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Anyway, has anyone read the novels Dune, by Frank Herbert?

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Can't say that I cared much for the books though the story was great. Just too many strange concepts I guess. One prequel was printed in part in a magazine. The one where Duncan Idaho was a child being hunted for sport by some perverted freak probably a Harkonen. Not bad, he kicked booty and fled, tough kid.

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That would be The Beast Rabban (beefy red-headed bloke, homicidal maniac, can't miss him.)

For me the biggest let down in the prequels was the origin story for Gurney, I was expecting Leto to actually go and rescue him from the slave pits, not have him stow away with the Duke's new blue wall. It was a little weak.

For those of you who dislike the freaky weird type of Sci-Fi that the original Dune was, there are parts in the later books which are very much the 'classic' idea of what a Sci-Fi world should be.
Robots, space battles, high-tech troops, cloaking devices that sort of thing.
 

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Posted by Mountain Man (Member # 1114) on :
 
You know I may still have those books around here somewhere. Was the part about the Robot wars that they skimmed over at the first of the old movie ever fleshed out any where. I don't remember any details about it if it was.
 

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Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
 
The Butlerian Jihad.

Robot wars, indeed.

And everything there is to know about it can be found in the appendices in the back of Dune.
 

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Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
 
Unless you actually like the prequels, in which case I'd take a look for information about the Butlerian Jihad in the book entitled -- wait for it -- "The Butlerian Jihad".

--Jonah
 

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Posted by knivesout (Member # 1118) on :
 
I'm a little surprised that a lot of people don't like the Dune novles simply for the reason that they don't conform to a certain paradigm of SF - the typical space opera, I guess, in this case. Actually, even that is fair enough, but what really baffled me is that some people find the stories too odd and bizarre???!!!!

Hello, if we wanted normal, mundane stuff, would we even be reading SF???

Just a thought. And I am aware that we are all entitled to differ.
 

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Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
 
What I always liked about the later "Dune" novels was the sheer scope of them. Sure, Asimov's novels covered a similar time span (when you treat the Daneel stories and the Foundation series as a single arc), but "God-Emperor of Dune" and the later stories dealt with the concepts of evolution itself -- biological, cultural, political evolution -- very compelling subjects!
 

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Posted by Mountain Man (Member # 1114) on :
 
Well don't remember much about the books. Guess that all the stuff kind of ran together after a while. So the humanoid robots that ran things for a while are mentioned in the first book but not as a real story thought I might read the books again but what the hey, if they don't give any real answers not worth the trouble. Too wordy for me. Guess I'll stick to short stories.
 

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Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
 
Nothing is said about "humanoid robots running things." The Butlerian Jihad occured over ten thousand years before the events of the novel. It isn't exactly something people spend huge amounts of time in their daily lives worrying about. (Except for the religious, I guess.)

I'm not sure what you mean by "real answers." Dune is about a power struggle within a very byzantine interstellar society, and by the end of the book this struggle is very neatly resolved. Everything else is background material. Essential in many cases to the plot, but not what the story is about, and thus no time is wasted standing around making it explicit. Who won WWI and how is very important to the events in your average Tom Clancy novel (set as they are in more or less contemporary geopolitical situations, or so I am led to understand), but I can't imagine he devotes much time to the battle of Tannenberg during a book about submarines chasing each other, say.

On the other hand, maybe he does.
 

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Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
 
That would have the Jihad take place around the first century A.D. Try about four thousand years before Dune.

--Jonah
 

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Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
 
Extreme nerd knowledge: The events of Dune take place around the year 10,191. (That's the year Leto is killed and Alia born.) Their calendar explicitly begins with the creation of the Spacing Guild monopoly, (dates prior to this are labeled B.G., for Before Guild; for instance, the Butlerian Jihad itself, which took place between 201 B.G. and 108 B.G.) which came about in the wake of the Jihad. Thus, ten thousand plus years.

I don't think this is ever really spelled out in the novels, but the (intentionally untrustworthy in some areas) Dune Encyclopedia suggests that the Butlerian Jihad itself occured somewhere around 10,000 CE, placing the events of Dune some twenty thousand years in the future.
 

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Posted by kmart (Member # 1092) on :
 
Tried to read DUNE as a kid, but got bored with it about 25 pages in.

Tried again ten years later right before the movie came out, and I liked it so much (got into it by skipping the first 140 pages and reading a big dining room scene, then went back and read the earlier part)that I read all of the novels before the film appeared in theaters. Favorite stuff in the book wasn't in the film (like the other guy who could have been 'the one.')

Didn't think much of #2 or #3, but the whole 'beauty & the beast' aspect of GOD EMPEROR worked well IMO. I know I'm in the minority with that view.

Didn't like the ones that came later at all, except for the idea of the chairdogs.

Even with all its technical and storytelling flaws, I like the film version a lot. Found the miniseries to be seriously flawed with its stylization, like watching GREEN ACRES IN SPACE.
 

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Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
 
For me, "Messiah" and "Children" were the most entertaining of the sequels.
I remember getting close to finishing "Children of Dune", thinking that the events here probably will have repercussions.
Started on "God Emperor". Hmm, repercussions, kind of an understatement. :-)
The last two books were very eventful. When finishing the last one, reading the addendum about Frank's wife dying and Frank's own obituary, that was tough.

The prequels felt like imitations, almost fan fiction, in a way.

And now, "Dune 7" is in the works.

I hope and pray that Frank Herbert left enough notes and instructions to form a solid core of a book, so that Brian's and Kevin's own, clever ideas will have minor consequences.

I'll buy it in any case, of course... *sigh*
 

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Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
 
My mom bugged me for years to start reading the "Dune" series... I didn't start it until this past January, after I finished rushing through "The Lord of the Rings" in time to see the second installment.

To an inattentive reader, the original "Dune" is almost completely unlike any of the other novels succeeding it -- it's much more adventurous, taking place in large part outside the halls of power, away from any place that a sane person might consider important. And yet, going back to read it a second time, even there you can see Frank Herbert laying the foundation of this awesome story of unthinkably monumental consequences stemming from a few seemingly-unimportant decisions.

Y'know, in that way, it has more to do with evolution that I thought. Consider that the current theory is based around random mutations that are gradually spread and become commonplace. The changes might seem totally unnecessary at first, or even detrimental -- but in the end they pave the way for something that was completely unthinkable before.

After I finished reading "Chapterhouse," I spent about two hours talking that oh-so-bizarre ending over with my mom. She'd read the book back when it first came out, and had been confused by it ever since. I've never had too much of a handle on it either, but here's what I think:

(Oh, there're probably SPOILERS ahead. )

As soon as I read it, I thought it was pretty obvious that those two people were supposed to be those "new" Face Dancers that had been sent out by the Bene Tleilax. The one guy's wish to have met a Master made that seem clear, plus the reference to developing minds and personalities of their own (which the original Face Dancers couldn't do).

I'm not so sure if those Mysterious Individuals were supposed to be the force that was attacking the Honored Matres, though. I always got the impression that the threat menacing the HM's were aliens of some sort, or else some group of Humans that were even further removed from the tree than the HM's. (Perhaps a group that fled the Butlerian Jihad? Or even a new generation of thinking machines of some sort?)

However, we also know that the group attacking the HM's also created those beast-humans (I forget what they were called at the moment). Genetic engineering and manipulation is definitely the trademark of the Tleilaxu... and the Face Dancers are another result of genetic engineering. That may not be a coincidence.

Of course, there's also the Mysterious Individual's rather dismissive attitude towards gholas ("He's welcome to them..."). Based on the previous assumption that those beast-humans were genetically engineered, this seems contradictory. Or could it be the evolved Face Dancers considered the use of gholas to be an evolutionary dead end? Ah! That would make perfect sense, considering that gholas are basically clones, which will effectively stop evolutionary changes dead in their tracks!

Also, making that menace of the Phantom Menace (pardon the pun) attacking the Honored Matres would create a very interesting parallel, considering how the Bene Gesserit and the Bene Tleilax were constantly at odds over the millennia. If the Honored Matres were the outgrowth (or perversion) of the Bene Gesserit, then it might make sense that the Mysterious Menace (that better?) is an outgrowth of the Tleilaxu.

One very interesting thing about those Mysterious Individuals (who may or may not be of the Mysterious Menace), is that one of them was female. There were never any Tleilaxu females -- just those disgusting Tleilaxu axlotl tanks. So one could take that difference either (1) as evidence that there's no connection between the MI's and the Tleilaxu, or (2) as evidence that they're definitely an evolution of the Face Dancers and the Tleilaxu. (Heh, doesn't prove anything either way, though...)

Looking back at my incredibly long post, it occurrs to me that "Chapterhouse: Dune" could probably be one of the most successful works of fiction in recent history -- simply because it's provoked so much thought and discussion about its meaning and its intent. In a way, it's actually good that Frank Herbert never wrote "Dune 7"... although if he intended to write it, I'm still very eager to know what he had in mind!

I could go on about this all night, but I've got other stuff to work on, too...
 

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Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
 

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Favorite stuff in the book wasn't in the film (like the other guy who could have been 'the one.')

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Fenring, he was one of my favourite characters too. It's a pity that he's been somewhat neglected in the two live action adaptations, being totally absent in Lynch's movie (which I love, wierding modules aside) and reduced to little more than an extra in the Mini-series (which I like, painted backgrounds aside).

Regarding the mini-series, I really like the second one, 'Children of Dune' an improvement in every way in my opinion.
Some better actors in the recast parts and some better acting by the returning players, especially in the case of The Preacher and Gurney.
The absence of the huge 'Fifth Element' style hats and the aforementioned backgrounds also helped. As for the CG effects, the city was simply amazing for such a relatively low budget and the shots were well executed, the stone burner didn't disappoint, the worm capture scene again excellent considering the money constraints and the non-flapping ornithopters are starting to grow on me.
The only real complaint I have is with the scene with Alia's duel with the training discs; she's supposed to take her clothes off before the duel, not after damnit!!!

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I hope and pray that Frank Herbert left enough notes and instructions to form a solid core of a book, so that Brian's and Kevin's own, clever ideas will have minor consequences.

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I think you'll find that they have already picked the Dune 7 notes clean when writing the prequels, with their so called "subtle hints and clues", to such an extent that they've spoiled some of the surprises.
Although to be fair I did rather suspect who and what the real power in the last two books really was (the ones that chased the Honoured Matres back into the million worlds of the Old Empire) and what had spooked both Paul and Leto II so badly.
 

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Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
 
Those "mysterious individuals" are pretty thin stand-ins for Herbert and his wife.
 

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Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
 
Sol~

Thanks. I'd utterly forgotten about the Guild-established calendar. Shows how long it's been since I read any of 'em. I don't know how much credence anyone places on the Frank Herbert voice-over for the longer cut of the movie (that got replaced by Virginia Madsen's version for the theatrical cut when he died), but in there it says the Jihad started in the year 6041. That's what I was basing my estimate on. So Dune is set some 14,230 years from now. Wacky...

--Jonah

P.S. My biggest gripes about the miniseries are bad casting (William Hurt as Leto???), bad acting (Paul and Gurney are supposed to be tight friends, so what's with this strained tolerance?), and the perpetuation of unflapping 'thopters. But the worst offender is the frikkin' Eyes of Ibad -- THEY DON'T GLOW, DAMMIT!!!

P.P.S. I loved the Sardaukar, though...
 

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Posted by knivesout (Member # 1118) on :
 
Ah OK. For a while I was scared there was no one around who likes the books. It's interesting how many themes are exlplored in the bks - ecology, evolution, power-plays, even the impact of addictive drugs on society. the only other works of Herbert i've read are the Pandora trilogy I mentioned earlier and The Wite Plague 9 a very chilling biotech thriller set in comtemporary times). A whole bunch of his other stuff recently hit of my regular bookshops - any reccomendations?
 

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