6 ms·

Dune is great..in fact, the original 6, except maybe God Emperor, are all great. Hyperion is a good book, as is the 2nd in the series The Fall of Hyperion. How

• jobu 15y ago
  I read Stranger in a Strange land for a literature course in college, and what really helped my understand the book was when the prof explained some of the political and cultural climate that influenced the book.
• pragmatic 15y ago
  re Stranger in a Strange land I think it's a book like Catching in the Rye. Our (American) culture has changed so much that modern readers think "what's the big deal with this". The drugs/orgies etc in Stranger in a Strange Land have much less of an impact on a generation that grew up with easy access to hard core drugs and hard core porn.
  • latch 15y ago
    both to you and jobu: That's probably it. I remember watching Deer Hunter...maybe in '99 and I just couldn't believe how bad a movie it was. Obviously, to people still in touch with Vietnam (in 78), the impact was...greater.
    • jwallaceparker 15y ago
      Deer Hunter is an incredibly good movie and I have no connection to Vietnam. I was born in 1977.
    • barrkel 15y ago
      The Deer Hunter is a very strong movie that still stands on its study of how relationships change under stress of war. It's not really about Vietnam specifically, or its time. Perhaps you were too young when you saw it? (Born in 79 FWIW.)
• j_col 15y ago
  God Emperor is difficult to get into, but worth sticking with. Actually love the opening sequence of that book more than any other, which describes some thieves being chased through a forest by a pack of guard wolves, as Herbert moves expertly from the thoughts of one thief to another as they are gradually caught by the wolves, starting from the slowest runner at the back. Fantastic writing.
  • Radim 15y ago
    Indeed, God Emperor is by far the best of the Dune series. I've re-read it many times and it never fails to deliver. Goes to show different people like different things? Apparently, I'm more into the psychology and exploration of large-scale social patterns. People who like the other Dune books are presumably more into "action" sci-fi. Nothing wrong with that.
• jonnathanson 15y ago
  Something Dune accomplishes really well -- and which very few sci-fi books or movies have ever pulled off quite as effectively -- is weaving a lot of background, and culture, and esoteric terminology, into the story without disrupting the story's flow. There aren't lengthy, disjointed sidebars about what X means, or why Y exists. Instead, X and Y are woven into the narrative via context, allowing the reader to pick up quickly on what they are. (There's also a glossary at the back of the book, of course, which helps). The book's most glaring weakness, however, is that many of its characters suffer from I'm-going-to-spell-out-precisely-what-I'm-about-to-do syndrome (Harkonnen, in particular, has a James Bond Villain-esque penchant for such speeches.) Regardless, the book has been absolutely foundational to the genre. Nearly every convention of the modern space opera can be traced back to Dune. It's a pity that no one's ever been able to crack the book's code on film. Understandable, though, as so much of the action is psychological and the drama internalized.
  • latch 15y ago
    I found both syfy miniseries more than acceptable, no?
  • chernevik 15y ago
    But the irony is that Harkonnen _sees_ himself as that sort of evil mastermind, when he's actually made himself quite stupid.
    • jonnathanson 15y ago
      True. There's a kind of semi-comedic irony that can be read into his character. He's sort of like Wallace Shawn's character in "The Princess Bride" in that sense.
  • llambda 15y ago
    > There aren't lengthy, disjointed sidebars about what X means, or why Y exists. Instead, X and Y are woven into the narrative via context, allowing the reader to pick up quickly on what they are. I feel Vernor Vinge has a good talent at this too. Apropos A Fire Upon The Deep (superb read) exposition is sparse and when required neatly woven into the story so that you almost never realize it's happening when it is.
• wiredfool 15y ago
  Hyperion is Chaucer, updated. Took me embarassingly long to twig onto that. Personally, I found the first and fourth Hyperion books to be my favorites, and the middle two less so, and nearly a separate story altogether.
  • ovi256 15y ago
    And Chaucer is the Decameron, rewritten in English with English names and toponyms. And the Decameron is the 1001 Nights, rewritten in renaissance Italian. And let's not forget the 16th century "Cent Nouvelles nouvelles", which is obviously related by format and plot. TL;DR: These are timeless tales, retold to fit the author's time.
• nazgulnarsil 15y ago
  strange, I found God Emperor the most interesting.