Sandworms Quotes Showing Poor Writing - ATTN: REDBUGPEST


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A Thing of Eternity
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Sandworms Quotes Showing Poor Writing - ATTN: REDBUGPEST

Post by A Thing of Eternity »

Onwards, to some of the things that popped into my head as EXPLICIT examples of poor writing when I read Sandworms. I will add contemporary comments in red

Well, I have finished Sandworms. My goal was to take notes each chapter and give a truly balanced review of the book, going to far as to promise myself that for each criticism I would also show an example of good character development, dialogue, prose or just quote things that I thought added to the novel. I had such high hopes because I found that Hunters, while still very weak, was a big improvement from the Legends writing, and expected the trend to continue.

It did not. I am honestly disappointed that I was only able to find one single phrase that could be quoted as a positive. I am deeply bothered by this book. I felt that the characters have been reduced to the mental state of perhaps a smart chimp (machines included) that the plot contradicted itself repeatedly, and that at the end of it all the most blatant example of Dues Ex Machina I have ever run across. What follows are my notes, which I have attempted to shrink down to a readable size, presented in the order that I read them Each is a quote from the novel followed by some thoughts. I may have to split this into several posts just to keep people oriented in this mass of information so I apologize in advance for double or triple posting. I had to leave out many of the smaller examples of what I felt were poor writing, but I think that this will paint a fairly accurate picture of the book. I will also be posting a watered down version of this over at DN, if I post the whole thing no one will read it and nothing will be accomplished. When you see the word EDIT that’s where I’ve gone back and added to my notes after finishing the story.

If anyone feels that I have taken a quote out of context please let me know and I will post the surrounding passages in an attempt to find any redeeming quality whatsoever.
"We have time. You have a galaxy to conquer before we need the Kwisatz Haderach aboard that
ship.”
Unless this means that conquering a single galaxy would only be the first step this is a huge problem. It states very clearly in the original novels that humanity had gone far beyond a single galaxy. EDIT: Now that I’ve finished the book, I see that they repeatedly describe humanity as being contained to one galaxy, though there is a clear passage in the originals that shows humanity in more than one galaxy, or at the very least having the ability to travel to other galaxies where they would be safe. Due to this I have deleted the other quotes I was going to post where they describe the scattering as being limited to one galaxy, it’s just too much redundancy for me. I GO ON TO COMPLAIN ABOUT THIS IN MY OTHER THREADS SO YOU CAN IGNORE IT HERE
For centuries Omnius had been building his invincible force. Using traditional but supremely efficient lightspeed engines.
Wait wait wait. In the Legends series and the FAQ on this site (www.dunenovels.com) it states that the ships used by the humans and machines were Faster Than Light, now they only go lightspeed? I’m happy to see the boy’s getting a bit closer to conventional physics, but this in direct contradiction to their own work. What goes on in their heads?

- Combining the first two quotes we now have a serious plot flaw to overcome. Let’s for the moment forgive the “one galaxy to conquer” mistake, but even then, at light speed it would take one hundred thousand years to travel from one end of the galaxy to the other. I think boredom waiting for the machines might kill humanity off a bit quicker. If we don’t forgive this (I don’t) and remember that there are many galaxies in the scattering, then it would take Omnius many MILLIONS of years to get there. Again, plenty of time for tea whilst waiting. I truely do hope to see what your explanation for this moronic writing is!

Now we must use those techniques not just for our own protection, but as a functional weapon, a means of influencing armies. No longer passive and protective, but an active force. A Missionaria Aggressiva.”


I actually got a good chuckle out of this. Not exactly razor sharp wit, but it’ll do.
Waff had a much more immediate solution. If he could develop a breed of sandworm that
tolerated water, even thrived around it, the creatures could be transplanted onto innumerable
worlds where they could grow swiftly and multiply! The worms would not need to reconstruct a
whole planetary environment before they began to produce mélange. That alone would save
decades that Waff simply did not have. His modified worms would provide all the spice the Guild
Navigators could ever desire - and serve Waff's purposes as well.
Problem: the worms don’t create the spice. It is formed when a cluster of sandtrout has reached a critical point, fermented if you will, creating the pre-spice mass; which then produces vast quantities of carbon dioxide; pressure builds up and creates an explosion known as a spice blow. When the remains of the pre-spice mass have dried out this is what is known as the spice mélange. No worms necessary, the only purpose of the worm vector appears to be to protect the territory (from what who knows?) and eventually die producing more sandtrout. This demonstrates poor Dune knowledge in general.

Anxious to keep the boy from thinking too much, he stood. "Shall we take it outside, then,
Paolo? Why don't we see how it works?" The Baron gave him an avuncular pat on the shoulder.
"And afterward we can kill something with our bare hands, like we did to the mongrel hounds
and ferrets.”
This was great to see, fucking fantastic. There’s also a passage from Hunters IIRC, which has a young baron strangling cats for fun. In the “Doon” National Lampoons spoof on Dune they make fun of the baron’s charactor by turning him into a totally unbelievable monster. His main thing was strangling kittens and killing animals for fun. Good to see there was a wide variety of sources for this novel.
Serena was an odd visitor in Other Memory, a woman whose ancient thoughts should
not have traveled down the corridors of the generations, and yet she had been with Sheeana for
years now.
Retcon! The authors must have heard about this inconsistency in Hunters and decided to find some solution for it now. I look forward to seeing what they come up with. EDIT: they come up with nothing, again we’re expected to just “revel” in the magic of it all.I love that they took the time to try and retcon their mistake from Hunters, and STILL failed to do so.
Their ridges were an iridescent blue-green, showing a soft pink membrane between segments, a surrogate set of gills that absorbed oxygen from the water. Their mouths were round like those of lampreys. Though they had no eyes, the new seaworms could navigate using water vibrations in much the way that Rakian worms had been attracted by tremors in the dunes. Using carefully mapped models from sandtrout chromosomes, Waff knew that these creatures had the same internal metabolic reactions as a traditional sandworm.
The “traditional” worms don’t breathe oxygen; they create it. This is stated repeatedly and clearly in Frank’s novels. How can the new worms have the same metabolic reactions as a sandworm, and at the same time have metabolic reactions that are the complete opposite? Do these guys even think before they write?This is a HUGGGGE mistake by KJABH, I'd LOVE to see someone try and justify this blatant lack of thinking something through, because the HLP sure gave up and didn't even try to answer it (or any of the mistakes I pointed out)

Sadly, there's more, much more to come, but I can only cram so much into a single post!
Last edited by A Thing of Eternity on 25 Jun 2009 16:18, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Sandworms Quotes Showing Poor Writing

Post by A Thing of Eternity »

Here we go again.
Soon, there would be multiple sources of spice, including a new and more potent form.
Earlier Waff worries that the new worms may not even produce spice, now he’s thinking about a new more potent spice? This is only one of many instances where characters have information that there is no way they could have access to in these books. Remembering to exclude information until the characters are aware of it is one of the fundamentals of fiction, and these two blew it repeatedly.
Sculpting worm chromosomes for survival in a comfortable ocean environment had been a challenge; much more difficult, though, was the task of toughening the monsters to survive out in the blasted wastelands of Rakis. But Waff did not turn his back on difficulty.
I’m interested to see how changing a sandworm into a water worm is supposed to be easier than changing one into an armored sandworm? Completely changing a creature’s biochemistry is easier than just amplifying the genes that already exist for tough body armor? Hmmm.
Accadia struggled to sit up in the chair. "Mother Commander, don't be so focused on the
epidemic that you fail to see its consequences." She began coughing. Blotches had appeared
all over her skin, the advanced stages of the disease. "This plague is a mere foray, a test attack. On many planets it is sufficient, but the Enemy must know the Sisterhood well enough by now to be sure we can fight this, at least to a point. After they soften us up, they'll attack by other means.” Murbella felt cold inside. "If thinking machines destroy the New Sisterhood, then the remaining fragments of humanity will have no chance of resisting them. We are the most important hurdle Omnius has to overcome.” "So you finally understand the implications?" The old woman grasped the Mother Commander's hand to make sure she understood. "This planet has always been hidden, but now the thinking machines must know the location of Chapterhouse. I would wager that their space fleet is already on its way.”
“Holy shit, the machines are going to attack? Why didn’t I see that coming, why? Is it perhaps my 50 point IQ score? How could I have known? Whyyyyy?” – Murbella after realizing that she is mentally handicapped.I love how every single character in this novel is completely incompetent :lol:
Liet added, "Already, small worms in the desert belt have created priceless amounts of
mélange just waiting to be mined. How have you survived for so long without spice?”
Get it through your heads, the worms do not create the fucking spice blows, the sandtrout do. A thousand monkeys at a thousand typewriters will eventually create a novel this bad just from hitting random keys. Or is that the only way to create something this despicable?
With a puff of sand and dust the thumpers plunged into the dunes and sent out droning
signals. After circling back to make certain the devices were operating properly, Var selected
two more spots within a radius of five kilometers. Stilgar could not determine why the craft still
felt overloaded.
Another mental handicap? I haven’t even read the rest of the page and I could tell him it’s full of water to drench the worm. How else are they going to kill it? It’s fucking obvious.
The commandos emptied their water reservoirs, and the second worm perished even
more quickly.
Nobody feel like telling these poor suckers that killing a worm with water just creates sandtrout, making their problem even bigger? No, no one wants to tell them?
When the air pressure was no longer sufficient to buoy him, the Navigator collapsed to
the floor of his tank. Weakly, he raised his webbed hands and demanded answers in a voice
that was little more than a gasp. The Guildsman and his companions offered no explanations.
It’s not air pressure that buoys the navigators, are they supposed to have lighter than air sacks under their skin? They float because there is no artificial gravity in their chambers, and on a planet their mobile chambers have suspensor fields to keep them floating. That they think a person could be buoyant in mere air (saturated with spice but that’s not the point) shows yet another lack of attention to even the most obvious details, or a severe disrespect for the intelligence of their readers. This is another really severe case of the authors not even bothering to think something through, and proof that they really do not have any serious editors, any fool should have caught stuff like this and warned KJABH that it makes them look like they have a weaker grasp of basic physics than a child.
We can't survive simply by running or by breeding faster than Omnius can kill us.”
Sure you can, go to another galaxy, sit around for a few million years, maybe go to another galaxy or two, and maybe a hundred times a hundred thousand years later, if this happens to be the closest galaxy to the old empire, Omnius will show up. Unless he took a wrong turn, then he might be there in time to see the stars of human systems die of old age.

Against all odds and science, Rakis still clung to its sparse atmosphere, its gasps of
moisture.
Gravity’ll do that.
Waff knew exactly where he was going. Before coming to Rakis, he had dug up the old charts, and because the Honored Matres' Obliterators had altered even the planetary magnetic field, he had carefully recalibrated his maps from orbit.
What does the polarity of the magnetic fields have to do with a map of the planet? At worst your compass might point in the wrong direction, but the north and south poles are still pointing in the original directions relative to the solar plane. Pointless, poorly thought out techno babble.
Murbella had to go to him to make her demands - but under the strictest quarantine conditions. Encased in her own decontamination sphere, like a laboratory specimen in a tank, she felt foolish and helpless.
Or just use a radio. Whatever’s easiest for you I guess.
"You provided the originals, and we duplicated them precisely. If the originals functioned,
then these will, too.” – In reference to the Obliterators.
I thought they were modified to be more powerful. Which is it now? This is so small I thought of leaving it out but there needs to be a few examples of simple old fashioned bad writing in here to balance out the rest.

I'm sorry, there's still more.
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Re: Sandworms Quotes Showing Poor Writing

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Had the real Thufir accidentally encountered a hidden Face Dancer in a darkened
passageway? One of the secret survivors from the Handlers' suicide crashes in a long-term elaborate ruse? How else could a Face Dancer have gotten aboard the Ithaca? – Duncan
Wasn’t Thufir on the Handler’s planet? Would have been easy enough for the switch to be made then. Another annoying lowering of the IQ of a character. This whole subplot is probably the most severe example of dumbing down your characters in order to allow your plot to function that I have ever seen. A 10 year old could tell you that the Handler's planet was obviously where the swap was made, but Duncan, who is supposedly the SUPER Kwisatz Haderach (whatever that means, they never did explain that) was totally stumped??? Give me a break! BAD WRITING
With an iron-hard scowl, Garimi said, "The obvious answer is that Hawat was born a
Face Dancer, then carefully planted and manipulated by our Tleilaxu Master. Who would know
Face Dancers better than old Scytale? We know he had the cells in his nullentropy tube. If that
scenario is true, the deception went on for almost eighteen years.”
Sure, that’s more obvious (and simpler) than what I said about the last quote. Sure it is. Another retarded character. The gene pool’s in trouble folks, better get back at that breeding program.
"The quantities necessary to saturate our ship would be huge," Duncan said, racing
through a Mentat calculation to estimate the volume of air within the gigantic vessel, the
concentration of gas that would prove lethal to the shape-shifters, the possibility of making
others ill and debilitating the crew.
That’s quite the mentat projection considering he just heard of this poison a few seconds earlier and has no way of knowing it’s properties and potency.
Duncan glanced from Yueh and Teg to Sheeana. "The connection is obvious to me now.
Thufir Hawat and the Rabbi. Why didn't I see it?” Sheeana caught her breath as she suddenly realized the same thing. "Both went down to the planet of the Handlers!” Duncan nodded. "Hawat and the Rabbi were alone together during the hunt of the Honored Matres. You all had to fight your way back to the lighter after you discovered that the Handlers were Face Dancers.”
That’s so cute, they finally figured it out! Fucking Retards.
Leto II's vision of the Golden Path had fragmented humanity so that they no longer followed a single charismatic leader, and now Murbella had to repair that damage. Diversity might once have been a path to survival, but unless the numerous worlds and armies could stand together against the far greater foe, they would all perish.
Now they’re saying that the golden path was a mistake? I’ll let that one slide since they obviously didn’t grasp what the Golden Path was. One galaxy? Did they even read FH’s books? I’m okay with “tearing down a character later” as Byron has said Frank liked to do, but they clearly don’t understand that the scattering sent people OUT OF THE GALAXY SO FAR THAT EVEN THE AUTHORS DON’T KNOW ABOUT IT. Golden Path worked remarkably well if it accomplished even that!
The darkness of defeat and extermination had already blackened most of the
known systems in the regions of the Scattering.
AGAIN: That was the point of the scattering, there are few known systems from it. If they were known, they wouldn’t be very scattered in a universe with instantaneous travel now would they?
Alia had been murdered, while three key gholas - Paul, Chani, and Leto II - remained unawakened. Stilgar and Liet-Kynes were left on Qelso, and Thufir Hawat had been a
Face Dancer.
Why thank you, I’d forgotten this information.
What is the difference between data and memory? I intend to find out.
- ERASMUS, Laboratory Notebooks
Data is information (I know that’s not the definition, but you know what I mean). Memory is stored information. Are we seriously supposed to believe that an AI could not grasp this concept?

The worm is outside for all to see, and the worm is within me, part of me.
Beware, for I am the worm. Beware!
- Leto II, Dar-es-Balat recordings, in his voice
Boga boga boga. I’m scared, are you?
Paul realized what he should have known from the beginning: I am not the Kutisatz Haderach
that Omnius wants. It isn't me!
Well, you are the kwisatz haderach, and I think omnius just wants any old KH, so what makes you think you aren’t? I don’t follow. EDIT: oh, I see, you’re not the super-superbeing, just a run of the mill superbeing. Perfectly clear.
Waff pressed his forehead against the dusty, dying creature's yielding surface. He had
done everything he could. Maybe Rakis would never again support the behemoth worms.
Maybe this was indeed the end.
That sure makes that subplot pointless filler. EDIT: No! it was to set the ground for the greatest discovery of all, the sandworms are OK! Woopeee!
Combat robots swarmed the streets. They emerged from between buildings, fashioning
and firing projectile weapons from their own bodies. The Bene Gesserits scrambled out of the
way, finding shelter. Las-beams cut smoking holes through the fighting machines; explosive
projectiles smashed them backward into debris.
This whole chapter is unbelievable. Omnuis could just drop a couple flowmetal buildings onto the humans and it’d be over, fire some lasers with machine precision and it’s over. Thankfully, the boy’s anticipated this and made the machines retards.
No education, training, or prescience can show us the secret abilities we
contain within ourselves. We can only pray those special talents are available in
our time of greatest need.
- The Bene Gesserit Acolytes' Handbook
That’s the complete opposite of Bene Gesserit philosophy.
"After you died the first time, Duncan Idaho - as a soldier fighting to save the Atreides,
fighting to save the first Kwisatz Haderach - the powers of the universe compelled your
resurrection as a ghola, and many times afterward, over and over.
Oh good, god did it.
In your one body, you manifested a tachyon evolution, a hyper-fast developmental journey that propelled you toward your destiny.”
A faster than light evolution? WTF? The techno babble is killing me, they don’t even use the terms correctly. Is this supposed to be some kind of artsy poetic statement? It’s not one.
" First, however, I need to eliminate a threat that should have been gone millennia ago. An enemy I fought ten thousand years before you were first born.” - Normacle
Just remembered eh? Might want to work on that.
"I will take you to a place where such information is no longer comprehensible, where
physical laws do not apply.” – Normacle spirits Omnius away to never never land.
Dues Ex Machina, renders the entire novel and all previous Dune books including the jihad completely pointless. Don’t worry people, you can’t save yourselves, you just have to wait for god to come along and do it for you.
"If the solution were that simple, a Kwisatz Haderach would not be needed to implement
it." Duncan surprised Erasmus, and himself, by reaching down and helping the robot
to his feet. "To end Kralizec and truly change the future requires more than just
the annihilation of one side or the other.”
It was that simple, and the Kwisatz Haderach was not needed. Norma saved the day.
My father refused to make the choice I did - refused to pay
the price in blood for the Golden Path, but I thought I knew better.
Ah, how arrogant we can be in our youth!”
Now they’ve said that everything the god emperor did was not just pointless, but the wrong thing to do. Considering he made the scattering so secret even the autho… wait, have I been over this yet?
The differentiation among the creatures became less distinct; the rings united, joining into one incredible sandworm: a behemoth greater even than the largest monsters from legendary Dune.
These were very small worms, combined they wouldn’t be even close to the mass of the great one that Muad’dib called. What law about the conservation of mass? It’s really insulting when the authors try to impress the reader without even considering that the reader might THINK about what they’re reading. The worm Paul called was almost three kilometers long.
The largest of the worms, nearly forty meters long with a maw
large enough to swallow three people abreast, was clearly dominant.
That’s the biggest one and there were seven of them. End to end you get up to 280 meters long which isn’t quite 10% the size of Muad’dib’s worm. Assuming that the ratios of length to mass stay similar there is would have taken 75 worms just to get up to the same size, let alone bigger.
This union between Leto II and the creatures would have a greater resistance to moisture, enabling them to survive until they could remake parts of this former machine planet into a domain of their own.


Still, they don’t grasp how the spice cycle works. You WANT a wet planet to start the cycle; it won’t work otherwise. No need for any resistance to water. Didn’t need it on chapterhouse did they?AAARRRRGGG!!!!!
"After the Butlerian Jihad, human civilization went too far by completely banning artificial intelligence. But in forbidding any sort of computers, we humans denied ourselves valuable tools.
“but” must be used between to conflicting statements, not two statements that support each other. I choose this one example of the excessively poor grammar that is present throughout this book.
His faith swelled again, and he saw that his insignificant efforts on Rakis had never mattered. Regardless of how hard he had worked with the sandtrout, trying to seed these dead dunes with enhanced worms, God had His own plans - always His own plans.
That pretty much sums up the theme of this novel. Nothing you do matters, god has the final say. This is what happens when you let a scientologist write in a universe that has a record of talking about religion. As a matter of fact, they repeatedly give the tone that religion is good throughout this book, subtly and not so subtly. I don’t think they quite got what Frank’s opinion was of systems, especially religions systems.
But power had eventually corrupted Leto II. How, then, could Duncan handle this even greater burden?
When did power corrupt LetoII? He held true to the Golden Path even though he knew it meant his death. No significant thing he ever did was from corruption, just part of the necessary plan. Oh wait, it wasn’t necessary, only god/normacle can save you.
If handled properly, Sheeana saw no reason for humans to fear cooperation with thinking machines any more than they needed to fear religion itself, or competition among Bene Gesserit elements.
You DO need to fear religion. It is bad kids, ask your mom or ask your dad.
When Leto II envisioned his Golden Path, he foresaw the direction that
humankind should tale, but he had blind spots. He failed to see that he was not the
ultimate Kwisatz Haderach.
- Bene Gesserit fact-finding commission
He was not the superdupermega kwisatz haderach. I think he pretty much had it covered though.
There were still axlotl tanks, of course - some women volunteered for personal reasons,
while others left instructions for their bodies to be converted in the event of serious accidents.
As always, the Bene Gesserits met their own needs.
The superdupermegakwisatzhaderach/machineoverlord couldn’t come up with an artificial womb to save some lives? Seriously?

Thank Normacle I’m finally done this story that was vomited rather than written.

Well Folks, those were my thoughts, sorry it was sooooo long.
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Re: Sandworms Quotes Showing Poor Writing

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Most impressive! :shock:
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Re: Sandworms Quotes Showing Poor Writing

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A Thing of Eternity wrote:There’s also a passage from Hunters IIRC, which has a young baron strangling cats for fun. In the “Doon” National Lampoons spoof on Dune they make fun of the baron’s charactor by turning him into a totally unbelievable monster. His main thing was strangling kittens and killing animals for fun. Good to see there was a wide variety of sources for this novel.
Had a small revelation. Bear with me.

What if the purported notes are real.

And...they... are... a copy of Doon?

Everything falls into place from there. :-)
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Re: Sandworms Quotes Showing Poor Writing

Post by TheDukester »

Just as a quick aside, it's universal that TheKeith's characters are complete morons. This goes way beyond his alleged "Dune" books; his characters have been idiots for as long as he's been writing.

The easy joke here would be to say something like, "Just like the author himself," but it's more important to note that there's a real reason behind it: Kevin J. Anderson's incredible lack of writing talent. His characters are mere props who act they way they do solely to serve plot devices. That means they often do/say incredibly stupid things, have knowledge they shouldn't have, don't act on knowledge they do have, etc., etc.

It's all just plot to Kevvie: this happened, then this happened, then that thing happened, over and over and over. What's scary is that many people who like his crap are old enough to vote, drive, and reproduce.
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Re: Sandworms Quotes Showing Poor Writing

Post by Lisan Al-Gaib »

Fantastic. A real fantastic analysis.

For me, all the reasons are in their books to be seen. Only the stupid blinds can not.

And there is so obvious mistakes...I think they didn't made them without purpose. They really believe in all this crap: God is to be worshiped, God is the real lord over our destiny, god will save the day eventually, and all these type of things that is totally mindless.

Their objective was to mark DUNE with their ideas, to "consagrate" them as good writers like frank. Stupids.
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Re: Sandworms Quotes Showing Poor Writing

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I was prepared to forgive almost any style of writing, but you'd think to follow FH they'd at least TRY.

Those books were literally phoned in.
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Re: Sandworms Quotes Showing Poor Writing

Post by Robspierre »

Just like the characters in a Michael Bay movie.

Rob

TheDukester wrote:Just as a quick aside, it's universal that TheKeith's characters are complete morons. This goes way beyond his alleged "Dune" books; his characters have been idiots for as long as he's been writing.

The easy joke here would be to say something like, "Just like the author himself," but it's more important to note that there's a real reason behind it: Kevin J. Anderson's incredible lack of writing talent. His characters are mere props who act they way they do solely to serve plot devices. That means they often do/say incredibly stupid things, have knowledge they shouldn't have, don't act on knowledge they do have, etc., etc.

It's all just plot to Kevvie: this happened, then this happened, then that thing happened, over and over and over. What's scary is that many people who like his crap are old enough to vote, drive, and reproduce.
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Re: Sandworms Quotes Showing Poor Writing

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I can't forgive bad writing. I'm notoriously hard on novels and other text-media. Books are not like music or movies, where sometimes what's lousy on the page can be carried by a catchy tune, pleasing visuals or good editing. In a book, what's on the page is all there is and, for the most part, a writer cannot fall back on anything else. Of course, there is exploitation of existing franchises like Dune, Star Wars, Star Trek, X-Files, Starcraft and many others. In franchise exploitation, the audience is already captive due to the brand name and will carry their positive associations for the originals across successive sequels, even projecting their likes across mediums (from film/television into novels). Existing fan bases are much more forgiving of a franchise exploitation novel and enjoy them more as comfort food that caters to a pre-existing familiarity and fondness for the subject matter. If the same level of writing in a franchise exploitation novel were to introduce an entirely original novel without the benefit of an established brand or name, those very same readers would be far more critical of the book, if the book even attracted their attention at all. Ironically, these franchise exploitation novels tend to be written by the worst writers. ;)

Of course, I'm a slow reader and as such, I have to invest a lot of time into reading a book. So it better be worth it if I do :)
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Re: Sandworms Quotes Showing Poor Writing

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Robspierre wrote:Just like the characters in a Michael Bay movie.

Rob
I love your analogy, but even evoking Bay-by-association feels like giving KJA too much credit. Bay is a known commodity; he has name power and is definitely one of the top players simply because of his box office might, even though he is a giant hack. KJA? He's way further down on his respective ladder and even the well read are far more likely to ask "Kevin who?" I'd say KJA would be a Uwe Boll analogy, but most wouldn't even recognize the worst director of our modern age. Perhaps KJA can be likened to Brett Ratner, or better yet, McG. The mediocre middle management of Hollywood :)

Ah, let's just stick with Bay. He's got another lousy film out now, so why not bash two hacks with one insult? :P
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Re: Sandworms Quotes Showing Poor Writing

Post by Robspierre »

GamePlayer wrote:
Robspierre wrote:Just like the characters in a Michael Bay movie.

Rob
I love your analogy, but even evoking Bay-by-association feels like giving KJA too much credit. Bay is a known commodity; he has name power and is definitely one of the top players simply because of his box office might, even though he is a giant hack. KJA? He's way further down on his respective ladder and even the well read are far more likely to ask "Kevin who?" I'd say KJA would be a Uwe Boll analogy, but most wouldn't even recognize the worst director of our modern age. Perhaps KJA can be likened to Brett Ratner, or better yet, McG. The mediocre middle management of Hollywood :)

Ah, let's just stick with Bay. He's got another lousy film out now, so why not bash two hacks with one insult? :P
It's beyond lousy, it's a fucking disaster, rolled in a shit ball and splattered on the wall, so a monkey can draw pictures with the poo and then demand everyone look at his balls as he tea bags them.

If you can get in for free, go see it, it is one of the biggest mess' I've ever seen in years.


Rob
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Re: Sandworms Quotes Showing Poor Writing

Post by Lundse »

Robspierre wrote:It's beyond lousy, it's a fucking disaster, rolled in a shit ball and splattered on the wall, so a monkey can draw pictures with the poo and then demand everyone look at his balls as he tea bags them.

If you can get in for free, go see it, it is one of the biggest mess' I've ever seen in years.

Rob
I am SO there dude!

Bay movies for me are a guilty, guilty pleasure. Me and my friends were sputtering with laughter at these:
Listen to me! You're a soldier now! All right, I need you to take this Cube. Get it into military hands while we hold them off, or a lot of people are gonna die.
(from memory) wrote:These are US soliders, they don't know how to fail.
The movie was so deliciously post-9/11 I had stars in my eyes and stripes in my shit for weeks afterwards. No disrespect to America, but when Michael Bay is being patriotic... Albert Speer has nothing on this guy.


I know it is shit, but it is fun shit. (I actually did like how Transformers did not take itself serious, the parents were great because they had all this patriotic/giant robots/world coming down-crap right behind their bickering.)


So I guess I can enjoy crap. Maybe me and the prequelites aren't that different?
Oh wait. I would never reinterpret Catch-22 as pro-war/patriotism/authority because Bay made a movie that put such a twist on it. And go rant about how Yossarian turns out to really be named John Rambo in the end was a stunning and interesting development and interesting characterization.
(Cf. redbugs' interpretation of "thrown down among the masses" - yup, he thinks that means Terminator exoskeletons going pew-pew - wonder where he got that idea and whether he will be able to tell the difference between interpreting something on its own, or using a secondary source?)

Whoops, veered off-topic, there.
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Re: Sandworms Quotes Showing Poor Writing

Post by SandChigger »

This is why Thing is Eternal. :)
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Re: Sandworms Quotes Showing Poor Writing

Post by A Thing of Eternity »

Baraka Bryan wrote:well that's a fucking list!

i got about 2/3s thru and had to stop.. the sheer magnitude of the stupidity is mind-boggling
This is the vastly edited down version. I originally had a page or so more.

SandChigger wrote:This is why Thing is Eternal. :)
Why thank you Chig.
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Re: Sandworms Quotes Showing Poor Writing

Post by DuneFishUK »

This:
them wrote:But power had eventually corrupted Leto II. How, then, could Duncan handle this even greater burden?
Makes me think of this:
FH wrote:Centers [of power] attract people who can be corrupted. That is a more descriptive observation than to say simply that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
(Thanks for the dirty work Thing - definitely, er.. interesting reading. I hope I never feel the need to put myself through what you've been though ... :P )
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Re: Sandworms Quotes Showing Poor Writing

Post by Freakzilla »

DuneFishUK wrote:But power had eventually corrupted Leto II.
Blas[p]hemy!
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Re: Sandworms Quotes Showing Poor Writing

Post by SadisticCynic »

Blasphemy, I think...
Ah English, the language where pretty much any word can have any meaning! - A Thing of Eternity
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Re: Sandworms Quotes Showing Poor Writing

Post by SandChigger »

Bammannammaphallammarammmmannnna!!! :lol:
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Re: Sandworms Quotes Showing Poor Writing

Post by Freakzilla »

:doh:

I really need to get me on of them new fangled spell checker thingies.
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Re: Sandworms Quotes Showing Poor Writing - ATTN: REDBUGPEST

Post by inhuien »

Thanks Thing that really reminded me that SoD = goatse.
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Re: Sandworms Quotes Showing Poor Writing - ATTN: REDBUGPEST

Post by trang »

Excellent listing of the weakness of their scrawlings/dictation. Reading the quotes shocked me right back to the day I read the book and the subsequent brain hemmorage I had.

Some mention the forgivness/tolerances of bad writing in relation to other 'verses. I would add that I read a lot of different genres within Scifi(military scifi if ya dont know me by now) fantasy, and other fiction. I read and keep my expectations within those verses, will growl at pure shit, but let things slide.

Dune(6) is its own genre, its different in so many dimensions from other fiction, science or other wise. At the same time encompassing all fiction, woven masterfully between both. Anyone attempting to add, finish, extend, or contribute to the Duniverse, shall expect scrutiny above other efforts. The small handfull of epic masterwork fiction, like Dune(6), deserves enshrinement and protection.

The fucking tradgedy is way these two idiots have gone about there handiwork, as you have so excellently demonstrated. These two have effectivly put a bumbersticker on a buggati...Frak.

one other thing I would add is the sheer EMBARISSING VOLUME and REPETATIVENESS they use to do their damage. 1500+ pages across two books that should or was ment to be one.

Frightfull and deserving of the scorn and ridicule, for all ages. The tradgedy continues in POD and beyond.

***try and do a list/notes thing with POD and see if you can make it.. I only made it in 100 pages before I gave up and just finished as fast as I could read. Its worse thant HOD/SOD*****

I dont claim to be a literary master, an english teacher, or writer of any worth. Its just so dam blatent and obvious.. ya wonder who the dam editor is? if there even was one.

Well done sir,
:clap:
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Re: Sandworms Quotes Showing Poor Writing - ATTN: REDBUGPEST

Post by SandChigger »

trang wrote:***try and do a list/notes thing with POD and see if you can make it.. I only made it in 100 pages before I gave up and just finished as fast as I could read. Its worse thant HOD/SOD*****
And WoD looks to be even worse.

Shills on Amazon and at Publishers Weekly notwithstanding. :roll:



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Re: Sandworms Quotes Showing Poor Writing - ATTN: REDBUGPEST

Post by TheDukester »

Reminder, RedBugDickhead: this is where you pussied out last time.

Specific questions have been raised; we all breathlessly await you repeating whatever KJA's answers are.
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Re: Sandworms Quotes Showing Poor Writing - ATTN: REDBUGPEST

Post by Tleilax Master B »

I know I'm late here, but, damn, good job Thang! :clap:
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