What a pedantic, nitpicking bunch you are!
I have removed “performance” from my original post to assuage your concerns. Try to enjoy the movie at least.
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You look surprised. Are you new here?
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Yeah. I should know by now to pick every word with care.
On a somewhat related theme, I just re-read Asimov’s Foundation trilogy (previously read the books in the 1960’s.) They have aged well given he first published the story in the 1940’s. Still waiting for the movie. Maybe another Canadian like James Cameron will do for Foundation what Denis Villeneuve did for Dune. I understand there is a tv series based on the Foundation trilogy but have not seen any of the episodes.
tbf my assumption was that’s what the advertisement stated, which is what amused me. Now I’m just not amused anymore.
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Yeah; and Dune was first published (in serial form) from 1963 to 1965; with the novel version published in 1965. This, I believe, also explains why the book has “three parts”; reflecting what was published in each year in serial form.
And I think there was a lot that Herbert “commented” on back then (especially around religion and politics) that I find interestingly still relevant today.
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That is correct but I should have substituted a word for performance as even I know that is incorrect.
Eh, as stated, strikingly unimportant.
Mildly NSFW
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Seeing this thread got me curious so I ordered the first book and am now ~150 pages in. Seems pretty good so far.
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IMO, the first book is very good overall.
The remaining books that Frank wrote are interesting reads if you care about the larger story line.
The trilogy that Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson that immediately precedes Dune (House Atreides, House Harkonnen, House Corrino) are pretty good reads, IMO, if you’d like to see how various characters in Dune come about.
I didn’t care for them - I feel they created back stories and powers that didn’t exist before just for the convenience of the story
Tend to agree. Even Asimov and Tolkien did this with their trilogies that were great on their own.
If they did, I didn’t notice or it just didn’t bother me as much
LOTR and I believe Foundation were written as a series.
I felt like Dune was written as a stand-a-lone and Herbert didn’t do a good job of research on his own work for continuity
On Amazon they make it look like a whole series of books, so is the core of it really just the solitary Dune book and then if you’re interested in more you can read Dune Messiah, etc. etc.?
The prequel and sequel to the Foundation trilogy were published thirty years after Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation were published.
The LOTR trilogy was published some time after The Hobbit.
My point was that the respective trilogies were excellent in their own right. The prequels and sequels were not critical for their success.
I’m well past half-way through Dune Messiah and absolutely nothing has happened yet.
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It has been forty years since I read them, and my comments might be the 3rd books and beyond, many if I remember correctly were not written by Herbert
Dune Messiah is more of a glorified “afterword” to Dune.
Children of Dune sees the action pick back up.
A lot of the “back stories” were already in mind when Dune was written; all of the prequel stories (especially the ones covering the Butlerian Jihad) are based off of notes Herbert had.
As for the “powers” . . . I read that as Herbert’s idea of continued evolution of (some) humans. If you accept the powers that exist in Dune, then I don’t think that the evolution idea is too far fetched. To me, the origins are the point I would suspect more (which are covered in the more recent books that Brian & Kevin have published).
The Butlerian Jihad trilogy presents the foundation for which Children of Dune had intimated in the decision of Leto II to undergo the metamorphosis and was further hinted at through out God Emperor. The first hint of the danger came with the discovery of the Honored Matres in Heretics; but if you read the Butlerian Jihad trilogy, many of the weird characters you run into start to make more sense.
I will say that the sci-fi readers of today are different than the ones in the 1970’s.
Books written by Frank:
- Dune
- Dune Messiah
- Children of Dune
- God Emperor of Dune
- Heretics of Dune
- Chapterhouse: Dune
Frank died sometime after soon after Chapterhouse was published, and I was extremely disappointed because it was clear that there was more to the story that he was trying to write. However, the manuscript for that final book was “lost” for 20 some odd years. When Brian got a letter from some bank in Seattle (IIRC) about a safe deposit box in his father’s name needed to be claimed. When he got there, not only the missing manuscript was in that box, but the complete set of notes that Frank used for the total series.
Brian convinced his long-time friend Kevin to help him finish the story; but first wanted to get “in to the zone” by first publishing some teaser novels to first refine their writing style to satisfy the Dune fan-base. So we get the Prelude to Dune trilogy (which had the most detailed notes/manuscript; just needed to fill in narratives to make it readable as a story/novel) and the Butlerian Jihad trilogy (which Brian felt needed to be told for the broader sci-fi audience he was writing to; also note that this trilogy introduces my moniker; which was only referenced occasionally in Heretics, IIRC) before trying to complete and publish that last book (which ended up being two books).
And it was the situation here with Dune that prompted Robert Jordan to bring on Brandon Sanderson to help complete his Wheel of Time series.
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I appreciate all the detail.
As someone who picked up Dune because it has great reviews, etc. etc. but hasn’t read a lot of Sci-Fi (although I do like Star Trek, and really enjoyed the Eragon series), is it worth reading more than just the Dune book?
I enjoyed the larger story arc; I would say that Dune Messiah is my least favorite, but somewhat important to understand some of what happens in Children of Dune. But if you like Children and God Emperor, I would say that you’ll find the remaining books interesting. If you don’t like Children, then I would not look at the remaining books written by Frank.
But if one really enjoyed Dune, I would say that person would also enjoy the Prelude to Dune trilogy (it’s essentially the origin story for most of the main characters in Dune).
The Legends of Dune (what I referenced as the Butlerian Jihad) trilogy was also an interesting origin story around the imperium of Dune and the prohibition against “thinking machines”.
I haven’t read the other “filler” stories (like Sisters of Dune, etc.) yet; so I can’t offer much insights on those.
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