Jᴀᴄᴜʀᴜᴛᴜ - Tʜᴇ Cᴀsᴛ Oᴜᴛ

Hunchback Jack wrote:I have to say, Brian looks deathly ill in that photo with Taz. Geez.

HBJ

Nebiros wrote:The tour is over but the Dunenovels event list has at the end one solo appearance by Kevin in Colorado. In the blahg he says that both he and Brian have individual appearances. Wonder why DN only advertised Kevin's one appearance.

DEAN KOONTZ’S FRANKENSTEIN: DEAD AND ALIVE

Nebiros wrote:... Kevin will continue to have something to brag about.

Redstar wrote:The one book I'll pick up concerning any Dune-entry by these two will be a complete documentation of every inconsistency, outright lie, and marketing fail... Hopefully it'll be written by Chig himself.

rain_maker wrote:

Redstar wrote:The one book I'll pick up concerning any Dune-entry by these two will be a complete documentation of every inconsistency, outright lie, and marketing fail... Hopefully it'll be written by Chig himself.

That I would buy. It could be a three part anthology: The Fail of Dune, The Hack of Dune and The Raping of Dune.

Ampoliros' Amazon Review wrote: This is how your review will appear:


1.0 out of 5 stars Where to begin..., August 25, 2009
By C. Carter Holland "Ampoliros" (Tejas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
To begin: To anyone who follows the discussion threads, you know I don't like this new series. To those who don't follow them, I am a member of a Dune Fan site that is very outspoken against what we see to be a complete misuse, abuse, and blatant disregard for the legacy of Frank Herbert's Dune.

Winds of Dune follows in the tradition of Brian and Kevin's previous series in that the characterizations aren't just missing, they are in many cases plain wrong. I've said often that I believe that Kevin writes only for the specific moment in which the reader resides, the most microscopic form of the NOW. He completely disregards elements of the Dune universe if they do not fit the exact moment of contact that eyes transmit and brain interprets, even if 2-3 sentances before or after he has to contradict himself. The typical complaints are here: plots that would insult the intellect of a 4th grader. Characters who's only distinguishing characteristic is their name or role. IQ's are yet again non-existent.

Example? Duncan and Gurney are trying to track down Bronso. They need pictures of him because he's erased all records of himself. After about a paragraph of Duncan mentioning he needs pictures of Bronso, they magically appear: He doesn't need them, the Ixians provided him with them. The book is rife with these little micro-plots that serve no purpose other than to fill space and provide even more evidence that the authors know nothing (or just don't care) about the Universe as Frank created it.

The fact that the authors would suggest that Duncan needs pictures of what Bronso looks like also illustrates another very lacking foundation in these books: Editing. Why do they need pictures of what he looks like when:

1)Bronso's first terrorist act in the book? Making his face appear in the clouds over Paul's Funeral.
2)His second? faking his execution by allowing a Face Dancer (shapeshifter) to die in his place. Immediately after this every Face Dancer in the galaxy takes on his form. (only a few of them are detained and even fewer are executed.)

If his face is that recognizable by everyone in the universe, why do the two security men assigned to find him need pictures of him? Duncan knew Bronso as a child as well as being a witness to the funeral apparition. He's a mentat, a human computer designed to store massive amounts of data and separate relevant facts, yet he can't remember the face of someone he's seen multiple times. Guild security (which includes genetic scanners to set up a joke in one scene but never again) as well as 900 mentats specifically trained to look for him in spaceports can't find him.

The fact that the Face Dancers are creations of the distrusted Bene Tleilaxu is ignored because the book tells us that this is an irrelevant matter; Bronso hates the Tleilaxu so he obviously wouldn't work with them. Dune is a book about consequence, yet there are no consequences for anyone's actions in these books. Alia actually rewards a troupe of face dancer Jongleurs for their performance that she knows (or should know) are associated with Bronso, right after a group of face dancers interrupted her execution of Bronso. Following the logic in this book requires more suspension of disbelief than is healthy.

Duncan and Gurney know there is only 1 method of travel in the Duniverse: The Guild. Bronso's pamphlets appear magically in people's luggage after traveling on Guild Ships. It takes a Human Computer and a Security Expert 370 pages out of a 400 page novel to figure out that the crews are in league with Bronso, even after Gurney witnesses a crewman planting a pamphlet in the first 20 pages. That's like getting off a plane flight and finding a package of salted peanuts in your bag and not having the mental computation power to realize where it came from.

I believe that Brian Herbert's involvement in the actual writing of the book extends only as far as it takes for his conscience requires for him to claim co-authorship.

Oh, and for the last time: Bene Gesserit DO. NOT. HAVE. PSYCHIC. POWERS. Frank himself explained voice as a method of control and authority, and pointed out its uses in out modern era. It is merely a trained extension of that, knowing who you are talking to and what motivates them, and tuning into that in order to slip commands directly into their instinctive response. A Sargent yelling "Grenade!" to his troops is a primitive form of voice: the soldiers don't think about the command, they instinctively react as they were trained to do. The Sargent isn't psychic Kevin.

I know some people are entertained by these books. Dune to me is something more, something sacred, it is a monument of Human Literature: to my friends I refer to it as a 'manual on humanity'. Therefore I see it as my duty to speak out against these philistine imitations. As a student of literature, I consider it a duty to know what I'm talking about so yes, I did read it, cover to cover.