dont kill me, but...

[AeonGrey]

First off, don't get me wrong.  I absolutely love Frank Herbert.  Dune is my favorite book.  I just finished my third reading and it was even better than the first two.  Anyway, I know there is plenty of praising going on on this forum of Frank Herbert.  What I'm wondering, is if there is anything anyone didn't particularly care for in the book(s).  Maybe just something you wish were a bit different.  Personally, I wish that there were a bit more variety in the way people talked.  The dailogue in the book is amazing of course, but all the characters almost seem to use the same style of speaking...same wording of things (except fenring, hmmmmahhhhhh???).  I could be totally wrong on this, but I've read it 3 times and it strikes me that way each time.  Thoughts?

[Andrew]

If you are referring to just the Dune books he wrote? I can't think of many things. :P (Havn't read them in a year.) But I read some of his other books last year which were great!

The Dosadi Experiment: It was boring for about 1/2 the book, mostly becuase I had little idea about what was going on, then about midpoint it was awesome, but the last couple chapters were quite boring to me. :-[

The White Plague: A bit slow at first but overall the best nonDune book by him I read. (saying alot since I read only 2 :P)

[nemafakei]

"but all the characters almost seem to use the same style of speaking"

Yes, I found that a little odd. Slightly irritating, at times, when you see some of Thufir's abbreviations.

I disliked HOD and CH:D, because they had by then become too sci-fi, and had lost most of the incisive nature of the rest of the series.

[TMA_1]

totally agree about chapterhouse and heretics nema.

[Scott]

Messiah and Children of Dune were a little slow. The entire Bijaz-Idaho ghola plan to produce a Chani ghola was weak. The beginning of Heretics uphill climb. The Marty and Danielle deal in Chapterhouse was dumb. Other then that, they meet my seal or approval.

[SpiceGuid]

totally agree about chapterhouse and heretics nema.

because FH continually renews as a writer you have to renew as a reader.

i mean renewal is among main Dune themes, so it's not surprising it also applies to the novels.

CH:D is both nostalgic and erotic, i've found the mix quite interesting.

sure i am only human, and FH can become boring, especially when "giving a lesson".

i guess the same style of speaking is the style of the dissimulation...

[Caid Ivik]

Well, I personally think that Heretics and Chapterhouse were created because Asimov revived his Foundation series too and Herbert wanted not to be ashamed...

[Emperor Harkonnen]

nothing in the novels are focused on how the average person lived. Not if they had any media or what they did on a normal day. that sucks.

and that all the harkonnens died I didn't like. I would love to read about them in the other novels as well.

[Dante]

I liked Chapterhouse, though I'm forgetting it fast and will have to read it again soon (anything in my memory not freuqently re-read is soon forgotten. Sad but true). It's true that it's very different from the others but after all, if it were too similar it would have been repetitive.

I think it would have been interesting to read the prequels as Frank Herbert would have written them. I'm not sure if he would have done of course, there being no need to leech off himself, but the tripod system just seems so... under used in the original books. It's overthrown and then... gone. And of course there is the political interplay of the Landraad, various Emperors, the Great houses of course, including the Harkonnens, the Guild, the Tleilaxu, my personal favourites the Bene Gesserit... I feel some deeper understanding of these groups in a pre-Muad'dib world would have been very... profound.

Of course there's no use pining after what cannot exist.

[AeonGrey]

nothing in the novels are focused on how the average person lived. Not if they had any media or what they did on a normal day. that sucks.

and that all the harkonnens died I didn't like. I would love to read about them in the other novels as well.

But did they?  It says very clearly toward the end of the book that Fenring's wife Margot seduced Feyd-Rautha and is carrying his child.  He of course doesn't realize it.  Hmmm...this makes me wonder...is this something that was ever a factor again in the later books?  This mystery child of Feyd-Rautha's?  Perhaps something that Frank was inteding to have come into play later on in Dune 7 or something.

[Emperor Harkonnen]

WOW COOL! didn't knew that. strange though, I would have remembered it if I saw it. :O

well anyways, perhaps she brought birth to an offspring of pure evil, a true harkonnen. I wish that the harkonnen has built up a new force in dune 7. fighting on the side of thinking machines against the humanity ;D and afterwards the harkonnens betray the machines, treacherous as they are. MUHAHAHAHAHA

[AeonGrey]

WOW COOL! didn't knew that. strange though, I would have remembered it if I saw it. :O

well anyways, perhaps she brought birth to an offspring of pure evil, a true harkonnen. I wish that the harkonnen has built up a new force in dune 7. fighting on the side of thinking machines against the humanity ;D and afterwards the harkonnens betray the machines, treacherous as they are. MUHAHAHAHAHA

*shudder* thinking machines...what a bunch of tripe.  It's pretty clear that Dune 7 is gonna have thinking machines in it...but I wonder if thats really what Frank had in mind.

[Emperor Harkonnen]

how do you know they are going to have machines. perhaps the enemy the heighliner encountered in House Corrino were aliens. perhaps it were not machines.

[AeonGrey]

how do you know they are going to have machines. perhaps the enemy the heighliner encountered in House Corrino were aliens. perhaps it were not machines.

There was a very overt setup for this in Butlerian Jihad.  Something about Omnius sending probes of himself out into the "farthest reaches" of the known universe or something.  It said something like "it may take thousands and thousands of years for them to reach anywhere".  He's even hinted at it himself.  He's said that the reason he didn't write Dune 7 right away is because he wanted to write all the prequels first so that he'd have things "set up" for Dune 7.  It's going to happen.  He's going to have remnant thinking machines out there...and gholas from Scytale's nullentropy tube fighting them.  And me?  Even though I hate the idea....I'm going to read the stupid book!!!! arggghhh.....

[Scott]

There was a very overt setup for this in Butlerian Jihad.