Bindu

I always felt that Bijaz was just another Tleilaxu construct. There is no reason to assume that there are only Masters and Face Dancers. Scytale was their weapon, Bijaz aimed him.

After reading all the posts in this thread, I feel like an old man. I saw the movie in the theater in 84; I was thirteen. Then I was excited to read the book. It was too much and I stopped after 80 or so pages. I tried again six months later, and failed. A few months after that, I finally made it to the dinner party - that's when the book took off for me, and I devoured it. Since then, I've read the whole series 10 or so times, and Dune itself so many times that I've lost count. I'll often pick it up and just read a favorite chapter. I'm on my second copy of the book, since the first fell apart. After reading Dune, I grew to hate the movie. Weirding modules? Give me a break. I tried the mini-series, but turned it off after an hour. Now, B. Herbert is trashing Dune. Of all the people to co-write with, why did he choose the author of a series of rubbish X-Wing novels? Oh well. Dune is my favorite book in the whole world, so I'll just keep on reading it.

Brian Herbert's site has announced that he and Kevin J. Anderson will finishing the Dune saga based upon Frank's notes. They will be dividing "book 7" into two books. I'm eager, as I really want to know what happens next (who is hunting the Honored Mattres?), but I cringe, as B. Herbert and Anderson's Dune books are just horrible. I tried to read Dune: Butlerian Jihad, but stopped after 180 agonizing pages. I consider it, quite probably, the worst novel I have ever read.

Scytale: By the time of CHD, the Tleilaxu hold Paul as sacred. It would only make sense that a revived Scytale would be elevated in status for having been in his presence. The way religions work, Scytale may even have been considered special for being personally killed by Muad'Dib! I also get the impression that the differences between the Masters and their "mules" were not so great in Maud'Dib's day. The Face Dancer Scytale seemed to have quite a bit of power and ambition, but over 5,000 years the Master grew to absolute legal and spiritual power in the society. The Face Dancers were bred more and more to be mere fleshly machines. But as I said, this just my impression. (I've the whole series more than ten times, and just re-read HoD and CHD a couple of weeks ago, so it's fresh in my memory.) Alia and her Other Memory: As others have stated here, she, and all of the the pre-born, had memories from both genders in the womb. I see no flaw in her knowing the Baron through her memories. The Kelvin scale: If one of the definitions of temperature is the rate at which molecules and atoms "vibrate," then the point at which there is no moelcular motion whatsoever is the lowest possible temperature. I think Herbert knew damned well that you can't go below Kelvin, and his refenences to negatives in the Kelvin were just whimsy. He did have a pretty wry sense of humor. Birthdates: Typos. There's just too much in even the first novel. And I couldn't give a rip what Brian Herbert has to say about it; he's a done a fine job of mangling his father's universe. Has he ever heard of subtlety or subtext? Or, oh, I don't know...coninuity?