Why do the FH Dune sequels get no respect outside of us?


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Sandwurm88
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Why do the FH Dune sequels get no respect outside of us?

Post by Sandwurm88 »

(No talk about BH and KJA crap here) I've noticed that a lot of people on Sci-Fi forums, as well as those who are "serious literature" snobs often give FH's original Dune a lot of respect, but essentially none to any of Dune's five sequels. I know that there are people in this forum who count each of the six Dune Chronicles as their favorite in the series, and definitely the vast majority of fans here especially have an appreciation for God Emperor, which is probably my favorite in the series, although the original and Heretics are quite close.

Specifically, I remember someone on a comments section or forum being like, "I loved Dune, but the sequels went downhill quickly. God Emperor was GOD AWFUL." When I read this, I remember being like, "Fucking cretin!!!AGH!!"
And another person on the forum was like, " I read all six but God Emperor really killed the series for me"...So what is it that makes all the FH Dune sequels not so well-liked? Maybe it's because the first one, Messiah ( probably my least favorite of the six), did not live up to the original's glory at all. What's your opinion on why nobody outside of big Dune fans seems to like the FH sequels, especially GEoD which seems to be the favorite of many people here...or if you are one of those people who hates the sequels...why??
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Re: Why do the FH Dune sequels get no respect outside of us?

Post by gurensan »

Uh. I read some of those over at http://forums.somethingawful.com/showth ... genumber=3

The vast majority of those are people who didn't understand the series enough in the first place. I liked that they didn't dig the McDune franchise but that moves no mountains toward making Orthodoxen out of them. The common element there seems to be that they didn't understand it and they so much as say so.

Hope that helps.
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Re: Why do the FH Dune sequels get no respect outside of us?

Post by Freakzilla »

The more times I read the series, which I've stopped counting, the less I like Dune and love the sequels more... except Messiah.

Y'all are going to flame me because I know y'all love the Messiah.

But I hate it.
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Re: Why do the FH Dune sequels get no respect outside of us?

Post by Freakzilla »

CoD FTW.
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Re: Why do the FH Dune sequels get no respect outside of us?

Post by jakoye »

I think there are a multitude of reasons. Dune Messiah pretty much put the whole kibosh on having a "successful" franchise in the context of the framing of your question (general popularity among critics and even fans of the original). Dune had a much more "traditional" narrative structure and story arc. Dune Messiah was just a tearing down of all that had been constructed in the first book, as well as a tearing down of the characters the reader had learned to identify with. Most people don't look to fiction for such depressing doses of what is, essentially, reality, thus the "failure" (relative) of Dune Messiah (which, for the record, I *love*!). If people didn't like the second book or couldn't finish it, I doubt they would continue on with the series. Thus Dune Messiah serves as a bit of a fulcrum for readers of the Dune series... not many make it through.

(One last point about Dune Messiah: it has almost zero action. Its conflicts are mental, both the internal mental battle of Paul and the attack by the conspirators against him. Paul's struggles with the consequences of his messiahhood (that should be a word!) form the bulk of the book and, no doubt, a lot of people who enjoyed Dune found Dune Messiah's navel-gazing to be boring.)

Now, Children of Dune, I think that's probably the most popular book other than Dune itself among lay readers (while GEoD is the favorite of most intellectuals, IMO). It has the action that Dune Messiah lacked and it also gives us fresh characters, in Ghanima and Leto, who are DOING things and not just tired and bitter old men ruminating on their failures (sorry, Maud Dib!). It also, as I have read in others' analysis of Children of Dune, diminishes Paul while offering a *greater* hero in his place, Leto II. People identify with that hero myth, I believe, so ipso facto, CoD succeeds for the lay reader where Dune Messiah had failed.

And now we reach the second fulcrum in the Dune Series: God Emperor of Dune. First off, it's monstrous length likely put people off. Then there's the problem that Dune Messiah suffered from: lack of action. It's all talk, talk, talk in GEoD (ironic, since it opens with breathless action) and most probably found that boring (again, I'm not among those people... I lurve GEoD!). As well, GEoD shows the negative effects of actions from the previous book, such as the full greening of Arrakis and subsequent near-disappearance of the desert. Then there's the Museum Fremen, a cheap fascimile of a once proud people. And Leto himself is transformed (speaking mentally here, not just physically). He's a tyrant and, while it does serve an overarching purpose, who wants to read about a tyrant (re: a bad guy) for 3,000 pages (or however many pages it is!)? As well, Duncan Idaho's dislocation in Leto's empire, as well as his reminder to us of a simpler, happier Dune universe, makes GEoD even more of a slog than it already is. GEoD is depressing, just as Dune Messiah was. General readers are not going to (in general!) flock to depressing works. They want happy endings. They want everything to turn out all right. They want the hero to win, the enemy defeated and the plan to come together. But who "wins" in GEoD (yes, we know "humanity" wins, but I don't expect a general reader to grok that)? God Emperor fails for many of the same reasons Dune Messiah fails and thus likely prevents the 5th and 6th books from even having the chance of reaching the heights in popularity of the original book (and let me emphasize once again: I love BOTH books! When I say "fail", I mean "fail in the sense of general popularity". For me, you can pry my copies of Dune Messiah and God Emperor of Dune from my cold, dead fingers!).

Chapterhouse and Heretics (or is it Heretics and Chapterhouse?!) are simply too far removed from the universe of the first novel to ever have the popularity of Dune. They also suffer from the "lack of action" curse that DM and GEoD suffer from and that likely turns many people off.

Ok, I've rambled quite enough! :) Excellent question though.
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Re: Why do the FH Dune sequels get no respect outside of us?

Post by Sandwurm88 »

Good point, jakoye, and I agree with most of the stuff you said...but Heretics and Chapterhouse not having any action?! I think that these two books are more action-packed than the other four books by far. Many people forget about the last two because it is so far removed from GEoD, just like GEoD was so far removed from Dune, DM, and CoD. In Heretics especially, there is a lot of action --only FH isn't really one for giving vivid, long descriptions of battles and such. And in Chapterhouse, the Honored Matres scenes, especially the final battle, are always smattered with violence.
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Re: Why do the FH Dune sequels get no respect outside of us?

Post by jakoye »

Sandwurm88 wrote:Good point, jakoye, and I agree with most of the stuff you said...but Heretics and Chapterhouse not having any action?! I think that these two books are more action-packed than the other four books by far. Many people forget about the last two because it is so far removed from GEoD, just like GEoD was so far removed from Dune, DM, and CoD. In Heretics especially, there is a lot of action --only FH isn't really one for giving vivid, long descriptions of battles and such. And in Chapterhouse, the Honored Matres scenes, especially the final battle, are always smattered with violence.
I will admit that my knowledge of the last two books is less than for the first four. But I re-read Chapterhouse in the last year and, in my memory at least, there was zero action until the final battle. It's possible my memory is faulty though. Age will do that! ;)
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Re: Why do the FH Dune sequels get no respect outside of us?

Post by ULFsurfer »

Before I had re-read CoD I thought it was the weakest in the whole series, but now after the 2nd round I must admit it has grown immensely on me. It takes all the conflicts into a higher level, as it's both outside and inside the characters. I just love to see how the feeble Corrinos, crazy Alia, sneaky BGs and sorry Fremens struggle, just to have Leto stomping into the scene and cleaning up the mess. It feels as if Frank lets out some of his frustrations about our society through Leto, both in CoD and GEoD.

And to contribute to the discussion here; there may be multiple reasons why these sequels don't catch on with everybody. "Too little" action could be one thing. Let's admit that Dune does work well as an "action" book if that's all you want out of it. Naturally the sequels don't quite have this to be honest. The action scenes in the later books are very sparsely described since it's not the acts themselves that are of importance to us deeper readers.

The preaching in GEoD also tends to drag out a bit, which I'm sure some people just didn't want to get through with. People who couldn't sit around for 3000 years before they could leave the room. :-)
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Re: Why do the FH Dune sequels get no respect outside of us?

Post by jakoye »

It's hard to pin down exactly why the last two books have less impact on me than the first four. Probably one of the reasons is that the last two books lack the highly-compelling central character that the first 4 books have (Paul and Leto). Odrade is fine as a character, but not nearly as interesting as Paul and Leto. And yes, for me, the lack of action grates a bit. But God Emperor doesn't have much action either and yet I love that book! :) I don't know... I just have this bias against the last two books. I like them, but they are a step down from the first four in my humble opinion.

As for Children of Dune, it is most certainly one of the best books of the first four, perhaps even better than Dune. (gasp!) I love the time we get to spend in Stilgar's and Idaho's heads and watching the descent of Alia into abomination is fascinating and tragic. It's good to see Jessica again too, after her absence from Dune Messiah. And I think the twins are well-drawn, as well as Farad'n and his mother. Arrakis is still a main character as well and the change it's going through, and the effect it has on the Fremen culture, is finely detailed.

Children will always be especially dear to me simply because it has one of my favorite scenes in all the books: it's when Idaho goads Stilgar into killing him in order that Stilgar will be forced to "go rogue" from Alia and save Ghanima. Just brilliant, brilliant scene-writing and character realization:
[Idaho has just killed Javid]
"You have defiled my honor!" Stilgar cried. "This is neutral-"
"Shut up!" Idaho glared at the shocked Naib. "You wear a collar, Stilgar!"
It was one of the three most deadly insults which could be directed at a Fremen. Stilgar's face went pale.
"You are a servant," Idaho said. "You've sold Fremen for their water."
This was the second most deadly insult, the one which had destroyed the original Jacurutu.
Stilgar ground his teeth, put a hand on his crysknife. The aide stepped back away from the body in the doorway.
Turning his back on the Naib, Idaho stepped into the door, taking the narrow opening beside Javid's body and speaking without turning, delivered the third insult. "You have no immortality, Stilgar. None of your descendants carry your blood!"
"Where do you go now, mentat?" Stilgar called as Idaho continued leaving the room. Stilgar's voice was as cold as a wind from the poles.
"To find Jacurutu," Idaho said, still not turning.
Stilgar drew his knife. "Perhaps I can help you."
Idaho was at the outer lip of the passage now. Without stopping, he said: "If you'd help me with your knife, water-thief, please do it in my back. That's the fitting way for one who wears the collar of a demon."
With two leaping strides Stilgar crossed the room, stepped on Javid's body and caught Idaho in the outer passage. One gnarled hand jerked Idaho around and to a stop. Stilgar confronted Idaho with bared teeth and a drawn knife. Such was his rage that Stilgar did not even see the curious smile on Idaho's face.
"Draw your knife, mentat scum!" Stilgar roared.
Idaho laughed. He curffed Stilgar sharply-left hand, right hand-two stinging slaps to the head.
With an incoherent screech, Stilgar drove his knife into Idaho's abdomen, striking upward through the diaphragm into the heart.
Idaho sagged onto the blade, grinned up at Stilgar, whose rage dissolved into sudden icy shock.
"Two deaths for the Atreides," Idaho husked. "The second for no better reason than the first." He lurched sideways, collapsed to the stone floor on his face. Blood spread out from his wound.
Gods, that's good!
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Re: Why do the FH Dune sequels get no respect outside of us?

Post by Outis »

I think I read the first Dune when I was 10 or 11 and I vaguely recall being disappointed with the sequels. My opinion changed later.
I'm still not crazy about GoED and the later books. I thought they were rushed and suspected Herbert was milking the franchise. At least GoED had something to say.

The first Dune reads much like a children's book. It's got the monomyth, pointless macho stuff, self-obsessed heterosexual males girls are crazy about and so forth. It's quite embarassing really.
Books for children (Tolkien and so forth) are very popular in this day and age for some reason. I suspect Herbert was well aware of that and deliberately wrote something that would appeal to that public on a superficial level without sacrificing his vision.
The following books bring what was cynical subtext in the original book to the fore and subvert most of the super-hero stuff.
As mentionned above, it didn't help that Messiah didn't pack as much action and lacked the happy ending. The people looking for adolescent power fantasies must have been disappointed.
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Re: Why do the FH Dune sequels get no respect outside of us?

Post by jakoye »

Outis wrote:I think I read the first Dune when I was 10 or 11 and I vaguely recall being disappointed with the sequels. My opinion changed later.
I'm still not crazy about GoED and the later books. I thought they were rushed and suspected Herbert was milking the franchise. At least GoED had something to say.
Well, perhaps Heretics (released 1984) and Chapterhouse (released 1985) feel rushed because, you know, he was dying (1986). I agree that the latter two books do not match the first four, but I disagree with you that God Emperor was not a work of absolute genius.

What is amazing is that those last two books, even though "rushed" and not of the quality of the first four, are still WORLDS better than anything Pinky & the Brain could ever hope to pull out of their collective asses. Thus the genius of one, Frank Herbert.
Outis wrote: The first Dune reads much like a children's book. It's got the monomyth, pointless macho stuff, self-obsessed heterosexual males girls are crazy about and so forth. It's quite embarassing really.
Eeek! I don't think Dune is a children's book at all. By that definition, anything could be called a children's book. Its themes and the ideas it sparked in readers' brains was far beyond any children's novel, even if it was couched in the form of the "oldest story ever told": the hero's journey.

Dune has so many levels and is so rich with meaning and complexity that it rewards repeated reads. No children's book can do that.

As for "self-obsessed heterosexual males", there were also some rather powerful female characters in Dune too. It was hardly just a boy's club. I think you do it a disservice to call it embarrassing. That shit that they're putting out now is embarrassing and should be banned from the land and the authors burned at the stake. :mad:
Outis wrote: Books for children (Tolkien and so forth) are very popular in this day and age for some reason. I suspect Herbert was well aware of that and deliberately wrote something that would appeal to that public on a superficial level without sacrificing his vision.
While I would agree that The Hobbit is a children's book and Harry Potter as well, I don't think you could say that the Lord of the Rings series is a set of children's book. The story is much too rich for that designation.

Having said that, I do agree that there does seem to be a general appetite among adults for less mature works, both in literature and film. Perhaps that's a product of our extending adolescence in our society (I know many people who didn't move out of their parent's home until they were on the latter side of their twenties). People are living longer and we are a rich society: maturation can be put off for many of us to a later date. Not everyone faces the pressure to mature quickly like Paul did at age 15. :)
Outis wrote: The following books bring what was cynical subtext in the original book to the fore and subvert most of the super-hero stuff.
As mentionned above, it didn't help that Messiah didn't pack as much action and lacked the happy ending. The people looking for adolescent power fantasies must have been disappointed.
Yes, this is something I thought as well: that both Dune Messiah and God Emperor of Dune probably discouraged a large number of people from reading the books that followed them. Ah well... the masses can have just Dune or maybe Dune and Children of Dune. I will revel in the glory of ALL of the universe Herbert created.
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Re: Why do the FH Dune sequels get no respect outside of us?

Post by Outis »

LotR is indeed rich enough to cause an indigestion but it's definitely childish. I don't think children's books need to be worthless (among the better English-speaking genre authors, check out Le Guin's for instance) but that's beside the point.

I didn't say the original Dune was a children's book, only that it seems to be one. It certainly can be read as one and I think that's exactly what many readers did (as I did when I was a child). Hence their disaffection with the less accessible sequels...
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Re: Why do the FH Dune sequels get no respect outside of us?

Post by Sandwurm88 »

Could you please explain why you thought GEoD seemed rushed, Outis? I think it is exactly the opposite.
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Re: Why do the FH Dune sequels get no respect outside of us?

Post by Outis »

There's obviously ideas behind the book but looking at the earlier installments, it's obvious the author had the skill required to be less heavy-handed in delivery. He could have created a plot in which he would have had an opportunity to let them surface more organically. It would probably have been a longer book but I think most people would have been OK with that.
Messiah is in some ways a commentary on Dune and GEoD has a similar role with respect to CoD. The main character and the extent of his influence was calling for something more talky and collected than Messiah but GEoD could still have had more of a plot, without necessarily introducing so many new factions.
There's a general lack of evocative power and some embarassing scenes could also have been rewritten. Either the author needed to put in more work or he needed an editor.
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Re: Why do the FH Dune sequels get no respect outside of us?

Post by Sandwurm88 »

I'm gonna have to disagree with the whole "embarrassing" thing you keep on bringing up. I think if another author was writing about some of the things FH writes about, especially in the later sequels, then yes, it could easily come across as ridiculous. Who would've thought, after just reading Dune, that a man undergoing symbiosis with a sand worm and the entire planet of Arrakis being nuked to oblivion would become vital plot points. I think that FH has that most important quality of a science fiction author: he is earnest and serious enough for the reader to "just go with it" and drink up everything he is saying. Compare this for example with the sandworm duel in The Battle of Corrin, a scene from the prequels that has taken a lot of flak for being ridiculous, stupid, and yes, embarrassing. It is, in essence, no more ridiculous than having a man morph into a half-sandworm creature that lives for over 3000 years and rules the known universe. But because you have inferior science fiction authors at the helm, the disbelief isn't suspended. Let's face it, in every SF novel, some pretty ridiculous things happen, whether it be ultra-weird philosophizing ( i.e. - GEoD at times, and Philip K. Dick, my favorite author, who puts it all out there in his writing. VALIS could potentially be the most embarrassing book ever written to readers who don't truly know PKD) or rash, bold technology predictions that fall completely flat ten years after the book is published. Its a hard genre to write completely serious works when disbelief must be suspended so much.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.h ... wanted=all

This review of Hunters sums up what I'm trying to say nicely. FH never gives me (or apparently many other readers out there, including the reviewer) any reason to believe that what he is writing is potentially ridiculous. I guess we have a difference of opinion on that statement. Could you name some well-known Sci-FI novels that are so well-written, or never get so far "out there" that they cannot be misconstrued as ridiculous or embarrassing in parts?
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Re: Why do the FH Dune sequels get no respect outside of us?

Post by lotek »

Try The Transmigration of Timothy Archer if you want weird PH DICK.
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Re: Why do the FH Dune sequels get no respect outside of us?

Post by ULFsurfer »

There's a difference between embarrassment and ridiculousness. I find the Honored Matres' enslavement of the male population through sexual powers ridiculous, but not embarrassing.
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Re: Why do the FH Dune sequels get no respect outside of us?

Post by Freakzilla »

ULFsurfer wrote:There's a difference between embarrassment and ridiculousness. I find the Honored Matres' enslavement of the male population through sexual powers ridiculous, but not embarrassing.
Really? Women can get me to do just about anything they want.
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Re: Why do the FH Dune sequels get no respect outside of us?

Post by Outis »

Sandwurm88 wrote:Who would've thought, after just reading Dune, that a man undergoing symbiosis with a sand worm and the entire planet of Arrakis being nuked to oblivion would become vital plot points. I think that FH has that most important quality of a science fiction author: he is earnest and serious enough for the reader to "just go with it" and drink up everything he is saying.
Obviously some readers don't go with it. It depends more on the readers and the relationship of "it" with the point of the book I think.
Herbert needed to turn characters into a superhero and then into a god in order to say what he wanted to say. In that context, I'm willing to "go with" things I wouldn't forgive in other contexts. Some readers got that and others didn't, as happened to every author who has something non-trivial to say.

What I had in mind was more along the lines of Nyala's infamous orgasm anyway.
Sandwurm88 wrote:Compare this for example with the sandworm duel in The Battle of Corrin
I didn't read it and don't intend to, sorry.

I took it for granted that 90% of everything is crap* and that Herbert's works were in the 10%. I wasn't attempting to compare Herbert to less noteworthy authors.
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_Law
Sandwurm88 wrote:Could you name some well-known Sci-FI novels that are so well-written, or never get so far "out there" that they cannot be misconstrued as ridiculous or embarrassing in parts?
Well, you can misconstrue anything. But if you'll assume for a moment that we're trying to have a conversation and not what some wannabe politicians call a debate...
Clarke is a famous author known for avoiding ridicule for instance. Obviously every prolific author is at times somewhat fanciful but hopefully you can see the forest and not just the trees.

Authors who write playful or comedic novels naturally get a lot more leeway and there's no reason to systematically look down on preposterous scenes. PKD for instance wrote a lot of stuff that was "out there", some of it quite embarassing. Most of his stories were openly unrealistic and allegorical. But I love PKD.
In my opinion Herbert was writing something quite serious and so I hold him to a higher standard (as far as Dune is concerned).
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Re: Why do the FH Dune sequels get no respect outside of us?

Post by ULFsurfer »

Freakzilla wrote:
ULFsurfer wrote:There's a difference between embarrassment and ridiculousness. I find the Honored Matres' enslavement of the male population through sexual powers ridiculous, but not embarrassing.
Really? Women can get me to do just about anything they want.
By using sex as a tool? So if your lady threatens to withhold your weekly bj if her will is not followed it doesn't have to mean that you'll be succumbed. I think there are other subtle ways we men are sometimes bent in our willpower by women.

HM supremacy, due to overwhelming numbers and advanced weaponry - yes, due to sexually enslaved male population (what about non-HM females and gays??) - no.
Those last two books are still a highly interesting and entertaining read though. Heretics was my favorite for a while.
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Re: Why do the FH Dune sequels get no respect outside of us?

Post by Freakzilla »

ULFsurfer wrote:
Freakzilla wrote:
ULFsurfer wrote:There's a difference between embarrassment and ridiculousness. I find the Honored Matres' enslavement of the male population through sexual powers ridiculous, but not embarrassing.
Really? Women can get me to do just about anything they want.
By using sex as a tool? So if your lady threatens to withhold your weekly bj if her will is not followed it doesn't have to mean that you'll be succumbed. I think there are other subtle ways we men are sometimes bent in our willpower by women.

HM supremacy, due to overwhelming numbers and advanced weaponry - yes, due to sexually enslaved male population (what about non-HM females and gays??) - no.
Those last two books are still a highly interesting and entertaining read though. Heretics was my favorite for a while.
It wasn't just withholding sex, they abused the BG techniques of seduction so far that men would become addicted to it like a drug. I'm sure there are techniques they could use on gays and women but I don't think FH was to into exploring those ideas.
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Re: Why do the FH Dune sequels get no respect outside of us?

Post by lotek »

Females either joined the HM or were killed, just like men who resisted or tried to avoid imprinting.
Murbella's parents were both killed when she was taken, which kind of indicates the way they replenished the ranks.

They had other means to enforce discipline between them than sex, their brutal survival of the fittest/meanest (kill the Great HM and take her place), and the addiction to the spice substitute they used.

With HM it's the Gordian knot, they just slashed their way to the solution.
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Re: Why do the FH Dune sequels get no respect outside of us?

Post by Excape Felicity »

I think sequels sound cheesy in general anyway so it will be difficult for literary snobs 2give them z chance.

My personal, highly subjective ranking:

1. Dune
2. Heretics of Dune
3. CHapterhouse Dune
4. God Emperor
5. Children
6. Dune Messiah

The big problem with God Emperor is the preaching. In alternative universe where people make 4 hour pretentious art house sci fi moves with 400 mil budgets, God Emperor would be a great film.
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Re: Why do the FH Dune sequels get no respect outside of us?

Post by Freakzilla »

Hehe, a fellow DM hater! You'd better duck!
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Re: Why do the FH Dune sequels get no respect outside of us?

Post by lotek »

And cover!
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