I’d even go further and say that from God Emperor of Dune on - were AWFUL.
I thought the prequels were a LOT of fun… and much better than Frank’s God Emp onward… and give more canon to the universe.
As I said, some people mistakenly believe that only the first three Frank Herbert Dune books are good, when the correct answer is the first four.
De gustibus non est disputandum, I suppose.
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Wait till you come across the last books in the series: Dune Buggy, Cash Cow Milkers of Dune, and Dune ot forsake me O my darling (Directed by John Ford).
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Absolutely true, and everyone’s different.
I loved the first three. I may be one of the few humans that love Dune Messiah. But GEOD was when I fell out of love with Frank’s writing… I stopped probably about… I don’t even remember now, it was so long ago… not even half way I think. I just didn’t care, and lost interest. I finally picked it back up again when Brian & Kevin wrote the sequels I wanted to read, and I knew I needed to get through the rest of Frank’s books first… that was a struggle that made me sad, because I love the first three Dune books so much.
And I can’t even put my finger on why I hated GE so much…
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I am part of the minority who loves God Emperor, and who thinks that the last two novels are a bit less great but not certainly not terrible. As Picasso said, Picasso could forge his own painting style as well as anyone, and as such a lesser Picasso or Herbert is still of considerable value to some.
Those who wish there was more of “the good stuff” might do well to check out some of Herbert’s non-Dune work, which for some reason appears to be completely obscured by the significance of Dune. Whipping Star, Dosadi Experiment, Destination Void, Jesus Incident, Hellstrom’s Hive are IMO all cracking reads. If you consider “Peak Herbert” to be 1965-1980 (or even 1965-1975) there is a lot of other writing to enjoy.
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As a Devil’s Advocate:
None of the protagonists are likeable.
Leto has lived so long that he’s lost a sense of meaning to the value of human life, caring only for his Golden Path. And when he regains some of his humanity back, it costs him everything.
Idaho is a pale imitation of the two other copies of Duncan that we’ve seen before.
And Siona brings down a well-functioning government without any particular plan for how she can replace it with something better.
Personally, I like flawed protagonists, but I can’t stand Siona. I still enjoy God Emperor as the tragedy of Leto II.
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Sound perfect for HBO!
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I do love me some Clarke. Alas his themes aren’t snappy enough for Hollywood (on the surface anyways).
I may have an inner sadist, but I would love a full length adaptation of “the 9 billion names of god”.
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Eon?
Forge of God?
Please, let it not be Halo. Or even his Quantico series.
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