New interview with Bo-Bo

[SandChigger]

... Kevin and I have a six hundred page Dune concordance that I've prepared, that took about a year, so I know all the page numbers where Frank Herbert described everything. ...

[later, repeating himself]

... I spent a year before writing a word with Kevin doing a concordance of all six novels that Frank Herbert wrote in the Dune series, so I know the whole history of the Mentats, the Swordmasters, the Bene-Gesserit; I know the eye colors of the main characters, I know their family histories. It's all in a 600-page, single-spaced concordance. ...

You know, that part I underlined above is probably why they're in no rush to publish the thing, because that may be all the fabled "concordance" is, a list of words & character names followed by a bunch of page numbers, maybe with subentries. Something like

Duncan, Atreides retainer, Swordmaster; Dune 35, 43, 44, 57, 105; Heretics, ...
- eye color, Dune 44; shape 44
- hair, Chapterhouse 57

That is, after all, what an old-style Biblical concordance is like. And that took him a year to do ... which makes me wonder if he did it by hand.

I really rather do hope he did it by hand; I love the image of BoBo poring over his father's books, finding words and writing them down along with the page numbers. (Page numbers, there's another sticky bit that we've discussed that no doubt is also an impediment to them working on a version for publication: which edition of the books do you use?)

Anyway ... the other night I was searching the files for occurrences of the name "Dar-es-Balat", because I'm pretty sure the name means "The House of Tiles (or Tiled Floors)" and I wanted to see if there was any mention of tiles in the text around the name. I noticed something in the following passage that I had completely forgotten:

The long table on the right is set for a banquet of roast desert hare in sauce cepeda. The other dishes, clockwise to the right from the far end of the table, are aplomage sirian, chukka under glass, coffee with melange (note the hawk crest of the Atreides on the urn), pot-a-oie and, in the Balut crystal bottle, sparkling Caladan wine. Note the ancient poison detector concealed in the chandelier.
—Dar-es-Balat, Description at a Museum Display

So FH actually did mention the planetary name Balut in connection with crystalware. (Note that this passage in Heretics is actually an almost verbatim copy of a scene from Dune, although the former book does not mention the Balut crystal.)

But only once. In this passage. And BoBo obviously included it in his concordance, because the name has appeared no less than 67 times in the McDune books....

House Atreides: Balut crystal glowglobes floated in the air, flickering a warm orange.

House Harkonnen: Behind Klaen, a second student—Hiddi Aran of Balut—shadowed him.... ...and placed a projectile through the middle of the Balut student's forehead.

House Corrino: ...a rich glow in the golden light of Balut crystal glow-globes. ... Immense chandeliers of the purest Balut crystal.... Not even Balut's fabulous Crystal Chateau could approach such a level of ostentation. ...servants carried trays of drinks in Balut crystal goblets. ...Tyros Reffa, son of Elrood IX by Lady Shando Balut. ...the Imperial concubine Shando Balut.... "My birth-mother was Shando Balut...." "...Elrood's concubine, Shando Balut."

And so on. (2 occurrences in TBJ, 11 in MC, and 2 in BoC; 3 in PoD [Garon's retirement estate, lamps & goblets], and no less than 38 in WoD!) On a hunch, I decided to check for the other items listed in the Heretics passage. Evidently only the Caladan wine was deemed worthy of mention (and that only 8 times in all the McDune books).

So maybe the concordance actually does exist and they really do use it. As a source of planet+commodity name pairs for dropping into the text.

[TheDukester]

As a source of planet+commodity name pairs for dropping into the text.

I think you've nailed it.

The alleged concordance, such as it is, is used strictly for "that sounds cool!" effect. It makes even more sense when you realize that neither Idiot One nor Idiot Two could ever hope to come up with original and interesting names on their own.

[SandChigger]

Yeah. Thank goodness KJA has lots of "Friends" whose names he can work into the texts.

[Harq al Ada]

Paramount ultimately has decided to do a classic interpretation of the novel Dune.

That at least sounds hopeful.

Maybe. A classic interpretation may mean looking at it in the same way Lynch did...

we could only hope that the director and/or screenwriter is able to comprehend the book/s as well as Lynch did but that the director/screenwriter is given final cut and little to no interference from the studio/producers that Lynch was not.

just think no spoiled Paul, no overly and outwardly emotional Leto, no handmaiden Jessica, no rhyming Baron, no hip Irulan, all Fremen wearing stillsuits outside of the sietches, no open air sietches, good direction... awwwwe heaven.

[Redstar]

I really don't care about minor details such as stillsuits outside of sietches as long as the movie is visually stunning. I'm also fine with some changes to the story to streamline or simplify it for time, as long as they don't completely contradict the inherent themes of the book. Really, the only thing I won't like is if they change the personalities and motives of the characters, as well as deny me a redhead Jessica.

[TheDukester]

Hey, as long as they're milking cats, I'll be happy. Everyone knows that milking cats is the true essence of Dune.

(Seriously, we have a Dune media section. This shit keeps spilling over everywhere else.)

[Harq al Ada]

I'm just pokin' and you know breakin' stuff.

[chanilover]

... Kevin and I have a six hundred page Dune concordance that I've prepared, that took about a year, so I know all the page numbers where Frank Herbert described everything. ...

[later, repeating himself]

... I spent a year before writing a word with Kevin doing a concordance of all six novels that Frank Herbert wrote in the Dune series, so I know the whole history of the Mentats, the Swordmasters, the Bene-Gesserit; I know the eye colors of the main characters, I know their family histories. It's all in a 600-page, single-spaced concordance. ...

You know, that part I underlined above is probably why they're in no rush to publish the thing, because that may be all the fabled "concordance" is, a list of words & character names followed by a bunch of page numbers, maybe with subentries. Something like

Duncan, Atreides retainer, Swordmaster; Dune 35, 43, 44, 57, 105; Heretics, ...
- eye color, Dune 44; shape 44
- hair, Chapterhouse 57

That is, after all, what an old-style Biblical concordance is like. And that took him a year to do ... which makes me wonder if he did it by hand.

I really rather do hope he did it by hand; I love the image of BoBo poring over his father's books, finding words and writing them down along with the page numbers. (Page numbers, there's another sticky bit that we've discussed that no doubt is also an impediment to them working on a version for publication: which edition of the books do you use?)

Anyway ... the other night I was searching the files for occurrences of the name "Dar-es-Balat", because I'm pretty sure the name means "The House of Tiles (or Tiled Floors)" and I wanted to see if there was any mention of tiles in the text around the name. I noticed something in the following passage that I had completely forgotten:

The long table on the right is set for a banquet of roast desert hare in sauce cepeda. The other dishes, clockwise to the right from the far end of the table, are aplomage sirian, chukka under glass, coffee with melange (note the hawk crest of the Atreides on the urn), pot-a-oie and, in the Balut crystal bottle, sparkling Caladan wine. Note the ancient poison detector concealed in the chandelier.
—Dar-es-Balat, Description at a Museum Display

So FH actually did mention the planetary name Balut in connection with crystalware. (Note that this passage in Heretics is actually an almost verbatim copy of a scene from Dune, although the former book does not mention the Balut crystal.)

But only once. In this passage. And BoBo obviously included it in his concordance, because the name has appeared no less than 67 times in the McDune books....

House Atreides: Balut crystal glowglobes floated in the air, flickering a warm orange.

House Harkonnen: Behind Klaen, a second student—Hiddi Aran of Balut—shadowed him.... ...and placed a projectile through the middle of the Balut student's forehead.

House Corrino: ...a rich glow in the golden light of Balut crystal glow-globes. ... Immense chandeliers of the purest Balut crystal.... Not even Balut's fabulous Crystal Chateau could approach such a level of ostentation. ...servants carried trays of drinks in Balut crystal goblets. ...Tyros Reffa, son of Elrood IX by Lady Shando Balut. ...the Imperial concubine Shando Balut.... "My birth-mother was Shando Balut...." "...Elrood's concubine, Shando Balut."

And so on. (2 occurrences in TBJ, 11 in MC, and 2 in BoC; 3 in PoD [Garon's retirement estate, lamps & goblets], and no less than 38 in WoD!) On a hunch, I decided to check for the other items listed in the Heretics passage. Evidently only the Caladan wine was deemed worthy of mention (and that only 8 times in all the McDune books).

So maybe the concordance actually does exist and they really do use it. As a source of planet+commodity name pairs for dropping into the text.

Mmmm, balut! Did you know that balut is one of the more pretty hardcore dishes in Philippine cuisine? It's an egg with an embryo almost fully formed inside it. slurp!

I wimped out when I was in the Philippines last year and couldn't bring myself to eat it but next time I go there I think I'll go for it!

[SandChigger]

Mmmm, balut! Did you know that balut is one of the more pretty hardcore dishes in Philippine cuisine? It's an egg with an embryo almost fully formed inside it. slurp!

Yep. Made a joke about it back when I was going through WoD. It's around here somewhere.

[Omphalos]

Mmmm, balut! Did you know that balut is one of the more pretty hardcore dishes in Philippine cuisine? It's an egg with an embryo almost fully formed inside it. slurp!

I wimped out when I was in the Philippines last year and couldn't bring myself to eat it but next time I go there I think I'll go for it!

Ive slurped down quite a bit of balut in my time. Most Filipinos (at least that I met) won't accept you as a man until you do. Every one is a different experience, because the little fetal ducks can be at different point in their development. Ive gotten soft and tasty ones that were as nude as a chicklet, and others that had full on feathers, feet, beaks and calcified bones. Just be sure to drink a lot of beer first, and don't look at what you are eating. I remember opening one up and the beak was open and pointing upwards like a little chick that wanted its mom to regurgitate some food in its mouth. That one went down the gullet the hard way.

I can proudly say I have never puked one up (yet).

The rumor among Filipinos is that it really puts the lead in your pencil, if you know what I mean.

[Hunchback Jack]

I think that's pretty much the claim of every hard-to-get or hard-to-stomach dish in human history .

HBJ

[Seraphan]

I think that's pretty much the claim of every hard-to-get or hard-to-stomach dish in human history .

HBJ

Of course, how else would they get people to eat it?

[A Thing of Eternity]

Definitely not on my list of things to eat. Ever.

[Omphalos]

Definitely not on my list of things to eat. Ever.

Coward.

[SandChigger]

Some YA (POD?) writer named Matthew Peterson (who?) has posted a link on Facebook to a new(?) phone-it-in interview with BoBo and Hackersome:

http://theauthorhour.com/brian-herbert/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

(This seems to be a Voice of America production? Well known or new? I think this guy's only done five or so shows so far ... was there a different host before? In addition to BoBo & the Barefoot Contessa, he interviews Anne Rice, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Orson Scott Card. One has to wonder how KJA must feel about sharing an hour with one of his favorite "critical darlings"! )

From what I've read of the transcript and listened to so far, there's not really anything new here to hear.

Saying so has produced the expected response.

http://www.facebook.com/posted.php?id=2 ... 4932673485" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Freakzilla]

How old is that pic of bobo, is he trying to pick up chicks?

[SandChigger]

Are you asking if "Archie" is a bird-dog?

[A Thing of Eternity]

Definitely not on my list of things to eat. Ever.

Coward.

Ha, scared and disgusted are two completely different things my friend! Can't goad me into eating gross shit.

Beside, my whole argument for why eating eggs is more moral than meat goes right out the window if it's fertilzed!!

[SandChigger]

Fertilized AND fermented!

YUM!

[Mr. Teg]

How old is that pic of bobo, is he trying to pick up chicks?

Compare that picture with "Archie" the comic.


http://www.archiecomics.com/whoswho/riv ... rdale.html

[lotek]

Brian Herbert: Well, Dune initially was not a big bestseller, and it was actually Dad’s third book in the series that hit all the lists. That was Children of Dune.

Matthew Peterson: Ah! I did not know that.

Brian Herbert: Yeah, but Dune has outsold Children of Dune over the years.

Matthew Peterson: Yeah. Well, that’s interesting.

now that feels sooo sincere

Matthew Peterson: Filling some of those gaps. Well, I’ve seen the original Dune movie and the 2 mini-series that were made. And I hear that there is another Dune movie that’s in the works. How is that one going?

Kevin J. Anderson: It’s in Hollywood hell at the moment.

Matthew Peterson: Oh, yeah.

Kevin J. Anderson: It’s kind of a waiting game. But we can certainly hope, because I think Peter Jackson really raised the bar for all the film makers. When he did The Lord of the Rings, I think he really proved to everybody that you really can do justice to a huge, epic, complex story and get it right.

And you, my friend, proved to everyboy the opposite was sadly true as well...

[SandChigger]

HBJ & I have been having a little "discussion" with Peterson in a thread over on the Facebook Dune group (not Official Dune) here.

Another one who thinks interviewing = cyberfluffing. I honestly feel that if given the time, he would eventually hit all the Classic Preeq excuses & rationalizations.

It's just not worth it.

[Hunchback Jack]

Yeah, I actually thought a softer touch might get somewhere, but he just came back with the "if people buy it it must be good, so I'm not going to rock the boat" thing. Disappointing.

HBJ

[Redstar]

I tried to post, but couldn't find a comment bar.

(Also, shouldn't this be in the Prequels and Sequels sub-forum? I've noticed some threads seem to be miscategorized, so dunno)

[SandChigger]

I tried to post, but couldn't find a comment bar.

Are you on Facebook, too? Ah, that's right, you are, aren't you.

(Also, shouldn't this be in the Prequels and Sequels sub-forum? I've noticed some threads seem to be miscategorized, so dunno)

Ach, we're among friends, it all gets around. This is about BoBo, remember. He just lends his name to the shit. Pretends he was one of the grunt-n-pinchers.