13 ms·

Dune was an amazing read. I'd recommend reading it if you haven't. The setting is unique and mindblowing in scale. However, if you're planning on going through

Dune was an amazing read. I'd recommend reading it if you haven't. The setting is unique and mindblowing in scale. However, if you're planning on going through the entire series I'd suggest stopping at God Emperor. The books afterwards seem to lose their direction, the plot starts to feel a bit contrived. The focus shifts from action to endless discussions between characters that could've been used to develop character and story, but seem to tread the same ground. At the same time details that were mentioned in a sentence suddenly balloon into massive plot points, and bizarre deus ex machinae pop up all over the place. YMMV, of course. I stopped after finishing the original series, and read the Wikipedia synopses of the rest of the books in order to get some sort of closure.

mpdehaan2 12y ago
While it gets weirder towards the end of the six books, I found the philosophy and generally strange quotes and philosophy to be more interesting and worthwhile, even if the plot got exceptionally less so. To me, I think the gap in readability was in books two and three - maybe.
- magicalist 12y ago
  Yeah, I find Heretics of Dune to be much better than Children of Dune, for instance, both in characterizations and the ideas it explores. I'll break ranks, though, and say I actually enjoy the plot after God Emperor of Dune quite a lot. I didn't really the first time I read the books, so that may have some bearing, but it helped to read a piece discussing the books, where they claimed that the Dune books are two separate trilogies, with God Emperor as the transitional book. Unfortunately, Frank Herbert didn't get to complete the second trilogy, but the first two books of it -- when thought of as a mostly separate set of stories from the first Dune books -- becomes much more interesting, rather than just "why is he introducing all this new stuff into this universe?" As for those other "Dune" books written by Frank Herbert's son and Kevin Anderson, they are total trash, and not worth any more of your time than, say, your average bottom-of-the-barrel Star Wars EU novel (it's telling that it took Frank Herbert nearly 30 years to write his six Dune novels, and it took them less than 5 years to write their first six). If you're curious about them, do yourself a favor by reading their synopses on wikipedia, feeling sad that they even exist, then forgetting that they do.
  - andrey-p 12y ago
    That actually sounds like a pretty good rationale behind the completely different approach for the later books. (I'm still not sure I'd still agree with that approach, of course.) > but it helped to read a piece discussing the books Any chance you could link to that piece?
tcopeland 12y ago
Dune was on the Army MCoE book list for a while too: http://militaryprofessionalreadinglists.com/search?keywords=dune http://militaryprofessionalreadinglists.com/search?keywords=... It's not on their most recent list, but Starship Troopers is.
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anotherevan 12y ago
I loved the first book, and hated the rest. I got as far as half-way through Heretics of Dune when I suddenly asked myself, "Why are you still reading this?" and stopped. I've since re-read Dune three or four times (most recently by way of an excellent audio-book version).

mpdehaan2 12y ago

While it gets weirder towards the end of the six books, I found the philosophy and generally strange quotes and philosophy to be more interesting and worthwhile, even if the plot got exceptionally less so. To me, I think the gap in readability was in books two and three - maybe.

magicalist 12y ago
Yeah, I find Heretics of Dune to be much better than Children of Dune, for instance, both in characterizations and the ideas it explores. I'll break ranks, though, and say I actually enjoy the plot after God Emperor of Dune quite a lot. I didn't really the first time I read the books, so that may have some bearing, but it helped to read a piece discussing the books, where they claimed that the Dune books are two separate trilogies, with God Emperor as the transitional book. Unfortunately, Frank Herbert didn't get to complete the second trilogy, but the first two books of it -- when thought of as a mostly separate set of stories from the first Dune books -- becomes much more interesting, rather than just "why is he introducing all this new stuff into this universe?" As for those other "Dune" books written by Frank Herbert's son and Kevin Anderson, they are total trash, and not worth any more of your time than, say, your average bottom-of-the-barrel Star Wars EU novel (it's telling that it took Frank Herbert nearly 30 years to write his six Dune novels, and it took them less than 5 years to write their first six). If you're curious about them, do yourself a favor by reading their synopses on wikipedia, feeling sad that they even exist, then forgetting that they do.
- andrey-p 12y ago
  That actually sounds like a pretty good rationale behind the completely different approach for the later books. (I'm still not sure I'd still agree with that approach, of course.) > but it helped to read a piece discussing the books Any chance you could link to that piece?

tcopeland 12y ago

Dune was on the Army MCoE book list for a while too: http://militaryprofessionalreadinglists.com/search?keywords=dune http://militaryprofessionalreadinglists.com/search?keywords=... It's not on their most recent list, but Starship Troopers is.

deleted 12y ago

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anotherevan 12y ago

I loved the first book, and hated the rest. I got as far as half-way through Heretics of Dune when I suddenly asked myself, "Why are you still reading this?" and stopped. I've since re-read Dune three or four times (most recently by way of an excellent audio-book version).