Anyone seeing any reviews?


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A Thing of Eternity
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Post by A Thing of Eternity »

Simon wrote:~snip lots of content ~
And No, I did post my review, I'm just not ready to go into full beef mode over it, it's unimportant to me who deleted it. And while I know it wasn't Freak, I don't believe that it wasn't deleted for petty reasons.

So sad if that upsets you, but with all the "sockpuppet" games and bully tactics I've seen employed over the past year, I find it hard to believe that my review just deleted itself.
Rest of this conversation aside, who hates who, hates what, I don't give a shit, and despite the fact that you (Simon) are saying that this alleged post deletion isn't important to you or serious in your eyes - This is kinda important to me.

There has never been a post deletion here (other than spam) and that is important. It is a big part of what seperates this place from DN where anyone who dares to prove Byron wrong has their posts deleted. This is a pretty serious allegation in my opinion, and while I do agree with everyone else here that if this was a lie then I am pissed, I will also be pissed if someone did delete it, which is way out of line for this forum(that said I'm not a mod here so my saying that is a bit out of line in and of itself).

I have a very hard time believing that any of the five(?) Mods here would delete a post out of spite. A very hard time. Just for the sake of my blood pressure - if someone did delete your post they should post here taking responsability for it.

EDIT to add – but let me reiterate that if you’re lying I’m not going to be in a good mood.
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Simon
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Post by Simon »

Nekhrun wrote:If you know that someone who likes FH work for its depth and consistency would hate that then why doesn't it bother you? Don't you think that even if the writing is shitty that it should remain consistent within the confines and characterization of the original universe it's derived from?

I accept the law of sequels. While not absolute, most sequels are an attempt to rehash the excitement of a superior fore barer. Be it a movie, novel, album, etc. They rarely met or exceed the previous works. (DM - GEoD are some of those exceptions to the sequel law, but mainly you can expect a sequel to be less than it's source, I can deal with that.)

I've always likened my enjoyment of NuDune to my enjoyment of "Batman (1989)" and "Dare Devil". I enjoy both, I own them both, but they are by no means in the same league.

FH's books were mind expanding and bending.

BH and KJA's stuff is action adventure fare.

I'm just incapable of seeing the harm you gents see in the expansion works. And I've really tried to see it your way, I've reread the books, now aware of many flaws which had slipped by me before, and I still don't feel it's a "travesty", at very worst it could be called sloppy.

In truth I don't know why the HLP hasn't tapped certain members (well, ex-members now) as fact checkers. Maybe I'm wrong but Freak seems like the sort of guy who'd happily fact check for errors in the new books, in order to ensure continuity. Why they wouldn't avail themselves of such a useful resource, I don't know... mysteries of the literary world I guess.
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Ampoliros
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Post by Ampoliros »

EDIT: I moved this to the relevant thread
Last edited by Ampoliros on 27 Sep 2008 11:42, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Ampoliros »

Synopsis of Jessica of Dune:

What's next? Gurney gets another message from his smuggler friends telling him that Paul lied and Jessica really was the traitor in order to set Paul up as Emperor, and that Leto went along with it, sacrificing his own life so that he would be Emperor. Gurney then seduces Jessica and plants bombs in her bed after touring all of the Harkonnen Pleasure Houses to pick up every STD in the known Universe in an attempt to overcome her Bene Gesseritt defenses. Paul interrupts them mid-coitus to show Gurney an other memory message that proves Yueh's guilt'Once and for all' and Gurney begs forgiveness. Only it turns out this triggers a hypnotic placement inside Gurney's mind, he is actually a Harkonnen too, another kanly assassin left behind by the Baron. He attempts to kill Paul, which awakens his ghola memories.
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Simon
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Post by Simon »

A Thing of Eternity wrote:
Simon wrote:~snip lots of content ~
And No, I did post my review, I'm just not ready to go into full beef mode over it, it's unimportant to me who deleted it. And while I know it wasn't Freak, I don't believe that it wasn't deleted for petty reasons.

So sad if that upsets you, but with all the "sockpuppet" games and bully tactics I've seen employed over the past year, I find it hard to believe that my review just deleted itself.
Rest of this conversation aside, who hates who, hates what, I don't give a shit, and despite the fact that you (Simon) are saying that this alleged post deletion isn't important to you or serious in your eyes - This is kinda important to me.

There has never been a post deletion here (other than spam) and that is important. It is a big part of what seperates this place from DN where anyone who dares to prove Byron wrong has their posts deleted. This is a pretty serious allegation in my opinion, and while I do agree with everyone else here that if this was a lie then I am pissed, I will also be pissed if someone did delete it, which is way out of line for this forum(that said I'm not a mod here so my saying that is a bit out of line in and of itself).

I have a very hard time believing that any of the five(?) Mods here would delete a post out of spite. A very hard time. Just for the sake of my blood pressure - if someone did delete your post they should post here taking responsability for it.

EDIT to add – but let me reiterate that if you’re lying I’m not going to be in a good mood.
When I say "it doesn't matter", I mean here, at Jacurutu.

As Nekhrun says, it's lose/lose for me. I don't post and it's "See even Simon doesn't like PoD" and if I post you have "There he goes, kissing ass".

I'm losing my zeal for this I must admit. Being called a liar and prick by a bunch of dudes riding on high horses gets real old. I came online to share my love of Dune with like minded fans.

What's stranger yet, some of the same people who call me names will send me PM's complimenting my work. WTF?!?! Weird sons of bitches.

I posted my review last night, it wasn't here this afternoon when I checked back. That's the facts. Was it deleted? Did my questionable tech skills mess it up? Who knows, who cares. It's not a slander against precious Jacurutu, I only mentioned it on DN so that it would be known that I'd at least tried to put it up here for you guys to tear down.

If you don't like what I say, if I'm such a "meanie", please, ignore me. How hard is that?
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Post by Simon »

Ampoliros wrote:I'll do it for you, mainly because I'd love to have you respond to some questions. I'll try as hard as I can to be diplomatic. You remember Franks definition of diplomacy right?
I'll get back with you on this Ampoliros, I'm just a bit tired of typing right now, I've been at for five hours now, trying to respond to every post.
This is a good post though and I will go into further detail with you on this.

(Thanks for the civility, much appriciated!)
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Post by SandChigger »

Simon wrote:please, ignore me. How hard is that?
Not hard at all. Getting easier every minute, in fact. You're (oh, sorry, you won't understand that, will you?)...Your becoming as irrelevant as you're friend Byron.

A serious bit of advice: spend more time on your art and less trying to express yourself linguistically. You come across as much more talented (and not some dumb Ohio hick) that way.

(Fore barer? :lol: Full frontal nudity at last is it? :roll: )
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Nekhrun
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Post by Nekhrun »

Simon wrote:
Nekhrun wrote: Are you talking about the teaching Fremen to swim scene or does it get even worse?
On the topic of the swimming scene: What is all the hubbub? I know water is beyond precious on Dune, still the Fremen would have had to prepare for the possibility of needing to swim. It was a necessity.

I took it as the beginnings of the excess prominently discussed between Chani and Paul after his walk about at the beginning of DM (which you see more of later in the PoD book, Stilgar at one point drinks water "because it is there, not for survival").
Oh I'll be getting to that...

For now it will suffice to say that the particular scene in question goes against the characterization of the Fremen in one of my favorite scenes in Dune when Hawat and the Fremen were trapped and discussing their situation. That's what Fremen are.
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Post by Mr. Teg »

Was the swimming lessons really that necessary from a military point of view (in the future)?

Comes across as a cheap device by Pinky & the Brain.
More likely has nothing to do with preparing the Fremen to fight in water, but prepare readers for a wookie homeworld type battle scene from clone wars in the future.
(unless they need the swimming skills to prepare them for future scene with water worms...hmmm).
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Post by TheDukester »

Simon wrote:... it's unimportant to me who deleted it. And while I know it wasn't Freak, I don't believe that it wasn't deleted for petty reasons.
Man, you are fucking insufferable.

It was never deleted ... because it was never here. Try clicking that big "Submit" button next time before you open that hole below your nose.
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Post by SandChigger »

(This is fucking ridiculous. Did ANYONE see it posted here? Simon, did you see the "Your comment has been posted" message AND let the thread reload AND check that it was definitely posted and added to the database?

Omph...any chance of having Ragabash go through the logs and compare the POST events from Simon's IP over the last 24 hours with the comments actually in the database? That would prove the issue, one way or the other.)
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Post by TheDukester »

And here's what a pure asshole Byron is:

Image

Byron, you useless pustule, here's a few quick hints for you:

1. Although I know it's hard for you to believe, since you are the All-Time King Of Deletions, but the incident in question never happened, so you pretty much look like a prick with your cute little happy-faces.

2. Library Journal does not count as a review, no matter how much you want it to. For the 10,000th time, they don't review books there; they solicit orders. That blurb was likely provided either by TOR or the HLP itself, and you know it. There's not a single passage that couldn't have been written just by looking at the jacket copy. And you know this, so all that nonsense you write over at your shithole just makes you an even bigger dick.

3. Got any links to all of those other "rave reviews" that your master KJA is babbling about (more on that in a different thread)? And, no, Book List doesn't count; that place is a shill factory, as you're well aware.

No links, huh? Yeah, no wonder you're so desperate to cling to that puff piece from LJ. Absolutely pathetic. You'd better hope that silver was worth it, Judas.
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Post by SandChigger »

Freakin' Eowch!

:lol:
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Post by TheDukester »

Yeah, I might have to take a break after that one ... :)

Actually, I really am going to stop even looking over there. The admin has lost that last tiny shred of credibility he was hanging onto, and it's not like I'm missing any scintillating Dune thought from the four jobless mooks who actually post there. It's inarguably the weakest "official site" in the entire history of the interwebs.

So I think I'll just say "see ya!" with a nice double-middle-finger salute. Have fun cashing those checks, Byron ... and don't worry for a second that it's your own grandfather you sold out to a rent-a-hack. Really. No biggie. It's okay to try to look at yourself in the mirror.
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Post by Rakis »

Hmmm...many posts my Simon from a guy whose bored of this ragging stuff :roll:

Is it so BORING at DNBBS that you come here to debate this?

Oh, i forget...there's NO debate anymore at DNBBS...even less about PoD...
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Post by Serkanner »

Simon wrote:Name calling again? Greeeaaat. I'll just ruminate on your oh so wise words. :lol:
You do that. I just call them as I see them.
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Post by chanilover »

TheDukester wrote:Yeah, I might have to take a break after that one ... :)

Actually, I really am going to stop even looking over there. The admin has lost that last tiny shred of credibility he was hanging onto, and it's not like I'm missing any scintillating Dune thought from the four jobless mooks who actually post there.
God, that sums up Dunenovels so perfectly, it's like poetry. The detritus of society at Dunenovels passing judgement on this site is fucking hilarious.

By the way, what is all this swimming pool shit? The only reference I remeber to Fremen encountering open water during the Jihad was in Dune Messiah, where Farok was talking about coming across a sea and imersing himself in it, and how it completely changed him. Maybe Farok missed the swimming pool lessons.
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TheDukester
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Post by TheDukester »

chanilover wrote: Maybe Farok missed the swimming pool lessons.
He was sick that day. *snicker*

Man, I crack myself up ... :)
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Post by sparafucile »

Easy remedy, Simon... just post the review again, and see if it disappears again. I'm not saying you did/didn't but doing so again I think should put an end to the argument depending on whether or not it gets deleted 8)

Edit: Never mind, just saw it.
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Post by Freakzilla »

The only posts I've ever deleted here were spam and I'd be VERY dissapointed if I found out one of my Admins/Mods deleted it. I hope they know better than that. The whole point of this forum is to be able to speak freely.

If anything it should be left up as proof of your insanity. :P
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Post by SandChigger »

Insanity's a bit harsh, no?

How about "artistic temperament" instead? :D

With borderline illiteracy. :P
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Post by Freakzilla »

SandChigger wrote:Insanity's a bit harsh, no?

How about "artistic temperament" instead? :D

With borderline illiteracy. :P
It's a matter of taste I guess. I don't think there's anything wrong with the mindless pulp that passes for literature, you can chose not to read it. But I think it's out of place in Dune.
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Post by Simon »

SandChigger wrote:Insanity's a bit harsh, no?

How about "artistic temperament" instead? :D

With borderline illiteracy. :P

:lol: :lol:
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Post by SandChigger »

I'm so glad your amused.
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Post by Lisan Al-Gaib »

Here it is a nice impartial review at my opinion. She shows she liked the new books, but she is aware of the writing problem of the two "writers".
I post it here because, who knows, it can be deleted.
Best of the Herbert-Anderson continuation of the Dune saga, September 28, 2008
By Joanna Daneman (Middletown, DE USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 10 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME) (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)
Though I'm still not a fan of the writing style of the Herbert-Anderson team (more on this later), I have to say that "Paul of Dune" is by far their best effort to date in this new series of Dune novels. Here's why I say this.

1. It's longer. The leisurely pace avoids the screenplay rush of the first few books of this new series of Dune novels.
2. The plot is suitably intricate.
3. The history of Paul, Jessica and Alia as well as the fascinating Count Fenring are fleshed out in interesting detail, as are other characters such as Shaddam IV, Wensicia, and Irulan.
4. The book has an interesting dual timeline that flows well--you do come to expect the shift to the alternate story line when it occurs. This technique is not easy to do, and it makes for interesting, episodic reading.
5. The concluding four or five chapters are by far the best, but--seem as if they were written first. I got the unmistakable impression that the end was the first part of the book to be finished. Was it? I don't know.

Episodic can be good--and bad. There are two timelines (young Paul, and the Jihad after Paul becomes Emperor.) But they devolve into episodes because the drive towards the culmination of events in the timeline, which would be Dune Messiah of the original series, seems hazy at best.

There is a lot about the jihad, the war to unite the universe under the Fremen and Paul-Muad'Dib. There is a lot of intrigue of the minor houses alluded to by Frank Herbert and expanded well by the authors. But the episodes in this timeline ultimately do not drive powerfully to the conclusion. They just don't entirely hang together, though they are exciting in and of themselves. The new material in the life of young Paul is less satisfying--the characters are familiar names but hardly seem the same. As usual, the fleshing-out of characters is poorly handled and sketchy at best. And the conversation style is glib and contemporary, not fitting the original style. This is problematic, because we know the names of the characters, we know their motivations, but we now see a different person at almost the same point in time as in the original series. It's jarring--and disappointing.

Worse yet, however, is the writing. Sad to say, even though this book is hugely improved, as were the last two or three previous (Hunters of Dune, in particular,) the writing is positively an example of what NOT to do in fiction. Silly adjectives are used in abundance. The authors don't show the reader, they tell the reader. (For example, "Her beautiful gown was spattered with blood." No, no, no. Show me why the gown is beautiful as in "The cobweb-silk lace of her wedding gown was soaked crimson in her own blood") There are sentences following others that use "he" or "him" but the previous paragraph is about someone else. You have to stop and figure out whom the author is now writing about. And the chapters are clearly written either by one author or another. (And one author is worse than the other, but I don't know which one, so don't ask.)

The thoughts of the characters are flat and facile, the sentences often end in cliches or in a modern style not in keeping with the imperial formalities of the Dune Empire. The shift to the high language is jarring.

If ONLY, as Kurt Vonnegut once remarked about Kilgore Trout, the brilliant but bad sci-fi writer in his novels, he could learn to write. There ARE good courses and workshops on what to do and what not to do. The Herbert-Anderson team has great ideas and concepts. If they could apply decent writing techniques, we'd have a series worthy of the original.

Recommended, with reservations, but still, the finest of the new series without a doubt.


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My ranking for my reviews is as follows:
Five Stars: a must read or no flaws apparent to me, perfectly written, superb
Four Stars: good! but has a few small thing I take issue with, either in writing style or in content
Three Stars: Like a three star movie that's good for a rainy evening when nothing else is on the tv, it's readable, has content worth looking at, but the flaws in writing overshadow the overall achievement of the book.
Two Stars: Read it if you like that kind of thing, but the book (or other item) is pretty terrible.
One Star: Never should have seen the light of day.
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