Alternate Dune 7

[Tatar Khan]

I just keep wondering if Frank Herbert actually meant the mysterious "Daniel and Marty" to be thinking machines when he mentioned them at the end of Chapterhouse.

There is a goo number of fans who believe that the two people at the end of the Chapterhouse Dune were supposed to be Frank Herbert and his wife. Frank Herbert was breaking the fourth wall as they would say in the television.

[Dante]

Metaphorically, perhaps. The theory that I subscribe to is that they were highly developed face dancers.

[MrFlibble]

Which is exactly what their dialogue at the end of Chapterhouse hints at - something Keith & Barney decided to completely ignore :P

[AeonGrey]

My ideal alternate Dune 7 would be an ACTUAL Dune 7, which would consist of an edited volume of everything Brian actually knew about what his father WANTED for Dune 7, if anything.

Seriously, Christopher Tolkien had no problem doing this for his father's material and it became a lucrative multi-volume series without spewing diarrhea all over his father's work.

[SandChigger]

Unless destroying that work was the intention all along.

Maybe it's as simple as sibling rivalry, Brian jealous of his father's literary children, still grumpy over five decades later that he and his younger brother had to be quiet playing while FH was working on his writing?

We'll probably never know, but I'd be satisfied if they had simply released the "Dune 7" outline supposedly on those floppy disks.

(Of course after all this time and hoopla, I'd have a hard time believing any outline they released was real.)

[ErasOmnius]

I think it would have been better not to have Omnius and Erasmus as the antagonists of Dune 7.

With the character Omnius, BH/KJA really paints themselves into a box. Would have been better if Khrone, the Face Dancer leader, had been the antagonist, talking to an underling at the end of Chapterhouse.

Hunters and Sandworms can get really cartoonish with Omnius in the picture.

[SandChigger]

It would have been better if they had released Frank Herbert's "Dune 7" outline and then said, "Hey, here's our take on this, what do you think?" (Hell, they couldn't even be bothered to include the outline or chapter sketches for "Spice Planet" in <i>The Road to Dune</i>, for comparison.)

Sorry, but I don't see much difference between Khrone and Erasmus & Omnius, in that all of them are the creations of KJA and ... um, the other guy ... the old one with the curly hair.

The Super Face-Dancers Daniel and Marty were where the story was. Ah well.

[Guzzleguts]

Don't you all know that it is only a small but vocal minority of purist fans that have any criticism of KJA/BH's Dune 7 or other works? (At least that's what they write in their blogs and interviews - I know I believe 'em)

There is no need for an alternate version at all, everyone loves the existing one!

@sandchigger - I'm not even sure that it is all an attempt at revenge. I would guess that BH is simply not a talented writer like his father but learned that it was a means by which it is possible to attain wealth. He probably doesn't know any other way to make money, but he wants money. He wants it a lot, more and more and more of it.

Why are there more 'cash-in' books than the originals?

Why print Dune 7 in two books when you could get plenty of revenge in one?

Perhaps he does just loves his father's universe and wants to keep it alive.

But then why protect the intellectual property to such an unnecessary degree?

Why block the Dune Encylopedia reprint?

FH

Dune (1965) to Chapterhouse (1985) - 6 books in 20 years.

BH/KJA

House Atreides (1999) to Winds of Dune (2009) - 10 books in 10 years.

Thus we can learn that Frank had only 30% of the Dune story writing ability of his son, so perhaps I (and others) have been unfair. It is obvious that BH/KJA are more prolific than Frank Herbert.

[MrFlibble]

I would guess that BH is simply not a talented writer like his father but learned that it was a means by which it is possible to attain wealth. He probably doesn't know any other way to make money, but he wants money. He wants it a lot, more and more and more of it.

I don't think it's just personal pursuit of wealth by BH. He is probably nothing more than a pawn, a figurehead used to put the name "Herbert" on the new book covers. It's the publishers and HPL who will get most of the money, and KJA does their bidding, getting his fair share of income, and a means of self-expression as a bonus.

[SandChigger]

BH maybe could have been a fair to decent writer back when his father died, if he'd really kept at it and had someone to continue mentoring him.

It things turned out, however, he fell in with a talent-free shyster and now can't write for crap himself.

Have a look at his new solo Timeweb books. Simply hideous.

[clooster]

ok. it seems that in the dune 7 we got, a paul was able to reconstruct his heart.

could the original Paul have done the same with his eyes?

[SandChigger]

LOL! ;)

Excellent point.

No doubt KJA would say...

"If Paul had fixed his eyes, it would have led to a much nastier future by preventing Leto II from taking the sandtrout skin and coming to the throne when he did, thereby delaying the timely establishment of the Golden Path ... which of course was flawed and a big mistake anyway, but it served its purpose."

KJA is SO Dune-wise. :)

[gurneyman]

Duncan and a crew of Tegs followed by their robot crew, partying thru space to Van Halen and crushing mad HM tuckus. Breeding out the enemy wink wink. Then once that was accomplished a trip to Rossak for a party in the jungle fully complimented with tripbees and miracle water. Boldy they will bristle with weapons and raise their chins in defiance. Then they will pimp out el caminos and throw on spinners so they can have wheels within wheels. The End.

[ErasOmnius]

I still believe that based on the conversation between Lucilla and the Dama, that Frank Herbert wanted human-kind to end up in a far-flung compendium. With not all of human-kind being able to communicate with each other. Those who are able to communicate with each other, found a democracy.