Jᴀᴄᴜʀᴜᴛᴜ - Tʜᴇ Cᴀsᴛ Oᴜᴛ

http://io9.com/5352471/did-dune-ruin-sc ... ion-novels" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Have at it.

A brief scan through it shows me nothing but typical SF/F navel-gazing. And why does the blog author lead off with a gigantic photo of the DUNE boardgame?

is it just me, or it io9 full of jack-offs ?
something about all those folks, contributors & commentators alike,
just rubs me the wrong way.

anyway, here's the original blathering :
http://www.librarything.com/topic/72322" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I appreciate you bringing this to attention, Nekhrun,
but from what I've read so far, the whole thing is just ..... stupid.

maybe too stupid to flame ?

nah.

i09 is full of jack-offs. I haven't read that article, but they try to be so unique that their writers wind up making shit up and/or drawing connections that don't reflect reality. Sometimes they have interesting stuff, but I really can't stand that site.

Omphalos wrote:i09 is full of jack-offs. I haven't read that article, but they try to be so unique that their writers wind up making shit up and/or drawing connections that don't reflect reality. Sometimes they have interesting stuff, but I really can't stand that site.

interesting. exactly what several of the comments were about -
"semi-interesting point, why the fuck did you put up an article about it ?"

the LibraryThing site might be interesting - you have to register to comment,
so I'll just bookmark & swing back back around later to call the OP an asshat.
(if Dune was just too long, he must love Keith's books ...)

kickoff for the first homegame's @7:30.

I have to start drinking now if I'm going to be effective ....

Many a time I've followed links to Io9 from the IMDB hit list and they occasionally have some good news to read. I think I've even linked to one or two of their articles. However, I'm getting a bit tired of the way they treat Dune, especially the way they act as free advertising for KJA's shit and post dumbass articles like this about the original Dune. This is the second article I've read that basically kisses KJA's stupidity at the expense of the original Dune. They also have this annoying tendency to sell sex on almost every page. I've seen less celebrity skin in a men's magazine. Only the readers of Io9 appear to have any good sense and they often post very harsh criticism of these dumbass articles. I think I'm going to stop visiting that site. Io9 is like the Maxim of sci-fi.

Semi-interesting point, but...

Without some research to back it up, why not claim it was the 500+ pages book just after Dune which shifted the industry? Or the book after that? Maybe the 450 one before Dune?
Dune may have shown you could write long, great, serious SF books. It may have been a contributing factor to the expanding page counts, but to claim it caused it is just silly. People buying loads of 500+ books is probably a better candidate, if you're going to pick a reason...

Interestingly, someone in the comments section mentioned Stephenson, and no he doesn't have a secret treehouse and hands out gifts for me going on about him... But. I do agree that Stephenson is the guy to pull of long, long, long yarns. I also like Iain M. Banks, but his 500 page novels are not really better than his 200 page ones... just longer. Stephenson's Anathem is over 900 pages and I think he should have made a trilogy of it or something instead of cutting it down...

I like how they say go on about how Dune is longer than Double Star and Starship Troopers... but never mention Stranger in a Strange Land (1961)

Dune may have opened the floodgates for longer books, but Star Wars ruined SF. Who cares about what happend on a planet when you can just blow it up...

Science fiction wouldn't have survived unless it made a shift, because technology was advancing and people were growing more "common sense", so we wouldn't buy aliens on the moon.

Not only that, but social change was occurring and science fiction was the only medium to challenge/support said movements. All the contributing factors would have led in this direction sooner than later anyways.

Also, Dune may be long, but it's more easily understood than many other books even shorter.

the article wrote:Moreover, reading these tomes can take weeks, turning what should be a simple pleasure into an onerous commitment.

That's some sort of erroneous assumption; I found reading Dune to be a pleasure in itself.

and how can one of the best sf books ever have done harm to the genre?
Its length is irrelevant, that's just KJA style again, placing quantity before quality(and ignoring the latter in the process).

It set standards, just like others did in their own way.

If ever it's that bloody nuDune crap that ruined scifi, by downgrading it to piss poor plots and endless repetition so that anyone could pick it up and think himself so smart...
I enjoyed that feeling of awe at my first Dune reads, knowing that there was mind challenge galore awaiting, and so more was better in that case.

Slugger wrote:

the article wrote:Moreover, reading these tomes can take weeks, turning what should be a simple pleasure into an onerous commitment.

That's some sort of erroneous assumption; I found reading Dune to be a pleasure in itself.

exactly!

Dune was the first SF book I read and I'd say it ruined all other SF for me.

It was good, but it was no Dune.

I think the whole argument is pretty flimsy. Dune was longer than most books of the time, many longer SF books today are bloated and are tedious to read, therefore Dune set a trend to add bloat to books, ruining the SF genre.

Hmm. Don't think so.

HBJ

Freakzilla wrote:Dune was the first SF book I read and I'd say it ruined all other SF for me.

It was good, but it was no Dune.

exactly. I've said before I've not been a sci-fi fan since I was a kid in the 50s.

I've not taken any "SF" seriously since Frank's Dune.

same with Tolkien - I've read all his work multiple times, and never cracked the spine
on any other "fantasy" bullshit. Don't need to. Got it right the first time.

I firmly believe that Dune set the bar, and set it high.

Did it ruin SF? Of course not. It just shows what good SF should be like. That being said, there are plenty of other decent SF books/authors out there. Even so, Dune is the measuring stick I choose to use when reading other sci fi.

The article is pointless for two reasons, the length of a book has nothing to do with the quality or its influenence and Sci-fi is so diverse that one book couldnt do damage to every part of it.

Themes and sub genre's:

Hard · Soft · Alternate history · Apocalyptic · Christian · Comedy · Cyberpunk (derivatives) · Dying Earth · Feminist · Human society · Military · Planetary romance · Space opera · Sword and planet · Tech-noir · Western

Artificial intelligence · Extraterrestrials (First contact) · Floating city · Lost World · Planets · Politics (Utopia/Dystopia · World government) · Religion (Ideas) · Resizing · Sex (Homosexuality · Gender · Reproduction) · Simulated realities/Virtual worlds · Space warfare (Weapons) · Superpowers · Timeline (Alternate future · Future history · Hyperspace · Parallel universes · Slipstream · Time travel)

Dune was, is, and will remain influential and incorporates much of the above, but not all. The folks that write from the hip type articles, demonstrate they dont understand the scope of Sci-Fi, or its influence.

SandRider, you are entitled to your opinion and choice of reads.. but I believe you might be missing some of the great works out there. Again yoru choice, just throwing that out.

The article is full to the brim of poo, if Dune set an expectation or fashion then it certainly was not followed by Mr. Herbert himself. He wrote as many long novels as short.

SandRider wrote:

Freakzilla wrote:Dune was the first SF book I read and I'd say it ruined all other SF for me.

It was good, but it was no Dune.

exactly. I've said before I've not been a sci-fi fan since I was a kid in the 50s.

I've not taken any "SF" seriously since Frank's Dune.

same with Tolkien - I've read all his work multiple times, and never cracked the spine
on any other "fantasy" bullshit. Don't need to. Got it right the first time.

The first and only Fantasy series I've read too.

I've not said that they ruined the genre, just ruined it for me.

I still enjoyed Clarke, Asimov, Bear, May... etc. but still Dune was the standard it had to live up too.

Dune struggled to find a publisher due to it's length - given it's subsequent success it's believable that publishers were then more willing to take a chance on longer works.

...However...

DuneFishUK wrote:Dune struggled to find a publisher due to it's length - given it's subsequent success it's believable that publishers were then more willing to take a chance on longer works.

Granted, the original publisher specialized in car repair manuals, so it wasn't too much of a stretch for them to justify its length. If I remember correctly, the biggest problem was marketing; sci-fi wasn't exactly a critically-acclaimed medium in the early 60's, and Dune pretty much necessitates serious, critical analysis.

Freakzilla wrote:Dune was the first SF book I read and I'd say it ruined all other SF for me.

It was good, but it was no Dune.

I agree completely, I compare every sci-fi book/story with Dune. Simply because most sci-fi borrows from Dune, for instance Babylon 5 used the Imperium and their class system and House Themes for the Centauri (Admition of the creator of Babylon 5 himself). Also look how popular fold space became after Dune, and how the hero from Star Wars comes from a Desert Planet. The signs are numerous and easy to see, I wouldn't say I don't enjoy sci-fi anymore but I can say that whenever I pick up a book I instantly think will it be as good as Dune. The answer is often No.

I dont use Dune as a measuring stick because its in a class by itself. Dune Is Dune, period.

The Literary guage for the different sub genre of SCI-Fi your reading depends on how you
percieve SCI-Fi, I think.

I read in the many Subs, and have expectations only as high as that sub genre. If a new series is raised to a level where it is being compared to DUNE, then I will give it a comparison, but in every case they dont measure up, just different, yet still excellently done.

JMOP

Laphtiya wrote:

Freakzilla wrote:Dune was the first SF book I read and I'd say it ruined all other SF for me.

It was good, but it was no Dune.

I agree completely, I compare every sci-fi book/story with Dune. Simply because most sci-fi borrows from Dune, for instance Babylon 5 used the Imperium and their class system and House Themes for the Centauri (Admition of the creator of Babylon 5 himself). Also look how popular fold space became after Dune, and how the hero from Star Wars comes from a Desert Planet. The signs are numerous and easy to see, I wouldn't say I don't enjoy sci-fi anymore but I can say that whenever I pick up a book I instantly think will it be as good as Dune. The answer is often No.

http://www.moongadget.com/origins/dune.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Freakzilla wrote: http://www.moongadget.com/origins/dune.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Ah yes I've seen this before, a perfect example of what I was talking about.