Books Read: Dune
Jun. 25th, 2003 10:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aMy first experience with Dune was the 190-minute TV version of the David Lynch movies, broadcast on network television somewhere in the early 1990s as a mini-series. I'd heard terrible things about the movie before, that it was totally inaccessible to people who hadn't read the book, but this new version had over 50 minutes of footage beyond the theatre release, so I was willing to give it a shot.
I liked it quite a bit. I found it easy to follow & exciting. I didn't know at the time about the controversy surrounding the new release, that David Lynch had demanded his name be pulled, and to this date I don't understand it. The 190-minute Lynch movie was haunting, evocative, and imaginative. Some of the dialogue, taken from Herbert's original of course ("Fear is the mind killer") stays with me to this day thanks to that movie. I've, in fact, been disappointed to see that the version released on DVD is the old, shorter one.
After seeing the Lynch miniseries (perhaps after having seen just the first episode) I wanted to know more, and I had my father drive me down to the local Border's in Milpitas (because I'd been visiting him when the mini-series came on TV), and I picked up the first three books in the series, Dune, Messiah, and Children (and you'll have to forgive me for the Border's purchase, but what can I say, I was young).
I started reading Dune almost immediately but stalled out after completing that first book. Dune Messiah came maybe five years later, and I've never gotten beyond.
In recent years, however, my interest in the books have been revived by the prequels that Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson have been writing. One of my former coworkers read them all through, and talked about how good they were; they (and the original books) were an influence on Galactic Emperor: Succession, one of the earlier Skotos games. Then, last year at WorldCon, I heard Kevin J. Anderson talk about writing licensed books. He mentioned his Star Wars work, but also his work on Dune, and his enthusiasm and love for the setting was obvious. I was hooked again.
So, last week, when I saw all three of the Prelude to Dune books neatly lined up on the used shelf at Moe's I snatched them up, and shortly thereafter I decided to reread Dune.
It's a rare book that I'm willing to read more than once, and I'm quite pleased to say that Dune lived up to my expectations. The universe is still vivid, the characters bright. The amount of work that Frank Herbert put into the background is obvious, not just from the story, but also from his in-depth appendices to the novel.
I'm especially impressed by Herbert's use of point of view in the novel. He merrily skips between characters, often given us superb and in-depth characterization by revealing their inner thoughts, but does it all in a way that makes it obvious that he's in complete control, not just being sloppy as a beginning writer might.
From here I'm going on to the first of the Prelude books, House Atreides, and I'm also going to take a look at the recent mini-series of Dune produces for the Sci-Fi channel, which I've heard decently good things about.
I'm fairly thrilled by the work that Herbert & Anderson are doing, really expanding Frank's universe into the past and soon the future. I love future histories, and especially with the work being done now, the universe of Dune is a doozy.
There's a bit more info on the recent novels at the official Dune Novels website.
[And why is my mood marked "hot"? It's still 82 degrees out, at 10:30pm; this is not California Bay Area weather.]
I liked it quite a bit. I found it easy to follow & exciting. I didn't know at the time about the controversy surrounding the new release, that David Lynch had demanded his name be pulled, and to this date I don't understand it. The 190-minute Lynch movie was haunting, evocative, and imaginative. Some of the dialogue, taken from Herbert's original of course ("Fear is the mind killer") stays with me to this day thanks to that movie. I've, in fact, been disappointed to see that the version released on DVD is the old, shorter one.
After seeing the Lynch miniseries (perhaps after having seen just the first episode) I wanted to know more, and I had my father drive me down to the local Border's in Milpitas (because I'd been visiting him when the mini-series came on TV), and I picked up the first three books in the series, Dune, Messiah, and Children (and you'll have to forgive me for the Border's purchase, but what can I say, I was young).
I started reading Dune almost immediately but stalled out after completing that first book. Dune Messiah came maybe five years later, and I've never gotten beyond.
In recent years, however, my interest in the books have been revived by the prequels that Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson have been writing. One of my former coworkers read them all through, and talked about how good they were; they (and the original books) were an influence on Galactic Emperor: Succession, one of the earlier Skotos games. Then, last year at WorldCon, I heard Kevin J. Anderson talk about writing licensed books. He mentioned his Star Wars work, but also his work on Dune, and his enthusiasm and love for the setting was obvious. I was hooked again.
So, last week, when I saw all three of the Prelude to Dune books neatly lined up on the used shelf at Moe's I snatched them up, and shortly thereafter I decided to reread Dune.
It's a rare book that I'm willing to read more than once, and I'm quite pleased to say that Dune lived up to my expectations. The universe is still vivid, the characters bright. The amount of work that Frank Herbert put into the background is obvious, not just from the story, but also from his in-depth appendices to the novel.
I'm especially impressed by Herbert's use of point of view in the novel. He merrily skips between characters, often given us superb and in-depth characterization by revealing their inner thoughts, but does it all in a way that makes it obvious that he's in complete control, not just being sloppy as a beginning writer might.
From here I'm going on to the first of the Prelude books, House Atreides, and I'm also going to take a look at the recent mini-series of Dune produces for the Sci-Fi channel, which I've heard decently good things about.
I'm fairly thrilled by the work that Herbert & Anderson are doing, really expanding Frank's universe into the past and soon the future. I love future histories, and especially with the work being done now, the universe of Dune is a doozy.
There's a bit more info on the recent novels at the official Dune Novels website.
[And why is my mood marked "hot"? It's still 82 degrees out, at 10:30pm; this is not California Bay Area weather.]
