Quote:
Originally Posted by DMcCunney
Depends on which you refer to. The original is a mostly deserved classic.
I generally advise folks to read _Dune_, _Dune Messiah_, and _Children of Dune_ as one long novel, since that's how Herbert conceived them. If you like them, consider the others.
Joanna Russ once reviewed Dune and called it "carefully worked up third rate". I think I understand why, though my judgment isn't quite as harsh. Part of Herbert's problem is something you wouldn't expect from a newspaperman. He had decent to good ideas, but clunky to downright bad prose. (My horrible Example is _Whipping Star_.)
I can pick nits with Dune, starting with disbelief that a galactic empire based on Arabic feudalism could evolve in the first place, let alone last as long as Dune's had. I also wondered while reading about various things, like "There's an anti-technology bias, but somebody builds the mile-long heighliners the Spacing Guiild uses for interstellar transport. Who? Where?"
And Dune was very much a product of it's time, so it will be curious to see how well it stands up over the years.
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Dennis
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That, from the author of The Female Man?