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I'm a lifelong hardcore SF fhan, a trufhan if you get that reff, but i've never read dune. it just never appealed to me, i tried to read it once and it was just this impenetrable word wall i could not get into.
I've read plenty of classics, all the way back to 20,000 leagues beneath the sea, war of the worlds, ringworld, 2001, Foundation, etc I just could not get into dune.
So as someone who just never could get into it, without any disparagement on Dune which i'm sure is a great novel, can people who are into dune and have read it try to sum it up in one sentence? I'd really like to see that from people who read it. A one sentence summation of it's main point or plot.
"But the universe is a big place, and whatever happens, you will not be missed..."
"Through the darkness of future past, the magician longs to see.
One chants out between two worlds: Fire, walk with me." - Twin Peaks
"You listen to me. While I will admit to a certain cynicism, the fact is that I am a naysayer and hatchetman in the fight against violence. I pride myself in taking a punch and I'll gladly take another because I choose to live my life in the company of Gandhi and King. My concerns are global. I reject absolutely revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method... is love. I love you Sheriff Truman." - Twin Peaks
"Absolutely excellent Sci-fi, right until Paul drinks the magic juice."
There's ya sentence.
I loved the first half of Dune, and if you're curious, I'd really recommend ignoring its size and picking it up, because the beginning is so much atmospheric fun, and culturally it's been pretty influential, but it's spoiled from being a truly *great* novel by some of the narrative gimmicks Herbert uses (deus ex magic juice), and ruins how truly stellar the good bits are for me.
"It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people."
"AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED."
Zed wrote: *All statements reflect my opinion at this moment. if some sort of pretty new model gets released (or if I change my mind at random) I reserve the right to jump on any bandwagon at will.
I've read Dune once, and only once. And only cause Villeneuve was directing the new film. It stirred up my interest. This book is a bit of a slow burn. It takes it's time to go anywhere, but when it gets going it had my attention all the way. I will say though I watched the syfy miniseries first, and that probably eased my understanding of the plot. So when I read the book I had some idea of where things were going.
I have read Dune many, many times and I’ve found something new in it every time. Maybe that’s why it’s so intimidating the first time round, because it’s so densely packed with lore and details and ideas, but that also gives it immense re-readability.
Zed wrote: *All statements reflect my opinion at this moment. if some sort of pretty new model gets released (or if I change my mind at random) I reserve the right to jump on any bandwagon at will.
Bleh any attempt to summaries fantasy or sci-fi in a very short space or indeed any story, can often end up watering it down to something that sounds silly boring or just repetitive of a thousand other stories. .
I would say Dune sits a bit like a mix of The Fellowship of the Ring and Gardens of the Moon. It's somewhat slow at times to get going with its real story like the Fellowship; and its got a lot of lore and sometimes you don't fully learn things until later in the book which can make it confusing on a first read - just like Gardens of the Moon.
However, like both of those stories, once you persevere there's the grand reward of the epic saga within. I found both Dune and Gardens of the Moon epic if confusing the first time and epic and even more enthralling the second time (there was a gap of years between the two reads).
I'd say though that the only way to understand a book is the same as for a film or a Tv series - you've sorta gotta push yourself and experience it to find out for yourself. Attempting to cheat and find summaries and reviews and sneaks peaks and all that is mostly just going to end up spoiling a few things for you and not really giving you any real sense of why people love it so much.
I'd go with: "The foundational building blocks for significant elements of Warhammer 40,000 that could entirely be worth reading the first few books from that perspective alone."
MDSW wrote: TLDR: Visionary work from Frank Herbert, so just start at the beginning and stop when you have had your fill*.
*or when it no longer makes sense - I think that was around the third book or so.
The fourth book I think. Dune, Dune Messiah and Children of Dune work as a great trilogy. After that you have the 3,500 year time jump forwards for God Emperor of Dune and things get weird.
The Laws of Thermodynamics:
1) You cannot win. 2) You cannot break even. 3) You cannot stop playing the game.
Colonel Flagg wrote:You think you're real smart. But you're not smart; you're dumb. Very dumb. But you've met your match in me.
Cynista wrote: Fairly compelling but ultimately overrated.
(I have the entire series and have read the first 4. And read the original twice. And definitely don't want to debate it)
This is fair. I found the first book to be good but not great the first time I read it. But as part of the larger series, my appreciation for the book increased.
To get back to something Overread said, Gardens of the Moon is a book that I read and really disliked. But the added context that comes from the larger series can alter how I view it. I think Dune stands on its own better than Gardens of the Moon, but it gains a lot once you have read more of the series.
Also, watch the David Lynch movie first, even if only to fill your mind’s eye with its striking production design when you read the book.
jodorowsky's dune is also interesting in a what could have been kind of way
edit-i also feel i should maybe give the books another read someday, given i was like 13 or 14 when i originally read them, and younger me got real lost at times when it got to things like the giant worm form emperor time period
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/03/27 06:58:34
Matt Swain wrote: I'm a lifelong hardcore SF fhan, a trufhan if you get that reff, but i've never read dune. it just never appealed to me, i tried to read it once and it was just this impenetrable word wall i could not get into.
I've read plenty of classics, all the way back to 20,000 leagues beneath the sea, war of the worlds, ringworld, 2001, Foundation, etc I just could not get into dune.
So as someone who just never could get into it, without any disparagement on Dune which i'm sure is a great novel, can people who are into dune and have read it try to sum it up in one sentence? I'd really like to see that from people who read it. A one sentence summation of it's main point or plot.
“You’ve heard of animals chewing off a leg to escape a trap? There’s an animal kind of trick. A human would remain in the trap, endure the pain, feigning death that he might kill the trapper and remove a threat to his kind.”
It's been 25 (!?!) years since I did my binge read of Dune (it was my first month in Japan, no friends, no English language TV) and my memory is the odd-numbered books were great and the even numbered, no so much. Stopping at book 1 is a fine choice, as it goes on 2 and 3 get more into the spice and worms, then with 4-6 it's a whole other universe set thousands of years beyond book 1 which is already 10k years in the future.
IMHO it is the Lord of the Rings of Science Fiction, a bold attempt to take readers to a whole new world with no point of view characters to walk you through it.