[amphibian]

Tom;137269 said:

Some people being reading books in the middle of a series, it's not uncommon. I did myself, at least three times in the past, if not more.

The problem with picking up a book from the middle of the Dune series is that the first book remains the essential basis for understanding what the heck is going on in the meta-story. Without it, you lose the impact of the complete Atreides/Fremen Titanomachia and miss what the God Emperor is trying to accomplish/avoid with his Golden Path.

Picking up the plot threads piecewise may be a viable strategy with other authors, but Herbert (Frank) needs to be read in proper sequence for full appreciation.

Side note: I actually liked Chapterhouse. It's too bad Herbert left us with a similar situation to Mervyn Peake's Titus series.

[McLovin]

amphibian;137324 said:

Side note: I actually liked Chapterhouse. It's too bad Herbert left us with a similar situation to Mervyn Peake's Titus series.

Shhhhhhh!!!!!! You're gonna give Kevin Anderson an idea...coming soon, Legends of Gormenghast!

[Morgoth]

Tom;137266 said:

And people tell me off for posting spoilers... come on, guys, the tags are there for a reason.

People have to remember that the reason the books are different is because *gasp* the authors are different. No matter how good they wrote the book, how closely they stuck to old Frank's vision, people would always find fault and always nitpick.

Someone posted about why no one found the no-globe from the Prelude to Dune books... sheesh, kid, that's kinda the point of a no-globe - you don't find it, except by accident.

Anyways, my beef with the original Dune books was towards the end they just descended into random porn. (I'm talking Heretics and Chapterhouse). Oh, granted, there was the whole sexual hypnosis imprinting thing, but in the end there was no point to it - it just boiled down into bad porn.

Have to point out that I find this post frightfully arrogant and slightly insulting. I do not dislike the later books because they deviate from what I think a dune book should be -though they do that too and it anoys me. I dislike the later books because in my opinion they are horribly written. They lack the basic quality I would expect from any piece of litterature. It's not just that I do not like them. It's that they fail even my lowest, most basic standards for what literature should contain.

[Werthead]

Morgoth;137395 said:

It's that they fail even my lowest, most basic standards for what literature should contain.

(nods) Indeed. For example, my lowest, basic standards for what literature should contain are essentially minotaurs, pirates and ninjas (or, indeed, ninja pirates). The lack of minotaur ninja-pirates in Hunters of Dune is a sure of sign of its inferior quality, IMO.

[Morgoth]

Werthead;137397 said:

(nods) Indeed. For example, my lowest, basic standards for what literature should contain are essentially minotaurs, pirates and ninjas (or, indeed, ninja pirates). The lack of minotaur ninja-pirates in Hunters of Dune is a sure of sign of its inferior quality, IMO.

Well, I might have exagerated a bit in my anoyance, but those books are still among the worst I've ever read. I just don't like people trying to tell me what my opinion is

[McLovin]

*Jedi hand wave*

Yes, you do like it when I tell you what your opinion is...

[Morgoth]

longhorn;137442 said:

*Jedi hand wave*

Yes, you do like it when I tell you what your opinion is...

I do like it when you tell me what my opinion is...

Does anyone know what Anderson has stated to feel about continuing someone else's work?

[Werthead]

Morgoth;137487 said:

Does anyone know what Anderson has stated to feel about continuing someone else's work?

I imagine something along the order of:

Quote

"I feel this idea offends my integrity as an artist and I'm not sure it would be right to...HOLY CRAP! I didn't know you could fit that many '0's on a single cheque! W00t! Honey, we can get the new conservatory after all!"

Anderson is also a veteran of writing X-Files and Star Wars novels, so it's not exactly a new thing for him to be doing.

[cauthon]

I disliked Brian's books, because I thought they were extremely predictable. I'm still going to read book 7 though, if only to see if they wrote something that's alike to what I imagine happened...

[The .303 bookworm]

The First prequel trilogy was relatively good, except for the stupid continuity errors (Jessica's purchase, House IX as uber-allies) and "black and white" depiction of the morality of the characters (Leto as Galahad, and the Baron as a moustache twirling uber-villain).
Its far less in all respects than even the worst of the Original Sextet, but still nice compared to mediocre sci-fi.

The Butlerian Jihad trilogy is Fucking crap, with each book getting worse than its predecessor (Battle of Corrin had me scratching my eyes out "This is the source of the Atreides/Harkonnen feud? Norma uber-rucking Cenve on everything!? etc').

From what I've heard, book 7 is even worse. Avoid it

[Werthead]

Legends of Dune is among the most appalling things I've ever read. Not Goodkind-bad or Hubbard-bad, obviously, but otherwise utterly without merit. KJA and Herbert simply failed to create any characters in this series that were more than one-dimensional caricatures and their ability to convincingly depict a vast interstellar war is notable by its total non-existence.

[stone monkey]

Okay, hands up those of you who thought it'd actually be any good...Anyone?