5 ms·

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

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.
- CoreDumpling 15y ago
  I was actually surprised that A Deepness in the Sky didn't make it to the list when A Fire Upon the Deep did. Deepness had a lot of themes that satisfy hacker tastes (not just in terms of the technology but also the socio-political ramifications of it). I had first heard of it when DanielBMarkham highly praised it (http://www.hn-books.com/Books/A-Deepness-In-The-Sky.htm http://www.hn-books.com/Books/A-Deepness-In-The-Sky.htm, HN discussion here at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2170579 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2170579) and it's definitely one of the best sci-fi books I've read in years.
  - llambda 15y ago
    I'm so glad you mention it! I'm in the process of reading it right now. (Somewhere around 300 pages in; it's a bit heftier than Fire, but so far, well worth the read. I'm thoroughly impressed.)
    - jerf 15y ago
      The first time I read Deepness in the Sky, I felt like the middle was dragging on, because I wanted to get to the end. Subsequent re-readings have revealed the middle is packed full of content and very good, no filler at all, it can just be a bit much to take in on one shot.
  - Roboprog 15y ago
    Loved Deepness in the Sky. It did make me cringe, though, every time some War on Terror policy was being discussed (in real life), I couldn't help thinking "Emergent" / "Emergency" :-( Vice Podmaster, indeed.
anatoly 15y ago
I only read Dune last year (I'm in my thirties), and really disliked it. Your comment, however, emphasizes a virtue I did not sufficiently acknowledge at the time. It _is_ true that Dune was able to weave a lot of background into the story without resorting to technical infodumps. And at the time it was a rare and impressive achievement in SF, deserving of praise. But I don't think I'd agree that things haven't changed since; nowadays careful weaving of background isn't rare. The first two examples that pop into my mind are Banks' books (the Culture series or _Fearsum Enjinn_) in SF and Martin's _A Song of Ice and Fire_ novels in fantasy. It may be reasonable to say, however, that Dune has been foundational in teaching later authors the necessity of doing this. (Ultimately, I just couldn't handle how bad the writing was. All the characters are utterly cardboard flat. Cliched tags follow them around the book. One character has an inkvine scar on his jaw that eventually ripples in any scene he's in... and then again in the next scene... and again... I felt like instituting a drinking game based on the rippling of the scar. The main hero's mind is filled with a _terrible purpose_ whenever the author feels the need to emphasize a clue or a plot point. And the author just can't handle the flow of information (who knows what how, and whether the reader also knows that and how). This leads to the I'm-going-to-spell-out-precisely-what-I'm-about-to-do syndrome you mention, but goes deeper than that, creating plot holes and distortions, and causing most of the characters to learn most of the important knowledge they need basically by staring into space and having a revelation).
- jasonkester 15y ago
  Try again in a year or so. Dune is one of those books that takes a few tries. I think it was my 3rd attempt before I really got hooked and made it through (and savored every page from there on out). It's kinda like Lord of the Rings in that respect. If you're in the right frame of mind, it's awesome. If not, it's the most boring piece of dullness you've ever seen in print. But once you're in, you're in for good.
- jonnathanson 15y ago
  Admittedly, the book is more a triumph of imagination than of craft. I won't argue there. That said, I agree with the comment that it takes a few reads to really appreciate. The writing has its flaws, but it has its real charms. And those charms can be lost on a first read-through. Many of them were on me when I first plowed through the book. (It is not a book to be plowed through, I would later learn).
jerf 15y ago
"Harkonnen, in particular, has a James Bond Villain-esque penchant for such speeches" The Sci-Fi (pre-SyFy) miniseries runs with this and plays him as a flat-out monologuing villian, and I daresay it works pretty well. I actually recommend the miniseries. It gets panned by a lot of people, but you need to understand it less as a television miniseries and more as a filming of a dramatic theater play. It heavily uses theatrical conventions, lighting, monologuing, pacing, even very theatrical special effects at some points. Given the low budget and topic material, I think this makes perfect sense, as theatrical conventions allow for more of the internal dialog to come out than standard cinema/movie conventions.
- alimbada 15y ago
  Agreed, the 2000 miniseries was pretty good as long as you keep in mind it's more theatre than film.
- FilterJoe 15y ago
  I loved the miniseries (after hating the first film - a travesty). After watching the miniseries, thousands of people chanting "Muad'Dib" came into my dreams and I still remember it today, years later (as luck would have it, my son attends a Jewish school whose day begins with a "Modani" ceremony - guess what that makes me thing of . . .). The theatrical tricks of this miniseries obviously worked very well on me.
colomon 15y ago
"Regardless, the book has been absolutely foundational to the genre. Nearly every convention of the modern space opera can be traced back to Dune." Examples, please? I haven't read Dune, so maybe there's something here I don't recognize, but I would have said modern space opera traces very directly back to good old (and very much pre-Dune) space opera...
InclinedPlane 15y ago
The Wheel of Time series borrows extremely heavily from Dune.

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.

CoreDumpling 15y ago
I was actually surprised that A Deepness in the Sky didn't make it to the list when A Fire Upon the Deep did. Deepness had a lot of themes that satisfy hacker tastes (not just in terms of the technology but also the socio-political ramifications of it). I had first heard of it when DanielBMarkham highly praised it (http://www.hn-books.com/Books/A-Deepness-In-The-Sky.htm http://www.hn-books.com/Books/A-Deepness-In-The-Sky.htm, HN discussion here at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2170579 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2170579) and it's definitely one of the best sci-fi books I've read in years.
- llambda 15y ago
  I'm so glad you mention it! I'm in the process of reading it right now. (Somewhere around 300 pages in; it's a bit heftier than Fire, but so far, well worth the read. I'm thoroughly impressed.)
  - jerf 15y ago
    The first time I read Deepness in the Sky, I felt like the middle was dragging on, because I wanted to get to the end. Subsequent re-readings have revealed the middle is packed full of content and very good, no filler at all, it can just be a bit much to take in on one shot.
- Roboprog 15y ago
  Loved Deepness in the Sky. It did make me cringe, though, every time some War on Terror policy was being discussed (in real life), I couldn't help thinking "Emergent" / "Emergency" :-( Vice Podmaster, indeed.

anatoly 15y ago

I only read Dune last year (I'm in my thirties), and really disliked it. Your comment, however, emphasizes a virtue I did not sufficiently acknowledge at the time. It _is_ true that Dune was able to weave a lot of background into the story without resorting to technical infodumps. And at the time it was a rare and impressive achievement in SF, deserving of praise. But I don't think I'd agree that things haven't changed since; nowadays careful weaving of background isn't rare. The first two examples that pop into my mind are Banks' books (the Culture series or _Fearsum Enjinn_) in SF and Martin's _A Song of Ice and Fire_ novels in fantasy. It may be reasonable to say, however, that Dune has been foundational in teaching later authors the necessity of doing this. (Ultimately, I just couldn't handle how bad the writing was. All the characters are utterly cardboard flat. Cliched tags follow them around the book. One character has an inkvine scar on his jaw that eventually ripples in any scene he's in... and then again in the next scene... and again... I felt like instituting a drinking game based on the rippling of the scar. The main hero's mind is filled with a _terrible purpose_ whenever the author feels the need to emphasize a clue or a plot point. And the author just can't handle the flow of information (who knows what how, and whether the reader also knows that and how). This leads to the I'm-going-to-spell-out-precisely-what-I'm-about-to-do syndrome you mention, but goes deeper than that, creating plot holes and distortions, and causing most of the characters to learn most of the important knowledge they need basically by staring into space and having a revelation).

jasonkester 15y ago
Try again in a year or so. Dune is one of those books that takes a few tries. I think it was my 3rd attempt before I really got hooked and made it through (and savored every page from there on out). It's kinda like Lord of the Rings in that respect. If you're in the right frame of mind, it's awesome. If not, it's the most boring piece of dullness you've ever seen in print. But once you're in, you're in for good.
jonnathanson 15y ago
Admittedly, the book is more a triumph of imagination than of craft. I won't argue there. That said, I agree with the comment that it takes a few reads to really appreciate. The writing has its flaws, but it has its real charms. And those charms can be lost on a first read-through. Many of them were on me when I first plowed through the book. (It is not a book to be plowed through, I would later learn).

jerf 15y ago

"Harkonnen, in particular, has a James Bond Villain-esque penchant for such speeches" The Sci-Fi (pre-SyFy) miniseries runs with this and plays him as a flat-out monologuing villian, and I daresay it works pretty well. I actually recommend the miniseries. It gets panned by a lot of people, but you need to understand it less as a television miniseries and more as a filming of a dramatic theater play. It heavily uses theatrical conventions, lighting, monologuing, pacing, even very theatrical special effects at some points. Given the low budget and topic material, I think this makes perfect sense, as theatrical conventions allow for more of the internal dialog to come out than standard cinema/movie conventions.

alimbada 15y ago
Agreed, the 2000 miniseries was pretty good as long as you keep in mind it's more theatre than film.
FilterJoe 15y ago
I loved the miniseries (after hating the first film - a travesty). After watching the miniseries, thousands of people chanting "Muad'Dib" came into my dreams and I still remember it today, years later (as luck would have it, my son attends a Jewish school whose day begins with a "Modani" ceremony - guess what that makes me thing of . . .). The theatrical tricks of this miniseries obviously worked very well on me.

colomon 15y ago

"Regardless, the book has been absolutely foundational to the genre. Nearly every convention of the modern space opera can be traced back to Dune." Examples, please? I haven't read Dune, so maybe there's something here I don't recognize, but I would have said modern space opera traces very directly back to good old (and very much pre-Dune) space opera...

InclinedPlane 15y ago

The Wheel of Time series borrows extremely heavily from Dune.