Dune

[jack]

And for the first time, I chose a book by its cover. I mean, often a cover grabs my attention, or I filter on genre by cover, but decision to take will by by text. But I wanted Dune -- I read it at school a lot, but never owned it. But the version in borders was all black and stark cover, which was cool, but not Dune to me. So I added it to my next amazon (marketplace) orders.

There was the option to buy an omnibus edition, which is normally cool but (i) I suspect the combination will be gargatuan and (ii) I don't really want Dune: Anything Else.

I remember when I first read Dune. I was definitely embarassed to be reading such Scifi, though I can't remember exactly why.

Comments

[dragonwoodshed.livejournal.com]

I was definitely embarassed to be reading such Scifi, though I can't remember exactly why.

Because it's pants and someone you know might see you?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

You mean Dune, is crap, as opposed to scifi? Well, maybe. But:

(a) You can't tell that by looking at it, can you? And I used to read other crap :)

(b) No it's not! I loved Dune. Lovelovelove. Dune ftw. (OK, we'll see if I still like it now I've grown up a bit, but I expect so. Why didn't you?)

[simont]

I wanted Dune [...] and [...] I don't really want Dune: Anything Else

Good call. I've always loved Dune proper, but was unimpressed by Dune Messiah as a child and never bothered reading further. Fairly recently I heard someone say they get better again after that, so I got my hands on the complete set and managed to stick it out to the end.

My verdict is that in one or two of the later books he manages to introduce one or two interesting ideas, but doesn't really develop them and in any case they're buried in reams of drivel. I suppose that technically makes them better than Messiah which has no particularly good features, but I don't think I'd choose to read any of them again. Stick with Dune itself and pretend the rest never happened, I reckon.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yup.

Shortly after I read Dune I read one of the late sequels, and it was interesting, very different, but I didn't really enjoy it. However, in retrospect, I couldn't say for sure if it was any good in its own right, as if it had been I would probably still have found it difficult to get into.

Later on I read the couple of direct sequels to Dune, and found they had a lot of the strengths of Dune (which is what I wanted) but didn't really hang together at all, and I just stopped.

I won't say anything about the.

[simont]

I won't say anything about the.

Good idea. To say nothing of .

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Oh, I wasn't including that by association.