Hi everyone! I have read the first four books of the series and I have been wondering if anyone could tell me if these two books are worth reading. I've seen many people cursing the writers to have ruined the legacy of Frank Herbert, and some people who appreciated the effort. I am curious what reddit thinks. Thank you for the replies.
I created this entirely in PS and used the creature design for the sandworms in the upcoming film as reference. This illustration accompanies a Dune-inspired music soundtrack that I made as a bit of background ambiance for when I’m reading the book - the soundscape has a really mellow, synthwave vibe that is easy to zone out to but (hopefully) captures the essence of the book. If you’re interested you can check out the accompanying soundscape here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHHfCN5NXkk
https://preview.redd.it/wfra7x4mwds61.jpg?width=2480&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=208e64e26eeb64f9778a9b2fe0fd6fe13aaeaebb
Did Frank Herbert leave clear notes leading to this conclusion or did the authors just 'wing it' for the most part in order to further expand the series to make a quick buck?
Don't get me wrong. OG Dune and God Emperor are the 2 greatest books I've ever read in my life. The feeling I experienced when I finished Chapterhouse was thrill, excitement, and absolute despair knowing the situation with Frank dying.
I swore to myself id never read any Brian Herbert material ever a day in my life out of respect to Frank. Basically because so many people have told me how much they hate "what Brian Herbert did to Dune," and a lot of those people I would consider to have trustworthy opinions.
Anyways 2 days went by and the withdrawal was so bad I immediately purchased Hunters and read it. I loved it! A few things I would consider questionable to Frank's pre set standards but overall I enjoyed it enough to immediately read Sandworms and I found it all to be a satisfying extension and end of the series. Call me a nostalgic dweeb but I loved bringing back all my old favorite characters. And I truly believed Frank would have done that as well or else he wouldn't have mentioned the nullentropy tube with Scytale in Chapterhouse. Scytale had no purpose in that book except to set things up for the next book.
My biggest complaint, like almost everyone else, was the handling of Daniel and Marty's characters and all the other stuff tied to that, spoiler spoiler. But to me, that wasn't enough to sink the ship.
I've grown to love hate and love Duncan Idaho in so many different phases lol. The whole ride has been crazy. Maybe my opinion is like this because I havnt read any of the prequels or other stuff Brian did yet. But I was satisfied. Obviously Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson can't write as well as the one and only Frank. But they did a good job.
ALSO. a lot of people have voiced dislike for Messiah. I honestly liked that book too. Not in my top 3, but I liked it. Paul's journey is amazing and sad.
I also believe Paul and Leto II both knew about Daniel & Marty, and both knew they'd be coming back. That was probably part of their struggle, not wanting to come back. At least Leto knew, he saw it all.
Currently about halfway through Children of Dune.
I’ve been loving the series so far and I was just wondering if the other two books that supposedly close up the series are worth reading?
Edit:thanks for all the feedback everyone, seems like the overall consensus is that I should just stick to the original 6 books.
Shame I just got done with WoT and Sanderson did a good job of finishing up that series, kinda disappointing Herberts own son couldn’t do the same with Dune.
Who knows though maybe if I’m really bored one day I’ll read them for the shits.
Ok, so while I didn’t hate the BH/KJA sequels, I certainly had my issues with them as I’m sure many people do.
HOWEVER
I think the last epilogue chapter with Paul and Chani was borderline perfect. Maybe they didn’t capture the themes or worldbuilding as well as Frank Herbert, but I’ll be damned if a tear didn’t come to my eye as I read those last few paragraphs.
I think there are plenty of things wrong with how it ended, and of course, in the grand scheme of how books are criticized this is a minor thing, but I just thought that closed out the character’s journey beautifully.
Do you feel the same? Id love to know!
Here’s the thing, God Emperor of Dune might be my all time favorite book. I have never read a book that managed to jam so much thought provoking commentary and dialogue into a cohesive plot. I had no expectation that Heretics and Chapterhouse would be as gratifying, but they were enjoyable nonetheless and I found the plot compelling even if the philosophizing was not quite up to par. I found much of Hunters to be very interesting and the return of the old cast of characters was fun. I finished Sandworms today and am glad to see where the plot was going, even if it wasn’t done quite as elegantly as maybe Frank would have managed. There was a lot of tugging at heart strings that didn’t really do it for me. Really, Paul gets stabbed through the heart and survives? Lots of highly predictable supposed payoffs, like the Baron’s death, universe is saved by oracle of time, etc. I found the Evermind totally simplistic and uninteresting as a character. Erasmus was better but not by a lot. Somethings with non-obvious explanations went unexplained (how did Aliyah get into the Baron’s head??).
Anyway, I could go on with flaws. But at the end of the day, I think the authors did an admirable job of wrapping up the plot given the act they were following. I also found Waff’s arch intriguing and actually felt a little emotional when he gets eaten by the worm. I am glad I decided to read these last two, even if I was not as enthralled as by Frank’s works.
Just wanted to share my thoughts.
Those who have not read Dune may not know this but there are a lot of Islamic/Arabic elements in the lore of the world it is set in, particularly surrounding the Fremen (who practices a hybrid religion called Zensunni—a mix of Sunni Islam and Sufism, and Zen Buddhism. A friend of mine noticed that they used the word "crusade" in the recent trailer, which may be used to replace the word "jihad" in the books. What do you think of this? How would the adaptation handle Muslim representation or are they going to go for erasure to avoid some loaded topics, given the Fremen's role in the books?
I am personally interested to see what choices they make, especially since I don't think there are any great choices available to them. What do you think?
Edit: Oh I missed a word at the end of my post title, dang it.
I first read the original 6 Dune books when I was around 13 (I'm now 33), and re-read them a couple of times after that.
I've seen the 84 Movie, both the Syfy miniseries, and Jodorowsky's Dune.
I've read a couple of the BH/KJA Books - The Prelude ones, The Butlerian Jihad, Hunters, and Sandworms,
I played and loved the original Dune Adventure game, Dune 2, Dune 2000, and Emperor: Battle for Dune.
I am a huge fan of the original books and the universe created within.
The BH/KJA books I read were a bit meh, and I don't like where they took the ending - I really don't think that the Thinking Machine empire stuff was were Frank Herbert was taking us...
I was hoping that the Facedancers had evolved independently in the scattering to become the great threat for the end of the series.
It's been 15 years since I last read the original books, and 10 since I seriously invested any time into books at all outside of some comics/graphic novels here and there.
I think because of the age I was when I first read Dune, it really left an impact and really formed a strong opinion of what good books should be. The downside of this I think is a hesitance to read other things haha.
I came across a Chronology of the entire collection of books -
https://pastebin.com/RnTpX4dk
Does this look about right? I just found out a book came out last year called The Duke of Caladan, so I'll add that later.
I'm aiming to read it all in that order starting tomorrow night.
I know the BH/KJA books got a lot of flak back when I read the Prelude books, and it seems looking through this subreddit, that is still the case.
Have they improved at all over the years? And if so, how?
Sorry for the rambling nature of the post...
We've been playing Dune for a minute now, the only advanced rule we don't use is "paying spice for troops" because it's a non-starter for over half of our dune regulars. As such, some of us feel as though the Fremen might be a little underpowered, as one of their core strengths in the advanced game is not paying for troops. So I was thinking: what if they get to choose where the worm goes every shai hulud and not just doubles? This solves one of my complaints with the game (the actual worm on the map not doing a lot usually) AND buffs the fremen with free mobility and/or just a tactical nuke on anyone out on the sand.
What do y'all think? Also, how about that Dune Imperium?
The Sandworms from Dune are pretty badass. They swim through the desert, eat industrial machinery, allow humans to experience the flow of time non-linearly, plus, who doesn't love a giant worm?! .... but who can beat a Sandworm in a fight?
Sandworm and character are on Arrakis in an area with only a small amount of rocky cover. It's mostly just sand. Sandworm is huge and pissed. Fighters start 100 meters apart.
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Round 1: Character knows about Arrakis and the worms.
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Round 2: Character is unaware regarding the rules of Arrakis or the worms.
am i the only one on this? i want to see the details! the action figures of the humans look alright, looking forward more to the armored ones, and the sardaukar, but what i REALLY want is for them to actually make sculpts of the new sandworm design, it is starting to grow on me. like, anyone else here agrees that there should be some figures of the new worm?
Round 1 takes place on arrakis. Round 2 on tattoine Bonus. The krayt dragon is replaced by the zillo beast
I did this about 11 or 12 years ago for my thesis on Dune. It took a full close read-through of all 6 books to put this together, and in this case a picture speaks a million words.
https://preview.redd.it/4lixtdc6eg551.jpg?width=627&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=54b6ff941d5d18cdff5ae61bdf041c85d52191b1
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