|
I finally got around to reading the Dune series this year (I'm at book three). It's different from what I was expecting, I guess I'd assumed it'd be more in an adventure novel style, but there's a lot of statecraft, backstabbing, and no fixed protagonist. Reminds me of Asimov's Foundation series, even a little of Game of Thrones. Not bad, although sometimes it gets a little too esoteric for my liking.
|
#
¿
May 11, 2020 16:49
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 10:27 |
|
|
TK-42-1 posted:Plans within plans within plans isn’t a meme for nothing. It’s kind of the reason it’s always been deemed unfilmable since so much of the actual interesting stuff is either inner monologue or not understandable without a running commentary. God Emperor would basically be my dinner with andre but with Jason Momoa climbing a cliff while gwendoline christie splooshed watching him in between. Every time there's dialogue between two characters one of them has an inner monologue like "I will say this, which will fool him into thinking x, which will further my plan...but what if it furthers his plan? And is his plan actually opposed to mine or are we on the same side, is he a triple-crosser?" Not going to lie, sometimes I have trouble following the details
|
|
#
¿
May 12, 2020 15:56
|
|
|
Finished the first three books. Paul dies. Now I'm off to Wikipedia so I can find out if I actually understood the plot correctly
|
|
#
¿
May 17, 2020 10:43
|
|
|
Just started reading God Emperor, there's a scene with D-wolves and I can't stop thinking it stands for Dickwolves Run Siona run
|
|
#
¿
May 19, 2020 14:22
|
|
|
WarMECH posted:It doesn't? I don't know, has he confirmed it? He does seem a lot hornier in this one so far
|
|
#
¿
May 19, 2020 18:23
|
|
|
Just finished God Emperor of Dune What the gently caress did I just read I get the general idea, everything has been carefully orchestrated by Leto to ensure the Golden Path comes to fruition, which will avoid the destruction of humanity, which also involves teaching them a valuable lesson about the 'safety' of tyranny and predictability (??? is this some libertarian bullshit?), and which also results in Siona becoming invisible to prescience (????), which means humanity is safe forevermore (?????????????) You know what, considering the number of question marks there, maybe I didn't quite understand everything, but I think I got the intended chain of cause and effect. What I find harder to grasp is Siona's attitude at the end. Leto has shown her the Golden Path, she presumably understands what he's doing, yet she still seems to hate him just as much instead of only reluctantly embracing her role as an assassin. Or is that just an act for Duncan Idaho? And is that why she is so cavalier about the death of Hwi Noree, is it because she knows Duncan Idaho is now tied to her? Phlegmish fucked around with this message at 14:40 on Jun 1, 2020 |
|
#
¿
Jun 1, 2020 14:08
|
|
|
She also kills her actual dad, Moneo dies along with Leto. She doesn't seem to care or even mention it. I don't know how to feel about this book. The set-up and the scale of events is impressive, again reminding me of Foundation, but to me the most relatable and likeable character is the inhuman, tyrannical blob-monster. That is a problem, even if it is required for the plot to work and make sense. Siona and Duncan Idaho are just perpetually angry babbies who never seem to learn or grow or evolve in any way, even when they supposedly do learn things. I really disliked them and several times found myself hoping Leto would yeet them off a cliff or something. Again, I understand that this was necessary in order for the plot to work, but it's just unpleasant to read.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 1, 2020 14:49
|
|
|
Sure. I don't have a problem with the book in a structural sense. Once you get past the endless metaphysical verbal diarrhea, the internal consistency and logic hold up fairly well. I just felt like the human element was missing from this one, or at least that it was very one-dimensional (except ironically in the case of the Blob), and that that's progressively been the case throughout the Dune series. The first one's still my favorite so far, even though it also suffers from this to an extent - in my opinion, and fully acknowledging that much of this was intentional on the part of the author. It's not just Siona, Duncan Idaho had me rolling my eyes most of the time as well. I guess his appearance as a mentat in books two and three received a lukewarm reader response, because now he's a dumbasstat instead. Incapable of any sort of analysis, introspection, or growth, and the type that would gladly start a fight if you accidentally bumped into him at the bar. He also outs himself as a homophobe for no plot-related reason that I can discern. "Lesbian orgies? Not on my watch!!!" Shut the gently caress up, Idaho. I can only imagine what kind of angry, petulant child would result from a union of Siona and Duncan Idaho. Are you sure you've thought this through, Leto? Phlegmish fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Jun 1, 2020 |
|
#
¿
Jun 1, 2020 16:18
|
|
|
Libertarianism perhaps isn't the most morally reprehensible ideology, but it is certainly the dumbest (dumber than communism), mostly because they ignore everything about the way human societies work and it would immediately dissolve itself the moment it reached its stated goals. Doesn't mean they can't write decent books, of course. Was Herbert a libertarian?
|
|
#
¿
Jun 1, 2020 18:43
|
|
|
What? No, of course that's something that can be discussed and that can inform your interpretation of his work. No one is even saying that it affects their enjoyment of the books.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 1, 2020 19:48
|
|
|
Thirstiest SF writer is Philip José Farmer, right? Didn't read much of his stuff, but all of it seemed to involve erotic adventures of some kind, including one where an alien insect thing disguises itself as a sexy human woman to harvest his seed (?). I'm making it sound worse than it is, it's actually pretty benevolent, I should check out more of his books
|
|
#
¿
Jun 4, 2020 02:13
|
|
|
Hey baby you wanna ride the worm I was warned that Herbert would get hornier farther along in the Dune series, but I'm already at Heretics of Dune and I'm honestly not noticing it so far.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 4, 2020 18:19
|
|
|
These are people that literally drink each other's blood to survive, I don't think they care much that the cave smells a bit dank
|
|
#
¿
Jun 4, 2020 19:57
|
|
|
Shai-Hulud you have eaten 20,000 of my kinsmen, but I'm too scared to do anything about it
|
|
#
¿
Jun 5, 2020 15:19
|
|
|
Teg Miles is noticing the 'seductive eyes' of his guard captain, which leads him to start thinking about penises and vaginas...I can feel I'm getting to the sexy bits, waited so long for this e: my mistake I'm apparently reading porn parody novel HAIRY DICKS OF POON, I was wondering what was up with that
|
|
#
¿
Jun 7, 2020 14:14
|
|
|
 This is the cover for my new Dune-inspired fan fiction e-book, subscribe for more content
|
|
#
¿
Jun 8, 2020 13:40
|
|
|
Heretics of Dune is, so far, much more readable and coherent than God Emperor of Dune, actually.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 8, 2020 15:32
|
|
|
https://petapixel.com/2017/12/20/uk-police-porn-spotting-ai-gets-confused-desert-photos/
|
|
#
¿
Jun 9, 2020 01:37
|
|
|
Yeah I'm 40% through but nothing sexy happened so far. Lucilla is just eying Duncan so far and that's the bad kind of horny, isn't he underage? Don't do this to me, Herbo.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 9, 2020 14:40
|
|
|
Oh my God you're scaring me, is it going to be 'it's okay since actually he's a 5,000-year old Duncan in the body of a teenaged Duncan' Don't say anything, I want to find out for myself
|
|
#
¿
Jun 9, 2020 14:57
|
|
|
Uncle Enzo posted:You are a genius and I love you. I want to have your babies. Sorry but this is not allowed under my breeding program It's a complete coincidence that my program involves me having sex with dozens of supermodels in their early twenties, how dare you question it
|
|
#
¿
Jun 10, 2020 16:28
|
|
|
I always loved how utterly mundane of a name Jessica is, I often laugh when I see it in these otherwise esoteric sentences. Is this part of Herbert's subversion of SF tropes? I am new to the Duneverse. We must follow the Bronze Path of the Lady Tiphany and the Sir Jimbo
|
|
#
¿
Jun 16, 2020 13:41
|
|
|
davidspackage posted:It's permanently weird to be Dutch and hear the name Piter de Vries as that of a guy to be feared. I am also a native Dutch speaker and it's always been a bit strange to see all of the pseudo-Dutch names and terms in the Witcher universe. I'm not used to anyone bothering with that in fantasy properties. I suppose that to a Pole, Dutch is somewhat exotic, and as a language it's minor enough that it's not going to trigger that feeling of familiarity for most readers.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 16, 2020 19:06
|
|
|
It's been a while since I played the Witcher games, but Dijkstra is an extremely Dutch (or Frisian if you want to be pedantic) name which is actually quite common in real life. There's also Brugge, which I assume is derived from, uh, Brugge. Come to think of it, they're not so much pseudo-Dutch as straight up Dutch. These are just off the top of my head.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 17, 2020 02:03
|
|
|
I myself just finished Heretics. That was...something. Another one of those novels where I had to read the summary on Wikipedia to make sure I understood everything correctly. The concept of the Scattering is pretty cool. I also get now why people were saying that this is where Herbert gets horny, there are no sex scenes to speak of, but both the Bene Gesserit and the Honored Matres prominently use sex to control men. The constant focus on it seems rather pointless and trite, and I don't remember it from the previous books, but it doesn't really contradict how the Bene Gesserit have been known to act, either. I take it the Honored Matres try to destroy both the ghola and Sheeana to prevent Bene Gesserit control of the new messianic religion? What was the Tleilaxu's plan in altering the ghola? Why did Taraza plan to destroy Rakis? Was it so they could take the last remaining sandworm with them? How would that free them from the Tyrant's prescience, and what does it mean to be freed from that? How does this all relate to the Golden Path? The more of these Dune novels I read, the more I'm baffled that they became such a success. Not that they're bad, far from it, but you'd think the masses would have no patience for anything this esoteric.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 22, 2020 03:11
|
|
|
phasmid posted:"No sex scenes to speak of"? Wasn't Heretics the one where Duncan first meets Murbella? I think that was the first sex scene in the series. Before that, everything kinda happened in the background. Yeah, but it's really brief and non-descript. I'm not demanding more hot steamy sex, but it does make me wonder why he made the sexual control thing so prominent. It's like the worst of both worlds. quote:It's been a while since I read it, but IIRC they don't have the means yet to full-scale produce synthetic melange. Their plan is to survive on their stores while they create a habitat for the sandtrout on another planet. As for the Tyrant, the more of his "consciousness" is destroyed, the less power his prescience has to ensnare people. The Matres destroyed Arrakis for a much dumber reason than you think: it was simply payback for one or more of their own number. The Matres destroy cities, even planets, for perceived insults. This was one such case. (Also they figured if the spice came only from there, it would be a death blow to the old imperium.) If Leto's Golden Path is meant to safeguard humanity, wouldn't it be dangerous to derail it? Or are they past the bottleneck since the Scattering happened and now it's safe to do so? Did Leto II, super-intelligent megaworm, fail to understand the creative powers of his own prescience? I don't really 'get' the Bene Gesserit in general. I realize they strive to perpetuate their own existence and subtly influence humanity in myriad ways, but what are their goals specifically? Even in the first book it's not really clear to me. 1. Institute eugenetical breeding program 2. Produce Kwisatz Haderach 3. ??? Although now that I'm reading the wiki, it seems the goal was to produce a sort of male Reverend Mother that would be even more powerful than they are, having ALL the prescience. lmao guess you got what you wanted, what a self-own. Phlegmish fucked around with this message at 14:08 on Jun 22, 2020 |
|
#
¿
Jun 22, 2020 14:04
|
|
|
That's one of the reasons, I think, the first book was relatively popular. It had that aspect of PAUL GONE WILD and sticking it to the Bene Gesserit. People like that, I did too. Then as the novels go on, they focus more and more on the perspective of the Bene Gesserit, implicitly leading you to identify with them. But wait, the average reader might ask, isn't this the shadowy cabal of eugenics practitioners who shun emotions and are also frankly legitimately misandrist? That's one of Herbert's strengths, tearing down the simple hero and black-and-white narratives, but those narratives do exist for valid psychological reasons, and I agree that that's probably what limited the popular appeal of his later books.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 22, 2020 14:16
|
|
|
Alright, thanks. I'm glad I happened to find this thread as I probably would have been bewildered by...everything, by now. What's up with the Tleilaxu and Waff, anyway? They're useless at everything and Waff spends the entirety of Heretics failing and being a moody little bitch. I feel like they could have been scrapped from the novel without it affecting much. Waff's one of my least favorite characters, and not even because he's evil.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 22, 2020 19:46
|
|
|
Haha, yeah I forgot my own post. That's pretty much what happens, except with Murbella instead of Lucilla. Called it! It's just really easy to forget he has the body of a teenager since Herbert spends so little time describing the characters, and the passage of time is rather vague. The 'sex scene' seemed pretty tame, though. I think it just mentions erections a few times. Maybe it's just cultural differences and it doesn't register due to my European decadence.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 22, 2020 22:33
|
|
|
My ghola fell down the stairs again, time to break open a new one
|
|
#
¿
Jun 22, 2020 23:44
|
|
|
If you live in a José Farmer novel it's just sexy alien babes all day every day. Don't mind if I do.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 23, 2020 00:00
|
|
|
Murray Mantoinette posted:"Dune is so cool! I wish I could live in that universe! Learn the secret body control techniques of the Bene Gesserit, master the skills of the Ginaz Swordmaster, probe the limits of human knowledge with Mentat logic and mental power..." I actually wonder if anyone has ever wanted to live in the Dune universe Even Paul "Muad'Dib" Atreides ended up a blind man wandering into the desert, and wandering back out of it only to fight his own goddamn sister to the death Your best bet is probably to volunteer as a test subject for Imprinting practice at the local BG Keep
|
|
#
¿
Jun 23, 2020 12:46
|
|
|
Oh poo poo I mean I hate the Bene Gesserit grrrr I'm so unruly and independent 
|
|
#
¿
Jun 23, 2020 13:03
|
|
|
I'm glad my thirsty posts in this thread are being preserved for posterity I'm currently reading the sixth book, last one written by Herbert, is there any point in continuing after that?
|
|
#
¿
Jun 26, 2020 00:14
|
|
|
It's subtle but I'm gleaning that the answer to my question is 'no'
|
|
#
¿
Jun 26, 2020 11:11
|
|
|
Bubblyblubber posted:I have braved the poo poo piles of the failson sequels, driven by a terrible purpose. I don't even know who Paolo is You know, as a failson myself, I'm starting to feel kind of bad for the guy
|
|
#
¿
Jun 27, 2020 00:46
|
|
|
Twitch posted:They read the first chapter and based the entire cover on it. Ah, the classic book report gambit
|
|
#
¿
Jun 28, 2020 16:56
|
|
|
One of them is prescient The other one is prescient The God Emperor Sandworm is prescient
|
|
#
¿
Jun 28, 2020 19:27
|
|
|
It's a trap, if you claim to understand the details of Dune it's a sign of serious mental illness im permabanned poster tleilaxustomper58
|
|
#
¿
Jun 29, 2020 12:49
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 10:27 |
|
|
My Face When posted:I remember playing the pc game as a kid but i never got far because i was 10. You too? In my case it wasn't the apparently famous pioneer strategy game, but a weird/intriguing point & click that piqued my interest.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 1, 2020 13:01
|
|