Dune
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I read it back in high school (lord help me 18 years ago...) and most of the sequals/prequels though I do remeber getting bored and giving up on them.
I feel like I enjoyed the book.
With the movie coming out I want to reread it.... is it worth it to buy a copy? It would be a new copy as every used bookstore has sold out and purchased brand new copies.
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I think so. But I also use a Kindle for the automatic highlighting and the additional notes and such that come with them.
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I plan to find to a copy to see if I actually hate it as much as I remember hating it back when I was a kid. Take that for all it's worth.
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@greenflashlight said in Dune:
I plan to find to a copy to see if I actually hate it as much as I remember hating it back when I was a kid. Take that for all it's worth.
I think, after having read it again not that long ago, that if I had read it as a kid? I would hate it too.
It takes a minimum amount of very specific life experiences to appreciate some of the themes in that book. Feeling trapped in relationships with people you don't love, the sheer legwork it takes to seed those kinds of mythos over centuries, over planets, the very real feeling of doing something that you don't want to do, that scares the bejeesus out of you, for the sake of your family because a power greater than you wills it for no particular reason...
The cultural clashes of the fremen, the love-hate of Atreides and Harkonnen with Jessica and Leto / others later.
Like -- as a teen/child there is simply no way that you have the necessary life experience to appreciate just where the adults in that book are coming from, or where this teenager is going.
Racism isn't Tinkerbell. It doesn't need you to believe in it for it to exist.
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I read it during a band camp (yes, I am that nerd, shut up) after the Sci Fi miniseries came out, and didn't see the Lynch version until later. So I had the benefit of movie visuals to help get ideas across...
... and even then, I still missed a bunch of stuff. Dune is hella dense. Like, you-have-to-read-the-appendices-to-get-everything-and-will-still-miss-stuff dense.
Which is where YouTube people explaining things to me in Tuba-dummy-talk helps!
It is still an okay read, and much less of a slog with the various films and video essays to help make me feel witty enough to grok everything on my own.
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I read Dune at 15 and it imprinted on me in that particular way such books do if you like them and read them in high school/junior high. So I have no objectivity regarding it. It's a world I got absorbed in and has stayed with me. I'm honestly not sure how someone coming to it later would take to it if it bored them the first time. I've still never gone back to Lord of the Rings (which I gave up on for similar 'this is boring' reasons) even though I love the movies, and from the reviews it's similarly possible to enjoy the new 'Dune' movie just as its own thing.
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To clarify: DUNE the original book and the few after I remeber enjoying greatly.
The sequels were just a bit much.
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@silverfox
Past a certain point the sequels (particularly anything written by Frank Herbert's son) do not have a great reputation. The original 'Dune' and its direct sequel, 'Dune Messiah', are pretty unimpeachable, though, and can be read on their own. -
Yeah, agreed. Children is fine, and God-Emperor is weird, but whatever. But that's always where I stop.
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@silverfox said in Dune:
To clarify: DUNE the original book and the few after I remeber enjoying greatly.
The sequels were just a bit much.
The original novel was peak Dune, and written with a manageable amount of LSD/Mushrooms. The psychedelics start to overwhelm the subsequent novels to the point that, yeah, of course we're all just sand worms, it all makes sense man.
-r
A black book:
ALBUMS CA. AGRIPPA
Order Extra Leaves by Letter and Name -
I read Dune at 13, having just watched the Lynch movie for the first time. And I've loved it ever since.
On the other hand, I read the sequels right after and really don't remember them other than going, "Meh." I reread Dune every year or two, but I don't read the sequels.
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Dune is love/ hate. You're going to like it or not.
Then if you like it, it's either Dune (1st book) or God Emperor (4th) book is your favorite.
I like them all. I like God Emperor the best, with Chapterhouse (6th) up there. I like Duncan Idaho and Miles Teg.
Supposedly the books by his son give more meaning to the ending in Chapterhouse but I've not given them a chance.
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@greenflashlight said in Dune:
I plan to find to a copy to see if I actually hate it as much as I remember hating it back when I was a kid. Take that for all it's worth.
I think, after having read it again not that long ago, that if I had read it as a kid? I would hate it too.
It takes a minimum amount of very specific life experiences to appreciate some of the themes in that book. Feeling trapped in relationships with people you don't love, the sheer legwork it takes to seed those kinds of mythos over centuries, over planets, the very real feeling of doing something that you don't want to do, that scares the bejeesus out of you, for the sake of your family because a power greater than you wills it for no particular reason...
The cultural clashes of the fremen, the love-hate of Atreides and Harkonnen with Jessica and Leto / others later.
Like -- as a teen/child there is simply no way that you have the necessary life experience to appreciate just where the adults in that book are coming from, or where this teenager is going.
Yeah, that's pretty much my experience as well. I was 12 when the Lynch film came out and read the book. I kind of got the gist of the book, but the big discrepancies between the movie and the book, especially with the Weirding Way, sort of muddled thing up. It was the first 'heavy' sci-fi I'd managed to get through, or fantasy for that matter. ADHD/Hyperactive/borderline Ausistic, so I really couldn't focus on the 'deep' stuff for long before switching to something new. I didn't get through Lord of the Rings until college.
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So I saw the movie with my besties yesterday and -- don't worry, no spoilers! -- while I enjoyed it, everything said here about the world being very dense is accurate. Because of that? I think it's worth a viewing, but I also think that it would've been better served by HBO picking it up and doing the first two, maybe three, books as a three season series rather than Warner Brothers releasing it as movie duology. There's not a lot of time for relationships to develop, politics to be explored, or the world to be explained. It's certainly not bad. On the contrary, it's a beautifully done movie and should definitely be seen on the biggest screen possible. But.
https://whatiswrongwith.me/Mia
There were never any good old days. They are today. They are tomorrow. It's a stupid thing we say, cursing tomorrow with sorrow. -- Gogol Bordello -
Some of the time is used just amazingly well though, the entire Salusa Secundus sequence is less than a minute long and yet tells you so much about the Sardaukar whilst 100% selling them as being terrifying when coupled with their later appearances.
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@aria That would be better. In fact at least 2 seasons per book. With at least three panels of info, one for inner voice as subtitle, one for information, a large one for main sequences/ action.
I'm just a surge protector doing my job, sir.
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@aria That would be better. In fact at least 2 seasons per book. With at least three panels of info, one for inner voice as subtitle, one for information, a large one for main sequences/ action.
Now I'm just confused.
https://whatiswrongwith.me/Mia
There were never any good old days. They are today. They are tomorrow. It's a stupid thing we say, cursing tomorrow with sorrow. -- Gogol Bordello -
I reviewed the Dune movie in this thread: https://musoapbox.net/topic/221/good-or-new-movies-review/1776 and part of meaning in saying it showed promise in the beginning was the clever ways in which the movie was teaching the audience about the world without heavy exposition. There was a lot of show don't tell. There was David Attenborough giving a lesson on Dune. There was the lesson about spice that Paul watched. Use the voice to make me give you a glass of water. The shield scene was flubbed, though, as they never explain how the shields work, only showing that they exist and blue means you're protected and red means you're screwed.
I don't think they need a miniseries, Though, Sci-Fi Channel did that in the early 00's, but they needed to stop the movie earlier in the book than they did, so they would have more time to world build and develope the characters.
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Unrelated to plot or story or anything else, I am going on record that the soundtrack to part one slaps harder than anything written by Hans Zimmer has any right to. I am >< close to putting the leitmotif from Paul's Dream as my alarm ringtone, and would have done it already if I didn't think I would get stabbed by my roommate over my phone just SCRRAMING every morning.
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@jennkryst It was the music as they were leaving Caladan that did it for me. Holy cow.
