My Sandworms Review (spoilers)


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A Thing of Eternity
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My Sandworms Review (spoilers)

Post by A Thing of Eternity »

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.
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 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.

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.
You are his grandfather, said the annoying voice of Alia inside the Baron's head.
Take good care of him. The little girl taunted him incessantly. From the moment his memories were restored, she had been there waiting for him in his mind.
Why does the baron have OM? Is he the fucking kwisatz haderach now? And if he is, why does he have ancestral memory of one of his descendants?
"I wish you weren't inside mine. I was born before you! I can't possibly have your
memories inside me. You're an Abomination!” perhaps you are just flawed
completely mad. Have you considered the possibility that you might be imagining me?
Oooh, maybe they do know what they’re talking about! EDIT: I kept waiting for them to resolve this, but apparently they thought it would be artistic to leave the reader wondering. Except for the fact that according to the Duniverse this is completely impossible so it really doesn’t leave us wondering anything other than why they thought we were dumb enough to buy this.
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.
It was not quite a ship, for the Oracle could travel anywhere she wished, mentally folding
space without the help of Holtzman engines.
My she does have powers doesn’t she! Use the force!
Yueh touched his own smooth, unmarked forehead. "We're starting over, Jessica. Blank
slates. Look at me. The first Yueh broke his Suk conditioning - but I was born without the
diamond tattoo. Entirely unblemished.”
No kidding, I was born without my tattoos too! What are the chances!?

"I represent more than the New Sisterhood. Since no one else will step up to the plate, I
am responsible for the whole human race." She sighed. "Somebody has to be.”
Hey, they still have baseball 25,000 years in the future! There are way too many 20th century one liners in this book to be a tasteful use of other memory, but hey, that’s just an opinion.
Self-consciously, the fourteen-year-old rubbed his lips. "My original used the sapho drug,
which made stains like these.
EDIT: I shot too early on this one folks, didn't remember it from Dune. My mistake.
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?
Therefore, they should still produce spice, but Waff didn't know what kind of spice, or
how it would be harvested.
IIRC FH only ever gave a few statements that would suggest any spice is created within the sandworm, and nothing definitive that couldn’t be explained by the sandworms ingesting sand laced with mélange. Melange comes from spiceblows, plainly and simply.

Sadly, there's more, much more to come.
Last edited by A Thing of Eternity on 03 Jun 2008 01:19, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by A Thing of Eternity »

Here we go again.
Sheeana's large eyes fixed on him like a weapon's targeting system. Feeling a tingle like
static electricity on his skin, he cursed his body for being so easily tempted.
Yeah, because that’s an arousing thought. Nice imagery there boys.
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 now 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.
Those who see do not always understand. Those who claim to understand
can be the blindest of all.
- the Oracle of Time
This is the worst so far of the completely inane, obvious statements they’ve been using to start off their chapters. No kidding boys, I never would have known that some people think they know more than they do, thanks for letting me know that. Deep stuff. EDIT: never mind, they get worse.
There must be a place where we can find a home, where we can be safe
and rest. The Bene Gesserit sent out so many Sisters on their own Scattering
before the Honored Matres came. Are they all lost, as well !
- SHEEANA, confidential no-ship journals
I don’t even see the point of this, do they think this is foreshadowing or something? I guess it is, technically. Blah.

Waff had named it "ultra-spice."
Astounding creativity.
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.
"Reverend Mothers drive out disease organisms, cell by cell.
There are no antibodies we can share with others.”
Really? Seems like it would be easier to… never mind, I give up.
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.
"We will stop the moving sands," one young commando said.
Sickening. Absolutely sickening reference to the article which lead to the original Dune being written, thrown in amongst the bones of it’s rotting literary corpse.
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?”
Holy fuck monkeys! 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.
In his hand he held an indelible scriber filled with dark ink that would leave a permanent
stain. Not exactly a tattoo,
No, a permanent ink stain isn’t a tattoo, noooo.
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.
"I will go to my quarters now and heal." Then, in a lower voice, "Janess, have the
kitchens send up a restorative energy drink."
Redbull!
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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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.
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 the 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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A Thing of Eternity
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Post by A Thing of Eternity »

I'm also fond of the passage where seven forty meter sandworms combine to become "the biggest sandworm ever!" even though the one Muad'dib called was almost three kilometers long. Need Seventy Five worms P&tB, do yer math!
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Post by Lisan Al-Gaib »

THANK YOU!

I'll never read this book!

I'm reading the House Atreides, but wil be the last of B&K! It's too weak.
The singular multiplicity of this universe draws my deepest attention. It is a thing of ultimate beauty.

-- The Stolen Journals

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Post by A Thing of Eternity »

I should have listened to other people and not read this, but curiosity gave in. What was that about a cat? I am the cat.

I'm going to take Nekhrun's advice and go drink this one off. (He suggested that I may need a drink over on th DN forum).
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Post by SandChigger »

Yes, well, hindsight is 20/20, isn't it? ;)

Don't overdo the binge: there's more work to do!

But, quite impressive. :)

I'm almost inspired to go back to my chapter by chapter deconstruction.

Almost. ;)

* * * * *

I wasn't quite sure I followed what you meant about sapho. ??? (Have a quick look at the "Terminology of the Imperium".)

Kevin gave us a bullshit answer about the sandworms producing spice in the email interview we did back in April 2007:

- It is stated or implied several times that worms are the source of the spice on the no-ship even though this contradicts the main source of information on the worm life-cycle, the Ecology appendix to DUNE (spice comes from dried pre-spice mass exposed after spice-blows). What passage(s) from the original books do you base this interpretation on? Or is this from the notes?

In the original books Frank Herbert quite clearly makes the distinction that the worms spawned from Leto II's body are different creatures from the original worms on Arrakis. Pointing to details in the Appendix to DUNE is comparing apples and oranges.

(Interview answers)
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Post by Pardot Kynes »

Ouch.
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What we wish, we readily believe, and what we ourselves think, we imagine others think also.
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http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/451/451.html
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Post by A Thing of Eternity »

Ah, thanks Chig, I was getting ahead of my self on that one. Lost my head,and my memory.
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Post by SandChigger »

Nah, I figured you were probably thinking of the Mentat Litany. THAT's Lynch bull.


(Lynch...bull...why am I thinking of Wall Street and Meryl Streep. :shock: )
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Re: My Sandworms Review (spoilers)

Post by orald »

A Thing of Eternity wrote:
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.
Also failure of logic here- Waff's a bloody BT master. And what are the BT reknowned for in the post scattering Duniverse? Hmm...lets see...I'm sure it had something to do with something the Guild, BG and rich folks wanted but can't put a finger on it... :roll:

Or in short, ax-tanks are much better and faster than "worms" for producing spice, y'know.
In memory of Perach, who suffered and died needlessly.

I wish I could have been with you that one last time.
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Post by A Thing of Eternity »

Good point, I missed that.
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Post by SandChigger »

Yes, but the problem is that Waff doesn't remember how to produce spice using a tank. Because fUxtal used some forbidden process to speed up the growth of the ghola and that messed up his memories, blah blah blah. :roll:

There's another stupidity for you, though: ghola memory is essentially genetic memory of the individual body. For that to be screwed up his genetic structure would pretty much have to be futzed as well, no? He should be deformed and exhibit a wider range of genetic defects. (Other than the normal BT ones, I mean. Sorry, Mastah B! ;) )
"Let the dead give water to the dead. As for me, it's NO MORE FUCKING TEARS!"
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Post by A Thing of Eternity »

SandChigger wrote:
Don't overdo the binge: there's more work to do!
Sounds good, what do you have in mind? :evil:
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Post by orald »

Oh, it's not the same Waff? :o

I was looking at your posts earlier, AToE, and had at least oen more comment, but my connection fucked up and now I'll have to start reading it all over again. :(
In memory of Perach, who suffered and died needlessly.

I wish I could have been with you that one last time.
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Post by Lisan Al-Gaib »

I was thinking to do the same thing with the House Atreides, because still fresh in my mind.

I'll see if I get some time to do it.
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-- The Stolen Journals

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Post by A Thing of Eternity »

I won't mind even a summary reveiw of one of the House books, I haven't read any of them yet.
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Post by Omphalos »

A Thing of Eternity wrote:I won't mind even a summary reveiw of one of the House books, I haven't read any of them yet.
Here are some. I had not come up with reviewing these things when I read H:A, the only one of those books I ever read.
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Post by Phaedrus »

Omphalos wrote:
A Thing of Eternity wrote:I won't mind even a summary reveiw of one of the House books, I haven't read any of them yet.
Here are some. I had not come up with reviewing these things when I read H:A, the only one of those books I ever read.
Lucky you. They're better than the Legends books, but not by much.

Isn't it weird that every Dune book they write is progressively worse?
You aren't thinking or really existing unless you're willing to risk even your own sanity in the judgment of your existence.
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Post by SandChigger »

Maybe not.

They write a crap book...and it sells.

They don't try as hard with the next one...and it still sells...maybe even better.

Vicious circle, positive reinforcement of a negative behavior.

(Only instead of drooling, like a dog, they're shitting out books.)
"Let the dead give water to the dead. As for me, it's NO MORE FUCKING TEARS!"
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Post by A Thing of Eternity »

I thought Hunters was stronger prose than the Legends series, but others have argued against that. Sandworms is probably the worst literary divebomb I've ever seen. Even if it hadn't been Dune it would have been a waste of good trees. Fuck, I hadn't thought about that... these books are a pretty sad reason to kill a tree. I may or may not have been drinking. :wink:
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Post by Omphalos »

Their writing skills don't matter any more, and they know it. Most of the people who buy those fucking things are the kinds of slavering little nimrods who get off on having complete collections of stuff, and who get off on having the complete collection of something a genius like FH started. They literally could crank out 950 pages of "fuck you, preek" repeated on every page and as long as they put the name "Herbert" and the word "Dune" on it in big letters, thousands of little douchebags will buy it and wait in line to have KJA smear a booger on it. That way they can put it on their shelves and pretend-gloat about how they have FH all figured out, then explain Norma and Erashole to some unsuspecting rube who looks up to them because it looks to the casual eye like they read a real man's SF.

Yea, das right preeks! You fuckin's stoopit.
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Post by SandChigger »

Well...well...that kind of attitude is just ignorant. :roll:

The market has spoken. One book and maybe you could say that sort of thing, but eight going on twelve going on fifteen and...well...I think NOT.

Your implication that anyone who likes the books is a simpering ignoramus is, well, that's just ignorant.

And now I'm going to change the subject, 'cause you can't have it both ways, crying "Foul!" and "Troll!" and then turn around and do the same thing! Who do you think you are, the admin or something?!

(I love it when intellectual sloth meets moral vacuum. :D )
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Post by Omphalos »

Shutup Byron.
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Post by SandChigger »

:D

Too easy, right?

OK...for my next impression....
"Let the dead give water to the dead. As for me, it's NO MORE FUCKING TEARS!"
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