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In Timothy O'reilly's analysis of frank herberts work he makes the statement that dune is a rebuttal to the foundation series by Asimov in saying that Asimov makes the genetic mutant try to bring about destruction of his universe while herberts genetic mutant tries to save his own. At the same time you could say that dune is a rebuttal to foundation in it's roles for women. I just started reading foundation and all women are good for is breeding stock, child raising and inflating population numbers. Is there any improvement further into the series? I'm not far enough into Foundation to safely say that this book is sexist by today's standards but halfway through it there isn't much improvement.  Any thoughts?                 

tenfingersofdoom wrote:In Timothy O'reilly's analysis of frank herberts work he makes the statement that dune is a rebuttal to the foundation series by Asimov in saying that Asimov makes the genetic mutant try to bring about destruction of his universe while herberts genetic mutant tries to save his own. At the same time you could say that dune is a rebuttal to foundation in it's roles for women. I just started reading foundation and all women are good for is breeding stock, child raising and inflating population numbers. Is there any improvement further into the series? I'm not far enough into Foundation to safely say that this book is sexist by today's standards but halfway through it there isn't much improvement.  Any thoughts?                 

The earlier parts were written n the 40s, but yes, it does get better. A litte.

I compare the Mule to the Honored Matres - elements of threats which just proved how watertight the grand schemes are, i.e. Seldon's plan vs the Golden Path.

for me it's like asking who do you love the most: mom or dad?

I love both series, my favorite book in each series: Foundation & Empire and God Emperor of Dune

And future of good expected job of writing pieces of writing from you as well here on this forum of posts on the internet, labixlaoxin!

P.S- Do you know were I could buy some cheap Viagra or wholesale lingerie?

Sandwurm88 wrote:And future of good expected job of writing pieces of writing from you as well here on this forum of posts on the internet, labixlaoxin!

P.S- Do you know were I could buy some cheap Viagra or wholesale lingerie?

Don't feed the trolls!

tenfingersofdoom wrote:In Timothy O'reilly's analysis of frank herberts work he makes the statement that dune is a rebuttal to the foundation series by Asimov in saying that Asimov makes the genetic mutant try to bring about destruction of his universe while herberts genetic mutant tries to save his own. At the same time you could say that dune is a rebuttal to foundation in it's roles for women. I just started reading foundation and all women are good for is breeding stock, child raising and inflating population numbers. Is there any improvement further into the series? I'm not far enough into Foundation to safely say that this book is sexist by today's standards but halfway through it there isn't much improvement.  Any thoughts?                 

I've never read the Foundation series. I know it's considered an important work, but from the outside looking in, it's always appeared as likely a very dry read. The characters in particular don't seem very interesting to me.

I may make some time for it in the future. Meanwhile, I re-read Dune (for the forty billionth time!).

I thought it was very good.

tenfingersofdoom wrote:In Timothy O'reilly's analysis of frank herberts work

You mean this one?-
http://oreilly.com/tim/herbert/ch05.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

ULFsurfer wrote:I compare the Mule to the Honored Matres - elements of threats which just proved how watertight the grand schemes are, i.e. Seldon's plan vs the Golden Path.

The BG are definitely based on the Second Foundation. Before Asimov wrote the Foundation series he wrote a series of stories starting with "Homo Sol" which had to be later abandoned because of disagreements with Campbell. In it, he has a group of psychologists who are pschohistorians in all but name. They were not mentalics, but they can manipulate people by modulating the tone of their own voice. This is obviously the inspiration for the BG and their "Voice".

tenfingersofdoom wrote:
At the same time you could say that dune is a rebuttal to foundation in it's roles for women. I just started reading foundation and all women are good for is breeding stock, child raising and inflating population numbers.  

Keep on mind, you are talking about the author who created Susan Calvin. The first few Foundation stories had no women, but the later parts have many woman characters who are important to the plot like Harla Branno, Bayta Darrel, Arkady Darrel, Dors Venabili, Wanda Seldon, Delora Delarmi, Bliss and Sura Novi.

It is true that women generally play minor roles in Asimov's stories, though.

Bayta was in the original stories.

Omphalos wrote:Bayta was in the original stories.

I said 'first few stories' not original stories. By which I meant the stories before 'The Mule'.

I love Asimov but he is not even close to Herbert in terms of writing characters. He is all ideas, characters are simply a vehicle to express them. Very rarely do they come alive. Even having read most of his fiction multiple times, I doubt I could name more than ten of his named characters. Where he differs greatly from FH is the clarity in his plotting, there is rarely more than one way to interpret a passage of his. By all means any vintage SF fan should read both.

Asimov's psychohistory is akin to Herbert's galactic stagnation; by predicting patterns and knowing they will be met, this knowledge would enable certain parties to establish accurate long-term planning in detail and to effectively establish control. The final destination of stagnation and control in Dune is oracular prescience, which predicts and controls the future so accurately that entire worlds (and the user himself) could be locked into a pre-set path. Asimov introduced the hole in psychohistory, which was the Mule; the one who defied expectation by being an agent of chaos, instead of working in the predictable patterns of order. Likewise the Mule, just like Paul, could effectively control others by his thought alone (in Paul's case by oracular power, not mind control), and Paul, too, was an agent of chaos in the organization of the Empire, who nevertheless introduced an even greater element of control than there had been before.

I think of Dune as being more of a next-step to Asimov, rather than a rebuttal. Asimov shows how prediction's problem is that it is fallible, by way of an agent of choas; Frank shows that prediction's real primary problem is that it turns life into a machine-operation whose result is known in advance and stifles a basic part of humanity - improvisation and change. Frank also seems to agree that it's fallible, because once people are bred to be unpredictable (or whatever you think the Siona gene means), well...you can't predict them. But I think Frank suggests that the goal should be to make accurate prediction impossible, that psychohistory is an evil to be combated in order for thinking men to be free. Frank's Golden Path effectively made total control impossible forever; it was a permanent solution to stagnation, compared to the Mule, who could only shake things up during his own lifetime.

I believe that Frank took Asimov's premise, and wrote a prescription for how humanity could overcome a scenario of psychohistorians establishing a cabal of power-brokers that know the future. The Golden Path would even guard against individuals such as the Mule and Paul as well, by limiting their sphere of influence to just a part of civilization. I expect that Dune 7 was going to be the conclusion of his vision of how life could be returned to a state of improvisation and decision-making by the current living generation, not tethered to decisions made before they were born.