The first one is far and away the best of the series. Books two and three are okay, but no tour de force. After that it’s downhill and quickly.
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A lot of the later novels veer into pure commentary or critique of the Tyrant, which can be a bit… dense.
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Or when the main character transforms into a worm. Except I suppose that’s merely stupid rather than stupid and offensive.
Was hoping someone would post a competent audio version. Thank you.
Good heavens!:
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a four part cartoon series for those who are too dumb to read.
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This or these analyses are really well done, and thank you for posting.
I have lost count of the number of times I have bought and gifted paperback versions of Dune (just the first book, and IMO the best of the lot). Hmm. I am also rapidly losing count of the number of paperback copies of Anathem I have been giving away too, come to think of it.
Much has been made of the influences/borrowings/wholesale-um-recycling that Frank Herbert brings into this work. My thanks to bOINGbOING for this:
and for tracking these:
I believed Dune was really a book for our times back when I read it in the 1980s and… dangit… just our luck the novel is evermore relevant today what with charismatic so-called leaders and climate change and overwhelming need to do massive ecological restoration on our home planet.
Btw the glossary of the novel is laced with loan-words and influences from Persian/Farsi and Arabic, which I found interesting when I first realized it, noting just how widely Herbert had spread his bets. I felt I had glimpsed some of the man’s carefully crafted (ok ok steal-from-all-corners-of-the-globe) framework for the first time–something Extra Sci Fi doesn’t go into in their four well done vids here.
Persian is an Indo-European branch language:
and Arabic is not (it is an Afro-Asiatic language):
Nice diagram and overview:
Thanks again.
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National Lampoon’s ‘Doon’ is a pretty good laugh-along cliff notes as well.
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