LA Times article on Dune's Timeless Appeal.

[Freakzilla]

(Their CSS stylesheet over there SUCKS. Italic and underline emphasis makes the font size smaller? WTF?)

Yeah, it's terrible. I just found out you can change the size of underlined text to large and make it normal sized.

[SandChigger]

What'll they think of next!

[Omphalos]

Those pages are clunky as hell; piecemeal shit that loos awful, IMHO. Plus its got all the bells and whistles from, like, 1999.

[SandChigger]

All cheap surface flash with no substance beneath ... that's what "DUNE" stands for now, isn't it? At least so far as the McDune books are concerned.

[lotek]

and the little shit deleted my posts

what a dick!

It's so funny he can't see that by doing this he acknowledges the fact that I hit a soft spot

[Freakzilla]

He deleted all of it... it's practically a topic of him arguing with himself now.

[lotek]

mission accomplished then!
EDIT
the almighty pussy strikes again!

[lotek]

great news I opened a twitter account just to placate that idiot every now and then

Loteqs that's me!

[Freakzilla]

CONGRATULATIONS!

Someone has already taken up your slack...

Clarification: We don't have the right to post the entire article here. Which is why the link exists to it.

Also, highlighting your own personal agenda within an article serves the exact same purpose as cherry picking the two lines. Just read the article for what it was intended. Note: the article's title.

Are we allowed to discuss what the article says about Kevin J. Anderson? Are we allowed to mention it?
Or can we only talk about the article's title? It's main point?

[SandRider]

mission accomplished then!
EDIT
the almighty pussy strikes again!

welcome among the iduali ...

[lotek]

the jihad continues!

a necessary sacrifice, I gladly give my DungNovels account as martyr for the cause, if its death will help galvanize the undecided

(now why does that sound familiar? )

[Nekhrun]

Start a new account and call yourself Journeyman (or Namyenruoj).

[A Thing of Eternity]

This is great, can't believe I missed this all this weekend.

[Tleszer]

Congrats on being banned, lotek! I merely have an inactive account...

[lotek]

how lame

nah only kidding I got lucky that's all, just was at the right time in the wrong place... or was it the opposite? I'm not sure

well I knew what to expect from that kind of person that lacks even the guts to defend what it stands for...
what a douche

The good side of all this is that more and more people are realizing that the nudune suck donkey's balls, and if "let byron be byron" wants to put his hands on his ears and sing "lalalalalalala" let him do it, in the end posterity will be the judge

and we already know who will be remembered for their talent(just that I use that word should indicate that talentless dickhead aka the journeyman is not who I had in mind )

[Freakzilla]

Are we allowed to discuss what the article says about Kevin J. Anderson? Are we allowed to mention it?
Or can we only talk about the article's title? It's main point?

Discuss what the article was intended to be about. Not what some want it to be about.

OK. I think the article is about Frank Herbert and Dune, first and foremost, and that it makes a comparison to the books by Kevin and Brian. I think part of the point of the entire article (Dune is a timeless classic) is made by this comparison - if you look at Newitz' penultimate quote, for instance.
(Am I allowed to refer to the existence of these quote, by the way?)

So much for the main point, but you did not answer my question: are we allowed to talk about stuff besides the main point, or only what you have deemed is relevant about the article?
The article does have stuff to say about Kevin and Brian's writing, so it is ostensibly "about" them too. Or is it another meaning of the adverb you are referring to?

Maybe if you posted some guidelines to links such as this one - so everyone knew exactly what topics from the originals are allowed?

[lotek]

I wonder, does he know he's backed into a corner here, or is he really that dumb?

[Lundse]

I wonder, does he know he's backed into a corner here, or is he really that dumb?

He's obviously backing, backpedalling, fudging, whatever... He knows the article is slamming KJA as hard as can be politely done in a journalistic piece, and he just needs it to go away.
Posting it on DN must be quite an eyeopener - no support, just people pointing out that KJA sucks, and that other people know it.

[lotek]

still bragging about it on the official dune facebook...
fucking idiots

and all the dumb comments focus on the upcoming movie, not the fact that this article is first and foremost a tribute to Frank Herbert.

EDIT
I just saw this little note under the main title(it escaped my attention as I kind of concentrated on reading the actual article)and it explains the mistery as to why all these people on the facebook page were ranting only about the movie. How could they know that when you have to read halfway down to find the 1st mention of it???
Well they read the title(so they know it is about Dune), and then this little note

The late author's epic of a desert planet anticipates contemporary issues and poses a lasting challenge to filmmakers.

Yeah let's all comment an article we never read!
Wankers...

First part of the article(no mention of the hack or movies)

Half a century ago, a middle-aged newspaperman with a few obscure books to his name sat down to pursue a pet obsession based on a story that had never sold.

The ensuing 1965 novel -- in which his agent had no confidence -- sagged at first. But within a few years, it was a pop-culture sensation, and this year, on its 45th anniversary, "Dune" is one of science fiction's best-known books and probably the field's bestselling novel.

The mystery of why some works continue to speak to us is heightened with a book like "Dune": Frank Herbert's desert-planet epic not only remains popular and well-known, but this tale has anticipated many of our contemporary concerns. Its saga of dueling great houses, the fight for a rare resource and a young aristocrat's coming of age was set 200 centuries in the future. But it grapples with numerous issues pressing in the 21st: the fragility of the environment, the shortage of fossil fuels, the threat of religious jihad, the unpredictable effects of mind-bending drugs.

"It was the SF book that everybody in the mainstream culture was reading," recalls Northern California novelist Kim Stanley Robinson. "But it wasn't like Vonnegut's 'Cat's Cradle,' which was essentially a mainstream novel. Herbert was doing hard-core SF in the anthropological and world-building sense. People went for its huge back story taking off from [the prophet] Mohammed's life."

That the novel was planned and researched during the Eisenhower and Camelot years -- before widespread Muslim fundamentalism, OPEC, mainstream narcotics use and other issues that seem to inspire the narrative -- underscores the author's prescience. The book also helped galvanize the environmental movement: Set on a world far from ours, its rich description of a water-poor planet is credited by some as the inspiration for Earth Day.

Because of its huge following, fast-moving plot and opportunities for special effects, "Dune" has repeatedly attracted other artists -- it's been the source of a video game, a board game, numerous posthumous sequels and several adaptations. And though a 1984 film was widely considered a failure and two subsequent Sci-Fi Channel miniseries were made, Paramount recently selected a director for a big-budget movie.

The inspiration

"I am a political animal," Herbert said in a 1983 promotional interview. "And I never really left journalism. I am writing about the current scene -- the metaphors are there."

The novel was sparked when, in the late 1950s, Herbert flew to Florence, Ore., in a small chartered plane to write about a U.S. Department of Agriculture effort to stabilize sand dunes with European beach grasses. The author was struck by the way dunes could move, over time, like living things -- swallowing rivers, clogging lakes, burying forests. "These waves can be every bit as devastating as a tidal wave . . . they've even caused deaths," he wrote his agent, beginning an article, "They Stopped the Moving Sands," that was never published.

Despite his agent's indifference, Herbert dug in: He was fascinated by the project and superimposed the history of another sandy place -- including Arabs and Islam's Mohammed -- into an adventure novel originally called "Spice Planet."

When he hit his stride, Herbert was writing 70 pages a week.

At the time, science fiction was at the tail end of its Golden Age, dominated by brisk tales of interstellar war and planet hopping. Several icons of midcentury were doing major work -- Robert Heinlein, for instance, published his campus sensation "Stranger in a Strange Land" in 1961 -- but the field's energy was flagging, and the magazine market had imploded. (A 1961 fanzine was titled "Who Killed Science Fiction?") Herbert and his gargantuan manuscript were turned down by dozens of publishers but eventually accepted by Chilton, a small press known for auto manuals.

Herbert's story of young aristocrat Paul Atreides, along with maps, appendixes, glossary and epigrams ran to more than 500 pages. After almost two years, the book took off in 1967. The novel was a hinge between new and old, says Annalee Newitz, editor of science fiction blog io9.

" 'Dune' functions nicely as a transition between classic SF -- focused on space opera and astro-politics of the kind Isaac Asimov and other golden age authors wrote -- and the next generation," she says. "In the '60s, we saw a shift away from science fiction focused on space travel and space politics to anthropology. You aren't rushing between planets, you've landed on one and you talk about that one" -- including its biology and sociology.

Writers had imagined life on other planets and written of environmental catastrophe. But the scale of "Dune" was unprecedented, comparable, as Arthur C. Clarke said at the time, only to "The Lord of the Rings."

"The planet was something you could really feel," says Robinson, whose latest novel is "Galileo's Dream." "Herbert spent a lot of time outdoors -- you can see it in the writing, he's seen things you can only see if you've been there. It's physical and expansive."

Still, the novel's pulp roots show.

"Parts of it are almost poetic," says Rob Latham, who teaches science fiction at UC Riverside. "But the villains are comically ridiculous. Baron Harkonnen could have been played by Sydney Greenstreet or Charles Laughton, say -- 'swishy.' And I don't know what we're supposed to think of the eugenics. There are all sorts of half-baked ideas in there."

So quite a lot of things to say about Frank and his vision, which is only natural

Second part, the movies(still no mention of the hack)

'A real mess'

Thanks to the novel's success, plans for a "Dune" film began as early as 1971, when producers wanted David Lean, whose "Lawrence of Arabia" is in some ways a precursor, to direct. Another early version would've enlisted Orson Welles, Salvador Dalí, Gloria Swanson, Hervé Villechaize and Alain Delon in a 10-hour epic -- before financing evaporated.

Today, the 1984 movie directed by David Lynch and starring Kyle McLachlan and Sting has gained cult status. An endless shoot in Mexico City and the dunes of Chihuahua engaged 1,700 people: As the costs stretched, Lynch's film was sliced to two hours, and he was denied final cut. Roger Ebert, not known for his vitriol, called the movie "a real mess . . . incomprehensible, ugly, unstructured, pointless." Lynch all but disowned the movie and rarely discusses it in interviews.

Herbert, however, deemed Lynch's baroque film "a visual feast."

The current adaptation comes from the wreckage of a project that was to be helmed by "Friday Night Lights" creator Peter Berg and with Charlize Theron as Jessica, Paul's mother. After considering Neill Blomkamp (political-SF sleeper "District 9") and Neil Marshall (low-budget hit "The Descent"), Paramount opted for Frenchman Pierre Morel. (Chase Palmer, a relatively unknown writer, will work with an existing screenplay by Josh Zetumer.)

Morel -- director of "Taken" and "From Paris With Love" -- has discussed his aim to make the film faithful to the novel, which he says he's read 10 times.

Optimists hope that the director can do for Herbert's book -- and maybe its sequels -- what Peter Jackson did with Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings," finding a balance among action, story and ideas.

It could also, of course, be cheap. "If they want to reawaken it as a film franchise," says io9's Newitz, "it's hard to imagine that it would not just be action-packed, with a video-game tie-in."

Amazingly, not so much to say about it...

Note the title of the paragraph "A real mess"

Third part and last: the legacy/lasting effect(which I shall divide in two parts)

Lasting effect

For a book that's enjoyed such critical and popular success and continued interest from Hollywood, the legacy of "Dune" is not especially clear.

It's not quite New Wave -- which developed in the late 1960s -- not an antecedent to cyberpunk, nor a precursor to the recent space-opera renaissance. "It's some kind of singularity," says Latham.

"Dune" both channeled and stoked a greater environmental consciousness in SF: Important later novels by Ursula Le Guin, John Brunner and Octavia Butler looked at planetary ecology.

The original novel's most evident influence is on the science-fiction tradition of world-building, for which it raised the bar considerably. Writers and scientists had been envisioning other planets for a century, but not this deeply: The rituals by which the Fremen, the planet's desert people, deal with water are especially well imagined.

Many consider Robinson's trilogy about the terra-forming of Mars the best-realized exercise in the form since Herbert's. Robinson calls "Dune" a big influence: The book showed him, he says, that "you could talk about the future of the wilderness. It gave me courage. I knew that people were willing to read at great length and that the world could be a character."

But Herbert's future vision of a galaxy with numerous populated worlds seems out of step with the deflated present. "The future," says Robinson, "doesn't look to be off-planet in any near-future time frame."

So "Ursula Le Guin, John Brunner and Octavia Butler" are mentionned as Frank's literary legacy. Oh and also "Robinson's trilogy about the terra-forming of Mars the best-realized exercise in the form since Herbert's." (" the best-realized exercise in the form since Herbert's.")-> ouch that must sting a bit KJA's overbloated ego by now(and I )

Second part(here we go)at the end of the article, "i mention it but it is of no import"kind of thing

A less encouraging descendant of the original "Dune" novel is the large number of other Dune novels. The first sequel, the much slimmer "Dune Messiah," came out in 1969; Herbert published the sixth of the original series, "Chapterhouse: Dune," in 1985. And though Herbert died the following year, while recovering from cancer surgery, Dune's universe has been extended by his son Brian and journeyman writer Kevin J. Anderson.

Some think these posthumous prequels and sequels have confused the legacy by dumping less serious books into the marketplace. "They've gone from something profound and thought-provoking," says Newitz, "to being something like candy, like the 'Star Wars' novelizations."

Whatever the book's influence and implications, the original continues to attract readers: It's sold an estimated 10 million copies. To Latham, it remains "a weird kind of in-between thing."

"It culminates a pulp tradition, with ridiculous villains and a pseudo-medieval empire set in outer space, and some bad writing," he says. "Then it has these '70s elements -- environmental concerns, drugs and mystical experiences. And somehow it managed to coalesce all of them."

So there you have it: none of this retards really read that article, they scanned and saw the word "movie" and then the drooling started!



NB:
my tweets on dungnovels

# Loteqs

@DuneNovels do you think you can ban me from saying my piece from the comments in the LA Times? ha ha ha less than 5 seconds ago via web in reply to DuneNovels

* Delete

# lotek Loteqs

@DuneNovels banning everyone that disagrees with you will only leave you with the ones too stupid to think about 19 hours ago via web in reply to DuneNovels

* Delete

# lotek Loteqs

@DuneNovels yeah and only two lines on KjourneymanAnderson and the other guy, not very flattering either about 19 hours ago via web in reply to DuneNovels

I feel better now, just the finishing touch of the right message on the LA times comments and every preeq(or just curious)who'll go to that page will not be able to escape it

[lotek]

my comment(waiting for approval)

Brilliant article, a true credit to the genius of Frank Herbert and the way his books(especially Dune)were a huge influence on fellow writers such as Ursula Le Guin(my very own critical darling, or Robinson for example), but also on the lives of anonymous people like me, whose way of thinking was so challenged by Frank's writing that it changed everything I expected from a book.

Frank said once he owed his readers the best he could give them, and that he always tried to aim for the higher common denominator.

Like all fans I hope the Dune movie will be as respectful of the original as possible, it is true the LOTR fans were lucky to have both Peter Jackson and the heirs to Tokien working together to respect the original as much as possible.

The finishing lines about the journeyman Anderson and Frank's son were just perfect and captured in the most formal way what so many people have been trying to say, just to find themselves silenced by the very ones who didn't want to hear.

For all those curious don't hesitate to visit at http://www.jacurutu.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Ps: hi By!

Man I hope it does go through, I tried my best to offer the lowest profile to moderation

[Freakzilla]

This JHJH guy is giving Byron hell...

I posted the link to point out the article and what it represented. If you want to take two lines of the text from the article that fits an agenda and have that be the sole focus of this thread, then no, you won't be able to post "about" it. If you truly want to discuss the article and what it really "meant", then by all means, have at it.

I do not think I have the power to decide the "sole focus of this thread".

What I want to know, is if I can take everything which this article/Nemitz says about Kevin and Brian, and discuss that. The article does have something to say about their work, as compared to Herbert (it is "about" that).
I promise I will not coerce anyone so as to make it the sole focus of the thread, others will still be allowed to post whatever they want! Is that OK?

Or is it the mere mention of a certain topic ("agenda"?) that is the problem? If so, I would still like to know what exactly it is your censorship is based on - could we please have a list of unacceptable topics/"agendas"?

[lotek]

go get 'em!

[lotek]

yey my comment went through on the LA times, awesome!!

Freak can you still post at dn?
if so could you drop a casual line to mention there is a new comment on the page?

That's be awesome and poetic justice too, he linked just about everywhere without bothering reading it, offering me the perfect trojan horse to spread the truth

I feel better now

[Freakzilla]

Done.

[lotek]

thank you