[geeks] Dune novels

[gsm at mendelson.com]

On Sat, May 29, 2010 at 11:17:25PM -0400, Patrick Giagnocavo wrote:
>There is the original Dune series written by Frank Herbert himself, and
>a later set written by his son in collaboration with another writer.
>
>Is it the case that the only ones worth reading are the ones written by
>Frank Herbert, and that the rest should be considered in the same
>category as the two follow-on movies to "The Matrix" ?


IMHO the second set is sh*t. The authors succumbed to the pornography of
violence that was rampant in the "based on the writings of Tom Clancy"
novels when he first licensed the franchise. 

I have not read any more of them so I can't comment on them. But I did
read the Dune ones and am sorry for it. I know that the Baron Harkonen
was a homosexual who got off on mutilating his lovers, and doing the
sorts of things that Josef Mengele would have thought too far, but I don't
need to read about them in detail.

Herbert was a pretty sick bastard to think about those people and what they
did, but he did not make you descend to his (or their level).

I also enjoyed his use of fake arabic most of which was badly garbled Hebrew.

I loved the movie on the other hand, and saw it at least 5 times when it
came out. I watch it about once a year.

I live in the desert and keep looking for wormsign. :-)

Geoff.

-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel gsm at mendelson.com  N3OWJ/4X1GM
New word I coined 12/13/09, "Sub-Wikipedia" adj, describing knowledge or
understanding, as in he has a sub-wikipedia understanding of the situation. 
i.e possessing less facts or information than can be found in the Wikipedia.