auothers are different people with different writing styles.

[Tickle]

Originally Posted by iansales

And if you read any of FH's other sf, you'll see he was not so unsophisticated as to introduce brains in jars.

What other SF by FH should I read? I haven't been to the book store in a while. Got any suggestions?


Thanks, Alia of the Knife, I couldn't really remember what came after the Fish part and I didn't have my God Emperor handy.

[iansales]

Let's see...

The Dragon in the Sea - set aboard a submarine during a future war; excellent psychological suspense novel.
The Green Brain - insect intelligence in the South American jungle; I like this one, and I think it's a better-written novel than Dune.
The Eyes of Heisenberg - genetic-engineering in a totalitarian future; one of his weaker efforts.
The Heaven Makers - aliens in flying saucers watch small town American for entertainment; again, not one of his best.
The Santaroga Barrier - strange goings-on in a small town in California; another one of my favourites - an interesting premise, well-handled.
Whipping Star and The Dosadi Experiment - inventive space opera, although slightly over-complicated in parts
The Godmakers - fix-up novel about a man who becomes a god; some good ideas, but the whole isn't greater than the sum of its parts.
Hellstrom's Hive - social experiment with humans in a hive society; another good one.
Destination: Void, The Jesus Incident, The Lazarus Effect and The Ascension Factor (the last three with Bill Ransom) - lost starship colonises a planet, and the ship's AI declares itself God; it's been a while since I read these, but I remember them as about on a par with later books of the Dune series.
The White Plague - big fat techno-thriller, probably best avoided unless you like big fat techno-thrillers.

And, of course, there are several collections of his short fiction, of which Eye is probably the best.

[j. d. worthington]

Good list of suggestions there, Ian. I'll add a related piece of material, if you can lay your hands on it -- the inspiration for Hellstrom's Hive, a video titled The Hellstrom Chronicle (1971). I understand it has been released on DVD and may still be available.

Incidentally, here's a page of quotes from the film (which is handled as a documentary hosted and narrated by Nils Hellstrom):

The Hellstrom Chronicle (1971) - Memorable quotes