Jᴀᴄᴜʀᴜᴛᴜ - Tʜᴇ Cᴀsᴛ Oᴜᴛ

I can't recall ever having to re-read a single sentence in any of his books in order to understand what was happening.

I'm sorry to say, though, that aside from being easy and absorbing reading, he comes up rather short in other important respects. His plots, though intricate, are far from being actually complex, relying more on soap opera melodrama to push the action forward than on plausible characters and situations. Dune: House Corrino in particular suffered greatly from this. When reading it I was struck by the fact that over half of the characters were doing what were doing because they were quite simply out of their minds. Totally gone. Crackers, barmy, swinging-off-the-chandeliers nutso. (Compare that to the number of crazy people found in all six of the original Dune novels.) When your book is populated by such characters it's easy to keep the action coming. Indeed, you often find yourself in an excess in the plot department, hence you need three volumes to tell an otherwise straightforward story just to keep track of all the raving and backstabbing and whispered revelations. We get conflict for the sake of conflict, bad decisions for the sake of creating action, and endless arguing in places where arguing make no sense on any level.

Incidentally, to be be clear on this point, I've read and greatly enjoyed Brian Herbert's solo novels (as well as his collaboration with his father) but I've never been able to see any of Brian in the new Dune novels.

The only good thing that can come from Slan Hunter as far as I am concerned is that it will serve to raise van Vogt's profile among those who would otherwise never hear of him.

SandChigger wrote: How damning is it that this same line is used to justify KJA's work in every franchise he ass-rapes?

D Pope wrote:I dub thee, "Any press is good press!" The penultimate preeq arguement- just ahead of,"You shouldn't read it if you don't like it!"