Scott Brick interviews KJA and BH

[A Thing of Eternity]

Yes, another one. 2 sisters, I'm in the middle.

You can have the little one for free, but you'll have to pay for her delivery, and, uh, no returns.

Sight unseen? I think not.

[orald]

It's more the character you should be afraid of.

Lets just say I'd never condemn Chig about his hatred to his sis, I'm overly familier with that towards way more of my close-ish relatives.

I'll say it- my uncle was a drunk and I'm glad the fucker's dead for a decade or so now.

Waiting for my old folks to drop dead, and I don't care if my little sister lives or not, but away from me.

[Freakzilla]

It's the "cartoon" part that's wrong here.

Remember the Vargas girls in Playboy? Is it wrong to find those attractive? He was so good you could barely tell they were paintings.

Is it determined by how fine the art is?

I think that's silly.

[GamePlayer]

Wait, all of this is just wrong.

Oh well.

I'm glad the unreality part of the animated gif finally hit. You had me worried there for a second

[orald]

It's the "cartoon" part that's wrong here.

Remember the Vargas girls in Playboy?

Err, no?

I'm not a porn collector, Freak.

[Serkanner]

It's the "cartoon" part that's wrong here.

Remember the Vargas girls in Playboy?

Err, no?

I'm not a porn collector, Freak.

You are to young to remember the drawings of Vargas.

[Mr. Teg]

As long as the little girls are 18 then there is nothing wrong with it ...

Can I trade my 37-year-old wife in on an eighteen and a nineteen-year-old?

Ah Freak-san, you need to move to Japan if want to trade your old wife for a 18 year old.

[Freakzilla]

It's the "cartoon" part that's wrong here.

Remember the Vargas girls in Playboy?

Err, no?

I'm not a porn collector, Freak.

What's the difference between porn and art?

[A Thing of Eternity]

It's the "cartoon" part that's wrong here.

Remember the Vargas girls in Playboy?

Err, no?

I'm not a porn collector, Freak.

What's the difference between porn and art?

What's the diff between anything and art?

[inhuien]

It's the "cartoon" part that's wrong here.

Remember the Vargas girls in Playboy?

Err, no?

I'm not a porn collector, Freak.

What's the difference between porn and art?

What's the diff between anything and art?

The eye of the beholder.















oh, where's the P0rn BTW??

[Robspierre]

It's the "cartoon" part that's wrong here.

Remember the Vargas girls in Playboy?

Err, no?

I'm not a porn collector, Freak.

What's the difference between porn and art?

If you're rich its art, poor it's porn.

Rob

[orald]

If you're rich its art, poor it's porn.

Seconded.

[Omphalos]

It's the "cartoon" part that's wrong here.

Remember the Vargas girls in Playboy?

Err, no?

I'm not a porn collector, Freak.

What's the difference between porn and art?

If you're rich its art, poor it's porn.

Rob

The art/porn distinction depends only on whether you can whack off when looking at it. If youre in public, its art. If youre in private, its porn.

[orald]

And you guys tell me New Dung isn't art! Hah, busted!

[Phaedrus]

And you guys tell me New Dung isn't art! Hah, busted!

I don't know whether it's art or not. But I do know that either way, it's bad.

[Hunchback Jack]

Here's the entire transcript of the interview. I'll post this in 5-minute chunks, or where a topic of conversation ends.

Scott Brick interviews KJA and BH

Scott Brick: This is Scott Brick, the narrator of the Dune audiobooks. I’m in the studio today, and we’ve just finished recording Hunters of Dune, the latest in the epic Dune saga, and I’m very pleased to be taking on the phone with the authors, Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. Brian, Kevin, thanks for joining us today.

Brian Herbert: Well, thank you, Scott.

Kevin J. Anderson: Thanks for talking to us.

SB: Oh, er, believe it, it’s our pleasure. We don’t usually get to have, er, the authors in the studio with us, on the phone or in person, so it’s a treat for us.

KJA: Well, after that many words, and those many pages in the book, I can’t imagine people want to hear more words from us, but er, that’s okay, this is ...

BH: That was Kevin, by the way.

KJA: Yeah, that ... this is Kevin, and the softer voice is Brian’s.

[Brian Chuckles]

SB: Well, I figured, er, pretty much every fan of anything on Earth always wants to know more about, you know, more details about what went into, you know, the creation of the stories, so I would love to just get your impressions on what it was like to work on this. Now, I know ... I read the title that immediately precedes this one in the Dune chronology, Chapterhouse: Dune, when it was first released in 1986, and I mean, I think I can speak for all Dune fans everywhere when I say it’s incredibly exciting to finally get to see what happened after the cliffhanger ending. Um, that’s speaking as a fan; I know that the both of you are first and foremost fans of Frank Herbert’s Dune series, so, if it’s exciting for us to get to read and to listen to, I can only imagine what it was like for the both of you to finally get to work on this after so many years. Can you share with us what it was like to finally pick this up after such a long time?

BH: Well, there’s so many feelings that I have about that, because, Dad ... as far as I knew, when Dad passed away, um, I only saw him using a yellow highlighter on copies of Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune, and um, then he passed away, and um, I knew he was writing another Dune book, but those ... even those yellow highlighted versions disappeared, and so, for many many years I thought that was the end of the series, and ...

Eventually Kevin and I got together in early ‘97, and we started trying to figure out where the story was going, and now we’re continuing that, ‘cause now we do know where the story was going, and we’ve added to it and, er ... In the tradition of Frank Herbert, we’ve, we’ve followed his thinking very carefully, and, ah, it’s been a labor of love, and it’s a continuation of a great partnership between Kevin and me.

KJA: As a huge Dune fan myself, in fact, er, God Emperor of Dune was the first hardcover book I ever bought, I think I was a freshman in college or something ...

SB: Wow.

KJA: ... and then I bought Heretics of Dune as soon as it came out, and Chapterhouse: Dune, and then Frank Herbert passed away, and for years I was dismayed because I didn’t think there would ever be the conclusion to this story, it was kind of like The Mystery of Edwin Drood for, for Charles Dickens, and when Brian and I first got into contact with each other, this was one of my, my main ideas. I thought, this story needs to be finished, it isn’t like, we’re making up an artificial Dune book that nobody wanted to read, it’s obvious from reading Chapterhouse: Dune that there’s supposed to be more to the story. And, we started talking about this, I think, in 1996, as Brian said ...

BH: Er, January ‘97.

KJA: ... January ‘97, and, we realized that we needed to lay some groundwork first, and that’s why we did our first set of prequels, the ... House Atreides, House Harkonnen and House Corrino, and then we told another big chunk of the Dune history in, 10000 years earlier, in The Butlerian Jihad, and The Machine Crusade and The Battle of Corrin. And, all of that was building up the whole Dune universe and leading up to this grand finale, and, an amazing thing happened right after Brian and I started talking about the project, because nobody knew where Frank Herbert was going with it, um, we discovered Frank's final outline for Dune 7.

SB: Hmm.

KJA: So, we did get the road map. Brian, you wanna talk a little bit more on that ...

BH: Yeah, it's just a three-page, er, maybe two-and-a-half page outline, but it's er ... it's... it's concise, we've, um ... we've ... we've added a lot, a lot to it, I mean, it was, it was more of a ... an inspiration for us in kind of a general concept, than a detailed scene-by-scene outline, so Kevin and I have, have fleshed out the characters and the scenes and, ... um, and I think, er, oh a few weeks later, I started rummaging around in my storage and I ... and I found additional general er, Dune ... Dune notes of my father's that have really helped us too. So, it was kind of amazing to have these things appear right after Kevin and I met.

I wrote a little bit about that in my biography of my Dad, how my mother was so much in touch with another realm, and I think she’s there helping us out, and still guiding us to this day.

SB: Oh, that’s fabulous.

[KJA starts to say something, but SB overrides him]

SB: So, you all had started making plans and then, essentially you found, a roadmap?

[KJA and BH talk over each other, then ...]

BH: Well, I wouldn't say we found a roadmap, I'd say we found ... clues.

SB: Okay.

BH: It's been more clues than ... than precise roadmaps.

SB: I was curious, because you had written about this in The Road to Dune, about having found this. I was always curious how detailed an outline it was, and how much room it gave you for improvisation, shall we say?

[KJA takes a breath, but BH answers ahead of him]

BH: No, it wasn't that detailed, it was more general.

SB: Got it.

KJA: But it answered the questions that we needed to have answered, I mean, there's ... there's some big mysteries that's [sic] left at the end of Chapterhouse: Dune and Frank Herbert could say more in a sentence than some people can say in chapters, so we were able to find ... what we had to do in order to write the rest of the story, and in fact it's ... it was such a huge story that was kind of sketched out in this outline, that it took us, er, either one 1500-page book to tell it, or two much smaller, 700-page books. So that's why Hunters of Dune is the first half of the grand climax.

SB: Right.

[Hunchback Jack]

SB: Now, I know that you ... previously you’ve collaborated on seven Dune titles. Could you describe your writing process, the way that you worked for those first seven, and then tell us whether things might have changed, at all, while you were working on this one, I’m just curious if ... I mean, I know you never previously tried to imitate Frank Herbert’s style, you know, you created your own unique voice, but I’m curious if, if because this was a continuation, in fact, a continuation of Chapterhouse, if there was ever any point during the writing of it, that you found yourselves, you know, leaning toward’s Frank’s style, perhaps, a bit more.

BH: I think subconsciously we have all along. Kevin and I were both inspired by him, um, and um ... Frank Herbert was a teacher to me. Both Bill Ransom and I are the only two writers who have actually sat side-by-side with Frank Herbert as, - basically Bill and I were students - as we worked on books with him. But, Kevin and I have evolved into - in fact, we did this pretty early, we recognized what our different strengths were - our writing style, our syntax and all that, is fairly similar, which is helpful, but our strengths are different. And so for all the books except for one - and I'll just leave that one to the fans to guess - um, Kevin and I actually played to our strengths on the first draft. So I would write the Bene Gesserit chapters and Kevin would write more action- and science-oriented chapters.

And then on one of the books in the series, and again I’ll just leave that out as a tantalizing clue, we actually reversed roles, and I wrote the Kevin-type chapters first, and Kevin wrote the Brian-type chapters first.

SB: Oh, wow.

BH: Mmm-hmm.

SB: And how did that turn out for the both of you, how did that, er ...

BH: Well, it turned out fine. We’ve gone back to the other way, [laughs] but maybe we just kind of evolved to what we’re naturally are strong at.

KJA: We’ve worked together for so long that we, we’ve got it down pat, I think, that we know how to do it in the way that’s the most ... efficient. But, each time we write a book, whether it’s one of our individual books or whether it’s a Dune book, we try to improve what we’ve done before, and, that was one of the exercises of me writing typical Brian chapters and him writing typical Kevin chapters, is, I learned how to do things that I didn’t know how to do before, and I think we’ve both grown as writers just by working so much together. We, I figured it out once, we’ve written more than a million words together.

SB: Wow.

KJA: And, um, it just, it helps us, but also as far as the, the Frank Herbert’s style and whether we imitated it or not, in order to do these books, we have to be absolutely immersed in the Dune universe, and, I can’t tell you how many times that I’ve read and reread Heretics and Chapterhouse before working on the Dune 7 volumes. So, just by absorbing all of this stuff, reading it over and over again, I think it’s, it’s affected the way we write a little bit more, but it’s still our own books. We don’t want to try to do, a kind of cheap knock-offs of Frank Herbert’s style, I don’t think we would succeed in that, but what we have done, since we started writing our books, is that, the sales of Frank Herbert’s original novels have skyrocketed. They ... huge new audiences have come to it, and we’ve got readers that, uh, never had picked up Frank Herbert’s books before, but they read our books first and then they’ve gone on to the rest of the chronicles, so I think it’s been a great boon for the whole, this great classic work of literature that I revere more than any other science fiction book I’ve ever read.

SB: Oh, that’s fabulous, what a great result. I was curious, you talked earlier about how having split what was originally going to be Dune 7 into these two books, Hunters of Dune and then the forthcoming Sandworms of Dune, and I know that those two titles were things that Frank Herbert had come up with, those were, I believe, originally, they were working titles for two of the previous volumes, if I’m correct?

BH: Yeah, well, Hunters of Dune was a working title, and, I’d have to, you know, there have been so many Dune books now, but I know that Sand ... it was Sandworm of Dune, singular, which was the working title for, um, for God Emperor of Dune, and I believe that Hunters of Dune was a working title for either Heretics or Chapterhouse.

SB: Huh. And I seem to remember also Sandworm of Dune was the title of one of the recordings that, er, that your father did for Caedmon audio, years ago, so ...

BH: Yeah, and it was a reading of God Emperor.

SB: ... A reading of God Emperor, that’s right. So ...

BH: ... Because Sandworm was his working title for that book before he changed his title.

SB: So these titles are very much still, you know, a nod to Frank’s work. I remember, I saw in the introductory pages to Hunters, it was talking about forthcoming volumes, and it says Paul of Dune, and I just, I didn’t know if that was also a working title for something previous, or if this is something that, er ...

BH: No, that’s, that’s completely new ...

SB: This is the new direction?

BH: But it seems like a logical title, and it’s um ... It’ll be the story of Paul Atreides before and after the novel Dune. And it’s actually the first book of a trilogy, we haven’t named the other two books yet, but we’ll get into that perhaps in another interview.

SB: Great!

KJA: And, all along, because we’ve ... Brian found this big box of Frank Herbert’s ... notes, and there were unpublished chapters, and there were never-used epigraphs - the little quotes at the beginning of the chapters – and character backgrounds, um, we’ve made a concerted effort to try to use as much of Frank Herbert’s original stuff as we can. We try to use all the quotes that he gave us, and um, some descriptive paragraphs, there, there are pieces of Frank Herbert’s text sprinkled throughout the books. And, in fact, a lot of those notes and chapters were published in The Road to Dune, um, just to show some of the pieces that we’re working with.

BH: Well, a lot of times, it’s an inspiration, it could just be, something that I remember my father saying and we would then put that in an epigraph. But it’s er, we definitely have the spirit of Frank Herbert in every word and every page of what we’re writing.

SB: Oh, that’s great.

[Hunchback Jack]

SB: I’d like to talk about a few details of the book, but before I do, I’d like to make, er, I guess you’d call it a spoiler warning. I want to let everyone listening know that I was going to talk about some of the events at the end of Hunters. This interview is going to be placed at the end of the recording, so the assumption is, everyone will already know about these things, but just in case someone listening doesn’t already know what happens at the end of the book, I want to give you the opportunity to hit pause ... Now!

KJA: Run away!

SB: Exactly. Um, the last few chapters of the book, when the identities of the old man and woman are revealed. I know that fans of your most recent Dune prequel trilogy, beginning with The Butlerian Jihad, they’re finally going to get to see two of their absolute favourite characters return, which is cause for great rejoicing. Omnius and Erasmus really serve as a bridge between the two eras, you know, the Butlerian Jihad and the current timeline. Um, I was wondering if you could tell us how that came about? At what point did you realize that these two couples, these essentially four characters were indeed two characters, that they were the same?

BH: Well, this is where ... Omnius and Erasmus are actually ... characters that Kevin and I created. Um, and, they were not based on any notes that we found of Frank Herbert's at all. But we combined those two characters that we created, that we ... and, these are concepts, it was a story concept that we threaded in, knowing we were heading for Hunters of Dune and Sandworms. We combined what we added ... our own concept to Frank Herbert's overview. And Frank Herbert's overview, then, is where we immersed these two characters.

KJA: Well, and Frank Herbert's ... the outline, and the .. the roadmap ... or the clues that he gave us ... told us basically the origin of the old man and the old woman, and where ... that it did tie all the way back to the Butlerian Jihad and that it did ... connect this whole vast story arc and epic history that he had come up with. Which is kind of one of the reasons why we had to do the Butlerian Jihad books before we could go all the way to Hunters and Sandworms, because we needed to lay this whole foundation. Now, that's one of the differences between our writing style and Frank Herbert's writing style is, he often left a lot of things ... unsaid, he put them kind of in the background, between the lines, and in fact, in Heretics of Dune, the planet Earth - I mean, the planet Arrakis is, is charred and basically destroyed, and all the life on it is supposedly killed. And he does that in-between chapters. He doesn't show it. And Brian and I, our writing style is kind of a more ... we want to show you things and do it onstage instead of offstage, and so, whereas Frank Herbert, if he had been around to write Dune 7, which, frankly, Brian and I would rather he had stayed around to write it so that we could read it like new fans instead of writing it. But he would have left a lot of the details in the background, and up to his readers to put together. And ... we kind of like to show everything instead.

And that's why we wanted to build this whole history, always knowing where it was going, because we’ve kind of joked at our book signings and our talks, that, once we found the outline, that, we knew what the secret was, but we weren’t going to tell anybody else [snigger] for a couple of years.

BH: Well, and it’s kind of interesting because the fans are actually part of the creative process, in the sense they’ve inspired us. I remember Kevin and I were giving a talk, I think it was in Santa Cruz, California, and I said, I turned and said to Kevin in front of the audience, “Wouldn’t it be great to start Hunters of Dune with a scene of the destruction of Arrakis?”, um, which would be a backstory, you know, from the end of Frank Herbert’s books. And so then Kevin started riffing off of that, and we started brainstorming right there, in front of the crowd, and it was, it was fun.

KJA: And we came up with the first sentence, which we actually used, the ... “On the day he died, the planet Arrakis also died”, or something like that ...

BH: Yeah, Kevin came up with that line, and, er, and we used it. Yeah.

SB: Oh, that’s fabulous.

KJA: Because as a reader, when I read Heretics of Dune I thought, “How could you destroy the planet Arrakis and not show it?” So, now we got to show it.

SB: Oh, that’s terrific. Was there an intention, do you think, on your father’s part, Brian, to perhaps inject a bit of himself and your mother into the characters of the old man and the old woman? I mean, I realize they’re bad guys, of course, I mean, no disrespect intended, but when I read Chapterhouse twenty years ago, and especially when I read Hunters, I was reminded that your parents were a team, they were a partnership and they'd fashioned this universe together. And on the page you have an elderly couple, and they're seemingly omnipotent at times, they're watching over this universe from a remote vantage point. I couldn't help thinking of your parents doing the same thing - watching events in the Dune universe unfold.

BH: Well, I'll just add one more element to that, that they both loved to work in the garden. And I guess you could say that their stories were ... were the plants and flowers that they were nurturing, but ... I think that my Dad, when he created characters, he always took elements of various people and put them into it. But, that ... that could have been part of it, but I would say that would be a subconscious element to it.

That's an interesting observation, I like that. Why don’t we take that away, take that, Kevin and we’ll get credit for it? [SB laughs] That’s a good one, Scott.

KJA: I hadn't noticed that myself. I kind of had a chill when Scott just mentioned it, I thought, "Oh, that's so obvious, how come I didn't see that before?"

SB: Well, again, I kept, I kept reminding myself, well these, I know that these are bad guys, but I couldn’t help it, as I was imagining them I saw their image in my mind.

BH: Mmm-hmm.

KJA: Well, bad guys is a relative term.

SB: Exactly, they’re, they’ve got the best motivations to themselves.

BH: Mmm-hmm.

KJA: Well and as you said earlier, about the, “the two of the most anticipated characters”, or, “beloved characters”, or something, I went, “Omnius and Erasmus? They’re horrible people!” [SB laughs] Well, “people” isn’t even the right word.

SB: But they’re the lovable rogues. Especially, Erasmus, obviously.

KJA: I think he’s probably the best character that we’ve created in all of these books, I just really love Erasmus.

BH: And you know, Erasmus is a concept of Kevin’s, and then he had me ... And then I said, “Well, why don’t we add, like a Joseph Mengele aspect to this character?” - that’s the Nazi doctor of death – and then Kevin said to me, “Well, that sounds really sick, Brian, maybe you better write the first draft on that one.” But he was definitely a composite between Kevin and me.

KJA: Oh, we kind of fight over who got to write those chapters. I think we split them half and half just because they were so much fun.

BH: Mmm-hmm.

SB: I remember years ago being in a science fiction literature class, as a matter of fact, back at UCLA, and the professor said that the definition of a great character is when the readers wonder what happens to him or her after the last page is turned. You know, they wonder “What is Erasmus doing now?”, and he definitely fits that criteria. I think all of the fans have been curious what’s been going on since the end of The Battle of Corrin.

BH: The irascible Erasmus.

[lotek]

I can't believe that moron never made the connection between the old man and woman and Frank and Bev'; i mean you'd have to be brain(brian)damaged not to see something so fucking obvious!
That man truly has the imaginative capacity of a turnip!

Thanks for the transcription HBJ! The stupid hurts again but it's good to see our work is being done by the very persons we're trying to expose

[Hunchback Jack]

SB: There’s a long, proud tradition in the Dune novels, and, er - I’m speaking of the tradition of cloning great characters, er, Duncan Idaho, especially he’s permeated this entire series since the first ghola, Hayt, was brought out of the incubation tanks. I’m wondering how that happened originally, I’m not clear about how he wound up becoming part of the series again. Was it a case of Duncan being one of Frank’s favourite characters and he wanted him back, or did the fans just get really vocal and ... ?

BH: Well, have you seen the movie Misery, or read Stephen King’s book?

SB: Sure.

BH: The fan doesn’t want the character to be killed off.

SB: Right.

BH: And basically, the same thing happened to Dad, except that he wasn’t taken prisoner. He got a deluge of fan letters saying “How could you kill Duncan Idaho off, he’s ... ”, you know, “We like him even better than Paul Atreides!”, or, “ ... as much ...”, and so Dad figured out a way to bring him back. And, I guess he went to the old concept of a golem, and changed it to a “ghola”, and then added the cloning element, except it was dead cells instead of live cells, and voila, we have Duncan Idaho again.

KJA: Well, and then we have other characters too,

SB: Exactly.

KJA ... which, I mean, a lot of the characters just are brought back again and again, and that poses a completely different challenge for us as writers, because if you can always bring a character back, then what’s the real peril that you can put the character into? Because any time somebody gets killed, then the reader’ll just shrug and say, “They’ll bring ‘em back if they want to”. So the challenge is to make the situations they’re in seem emotionally engaging enough so that the reader cares what happens.

SB: Absolutely, I mean, I can’t remember how many times, you know, the God Emperor ... squished ... Duncan Idaho.

BH: Well, we also had that challenge on a big scale of story arc when we wrote our prequels, because everybody knows, generally, where the prequels are going to end, and how do we get there in an interesting way?

SB: Sure. Yeah, you know these, the ghola characters still seem, every incarnation still seems unique, and there’s still obviously room for growth, they still have their own arc.

BH: Well, they have some unpredictable elements to them, that Frank Herbert put in there, and that’s always good.

SB: Thank you both very much for the time, thank you for being so generous and for joining us here today.

BH: Okay, Scott, thank you.

KJA: Thank you, Scott.

SB: Thanks, Brian. Thanks, Kevin.

[DuneFishUK]

You're a machine HBJ!

Great work - This thread needs to be stickied.

[TheDukester]

SB: Thanks, Brian. Thanks, Kevin.

Fuck off, Brian.

Fuck off, Kevin.

And, while we're at it, fuck off to Brick, too. I didn't realize what a lickspittle KJA lackey he was.

HBJ, though, has earned a cookie, methinks ...

[lotek]

definitely!
both for the work and the pain it must cause to have both to listen to and write so many lies

[Ampoliros]

KJA ... which, I mean, a lot of the characters just are brought back again and again, and that poses a completely different challenge for us as writers, because if you can always bring a character back, then what’s the real peril that you can put the character into? Because any time somebody gets killed, then the reader’ll just shrug and say, “They’ll bring ‘em back if they want to”. So the challenge is to make the situations they’re in seem emotionally engaging enough so that the reader cares what happens.

Besides Teg (once) and Duncan, who the fuck got brought back? Oh and you totally failed at "emotionally engaging" us with all the characters YOU brought back, unless mind-numbing horrified disbelief was the emotion you were going for.

What he meant to say:

KJA ... which, I mean, a lot of the character creation is really hard when you are working in the Dune Universe because how deep each one was and how well developed they are. We can't do that so we just brought back the main characters again and again, and that poses a completely different challenge for us as writers, because now you have to put all these dead characters into a universe completely alien to them and give them a reason to live in it. So we just redressed exactly what happened to them 5,000 years ago: That's what’s the real peril that you can put the character into! Because any time somebody gets a cameo, then the reader’ll just shrug and say, “Ha Ha, just like before!”. Lets face it, when writing for the lowest common denominator the challenge is to make the situations they’re in seem emotionally engaging enough so that the reader gets bored and quickly wants another action scene. Nobody really cares what happens unless someone is dying. And guess what? Boom, we can bring them back. If that's not an endless cycle of possible material I...we can milk dry I don't know what is! DUNE IS MINE BITCHES!

[Hunchback Jack]

You're a machine HBJ!

Well, thanks, but it was a lot quicker using Chig's "looping quicktime player" technique. But I still had to listen to the whole thing multiple times. I cut 'n' pasted from my posts of the original excerpts, where I could, of course.

KJA ... which, I mean, a lot of the characters just are brought back again and again, and that poses a completely different challenge for us as writers, because if you can always bring a character back, then what’s the real peril that you can put the character into? Because any time somebody gets killed, then the reader’ll just shrug and say, “They’ll bring ‘em back if they want to”. So the challenge is to make the situations they’re in seem emotionally engaging enough so that the reader cares what happens.

Besides Teg (once) and Duncan, who the fuck got brought back? Oh and you totally failed at "emotionally engaging" us with all the characters YOU brought back, unless mind-numbing horrified disbelief was the emotion you were going for.

Yeah, I don't know what he was thinking there. Duncan is the only character we actually see brought back again and again; perhaps he meant Scytale and Waff. Although that doesn't really make sense given the context, since we only see one ghola of each in the original series.

What struck me about that passage was that KJA is more or less creating a problem that doesn't exist, by not understanding or ignoring the original novels. Putting a Duncan in jeopardy still generates tension because *that ghola's* life is in danger. If that ghola dies, *it* doesn't live again, and its life is as full and as rich and as unique as any single person's. The fact that a copy of it might later inherit its memories doesn't change that. Furthermore, the ghola's nature provides ways of generating emotionally engaging situations. The ghola remembers a past very different from the one he's living in. The ghola *remembers dying*, for pity's sake.

What he meant to say:

KJA ... which, I mean, a lot of the character creation is really hard when you are working in the Dune Universe because how deep each one was and how well developed they are. We can't do that so we just brought back the main characters again and again, and that poses a completely different challenge for us as writers, because now you have to put all these dead characters into a universe completely alien to them and give them a reason to live in it. So we just redressed exactly what happened to them 5,000 years ago: That's what’s the real peril that you can put the character into! Because any time somebody gets a cameo, then the reader’ll just shrug and say, “Ha Ha, just like before!”. Lets face it, when writing for the lowest common denominator the challenge is to make the situations they’re in seem emotionally engaging enough so that the reader gets bored and quickly wants another action scene. Nobody really cares what happens unless someone is dying. And guess what? Boom, we can bring them back. If that's not an endless cycle of possible material I...we can milk dry I don't know what is! DUNE IS MINE BITCHES!

Very nice.

HBJ