Quote:
Originally Posted by DrNefario
Oh, that has just reminded me that I never successfully made it through Dune Messiah. I think I tried twice, but it just wasn't happening for me. It seemed to be soiling some of the great things about Dune, and not really going anywhere.
I have no intention of reading any of the follow-ups to Rendezvous with Rama. Sometimes sequels are just not called for.
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Lots of readers who thought that Dune was an action-adventure novel (The Hero's Journey, unsullied) die off, reading-wise, in DM. I was on the afd dune group for a bajillion years, and that was a large part of the endless argument--that whole "Paul Atreides as a hero" thing, rather than "Paul-as-monster" aspect. I honestly thought, after reading the entire set, more than a few times, that Chapterhouse may well have have been his masterpiece. GEoD is particularly hard to wade through, in a number of ways.
In all, if you'e obsessed with continuity, the Dune Chronicles (I speak solely of Frank's works, not the abortions put out by Brian) are not for you, as the "powers" of the "hero" change dramatically over the series, as if Frank couldn't be bothered. What he did write about pretty dramatically were the dangers of dependency (in SO many ways--water, oil, drugs...), oracular powers creating the future; he was quite prescient about the dangers of politics and religion "riding in the same cart," and he was
spectacular about the dangers of overweight bureaucracies, social security and the like. Brilliant. If you haven't tried to read them in quite a while, you might re-read Dune and work your way out--Dune and its offspring read completely differently to adults than they do to teens. One of my favorite literary sci-fi novels of all time, taken as a whole (the Chronicles).
Hitch