Postby Jodorowsky's Acolyte » 20 Nov 2013 02:42
I'm not too excited by their new prelude books. I'd much rather see the Dune Concordance get published, for I've waiting for it since 19-freaking-99 when I first read Brian's Afterward to House Atreides. It does disappoint me now that I am a disillusioned, brooding 26 year old now and no longer the helplessly talkative 11-12 year old I once was to see that Brian and Kevin weren't the real genuine article. I haven't even got around to reading Hunters and Sandworms yet because some bad written dialogue or quickly written plot points might irritate me. The Butlerian Jihad was too pulp for me to finish. Even though it's highly doubted that they do have any of Frank's notes, that naive child in me still wants to believe that they did have the notes, as stupid as it sounds. As I've written before, I liked the original House trilogy better, even with it's hyperactive style of bad writing and tendency to fizzle out quickly. My Dad thinks Paul of Dune has some good qualities, so I might give it a try at some point. I feel like there needs to be a up-to-date official parody of the Dune series, the equivalent of National Lampoon's Doon, to remind the sci-fi audience why the Dune series is great as well as point out the flaws of K and B (Jacurutu's fan parodies are definitely spot on). It makes me wish Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw was commissioned to write a new official parody, or someone like him.
I still think of wanting to rewrite the entire Prelude to Dune trilogy into one epic, which keeps much of the crazy plot points, but do it with better writing in the vein of Herbert's first Dune and last Dune books. Doing something like that could serve as an exercise on getting the feel of improving and expanding upon simple or flawed stories. Then there's my Meddlers of Dune idea, which is less of a parody of K and B's writing style and more of Herbertian/Heinleinian satire on how modern writers constantly revise and retell already well done stories for better or for worse. That's what I would intend it to be, if I ever got to concentrate and work on it. Meanwhile, I got an English Grad thesis on John Dryden to expand upon.
If there was another book I'd want to see Keven and Brian write, it would be The Orange Catholic Bible of Dune. Not really a book about how it came to be written, but the actual Orange Catholic Bible. I want see if they can actually succeed in writing fictional religious text which are consistent with the tenets resulting from the Butlerian Jihad and demonstrates the different kinds of religions incorporated into that Bible by C.E.T. That, or a Dune book which attempts to retell the Dune saga in the manner of a campy Flash Gordon serial. Imagine the reactions such potential installments would arise.
'...all those who took part in the rise and fall of the Dune project learned how to fall one and one thousand times with savage obstinacy until learning how to stand. I remember my old father who, while dying happy, said to me: "My son, in my life, I triumphed because I learned how to fail."' -Alejandro Jodorowsky
