Jᴀᴄᴜʀᴜᴛᴜ - Tʜᴇ Cᴀsᴛ Oᴜᴛ

I just got 'Dune and Philosophy' and 'Science of Dune' from B&N. Anybody read these?
They're both collections of articles by other writers, lots of whom seem to have "PhD" after their names. I'm more interested by the Philosophy one than the Science one b/c Dune always seemed more about philosophy/ethics than it was about the techno side of things.
Also, both books seem to be limiting themselves, quite correctly, to FH's works.

Most interesting article titles at a glance:

"A Universe of Bastards"
"Whats wrong with politics in the Duniverse"
"Just what do you do with the entire human race anyway?"

"From Silver Fox to Kwisatz Haderach"
"The Black Hole of Pain"

I haven't read either but I know some here have.

Have you read the Dune Encyclopedia compiled by Dr. Willis E. McNelly?

leagued wrote:I just got 'Dune and Philosophy'

Sound idea, I just ordered it on amazon for 9£.
Cool.

I've read a good chunk of the Encylopedia, but not cover-to-cover. I like it quite a bit. Don't have my copy here though unfortunately and its not in great shape. Would be great if that got re-released.

leagued wrote:I've read a good chunk of the Encylopedia, but not cover-to-cover. I like it quite a bit. Don't have my copy here though unfortunately and its not in great shape. Would be great if that got re-released.

There's a PDF online...

Try HERE

leagued wrote:I just got 'Dune and Philosophy' and 'Science of Dune' from B&N. Anybody read these?
They're both collections of articles by other writers, lots of whom seem to have "PhD" after their names. I'm more interested by the Philosophy one than the Science one b/c Dune always seemed more about philosophy/ethics than it was about the techno side of things.
Also, both books seem to be limiting themselves, quite correctly, to FH's works.

Most interesting article titles at a glance:

"A Universe of Bastards"
"Whats wrong with politics in the Duniverse"
"Just what do you do with the entire human race anyway?"

"From Silver Fox to Kwisatz Haderach"
"The Black Hole of Pain"

I think Chig wrote up a review of one or both of these on his blog.

Very interesting. I did not know about the existance of these books until now.

We got into a big Amazon fray with Jizzboy and wonder splooge over Dune and Philosophy when I reviewed it.

http://www.amazon.com/review/R1B62L6NHZ ... gital-text


Rob

Thanks for the link,

I'm a bit disappointed that the book uses any KJA/BH material, especially if they casually lump it with FH's work. On the other hand, most of these "x and philosophy" books usually just use the setting as a way to introduce concepts/theories from mainstream philosophy. I.e. the "SW and philosophy" used certain Jedi as examples to delve into stoicism rather than constructing a full-fleshed philosophical model of Star Wars.
So, like I said, definitely disappointing on some levels, but not a deal-breaker for me.

Historical note:

One of the articles in Dune And Philosophy was written by one of our own, Lundse.

viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2485&start=0&hilit=wiping+finite

Furthermore, I think that the Sandchigger actually managed to get into some dialogue with one of the scientists involved in the Dune and Science book, specifically the author of the article on Sandworm biology I believe.

When Chigger had some disagreements about the article by Dr. Hechtel she responded with debate instead of shutting things down with 'hater' comments, something that should be noted considering the reasons Jacurutu exists.

She talks to SandChigger here (in the comments): http://chiggerblog.hairyticksofdune.net/blog/?p=116" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

She discusses a little more of Science of Dune on her blog: http://funclimbsaroundtheworld.com/?cat=21" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanks for the tip/links.
Checked out the SC's review and the response. I tend to think that most scientists are going to respond a lot better than most fiction writers and a whole lot better than the hacks. Like she pointed out, her other articles probably don't inspire the kind of passionate response that writing about scifi classics is going to bring up.
Even more excited to delve into these books now.

SadisticCynic wrote:Historical note:

One of the articles in Dune And Philosophy was written by one of our own, Lundse.

viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2485&start=0&hilit=wiping+finite

Thanks for reminding me

In the (non-canon) Legends of Dune books...

This made me happy when I read it in one of the Science of Dune articles about FTL travel.

Read Lundse part in the philosophy of Dune, spot on and a finely tuned OH orientated analysis.

I've scanned the rest and my initial reaction was "did these guys read the same Dune I did ?"

Some bloke ranting about christic figure and nothing about islam... Me no get it.

Beautiful.

But to be honest, I despise the term ‘canon’ (and the pedestrian ‘non-canon’ even more—if you must express the concept, use apocryphal), since it exists by analogy with the Bible—which was a wildly growing collection of sources that all claimed to be ‘authentic’ until the Council of Nicea put a halt to it.

And I suppose this mirrors the situation for Star Wars and Star Trek tie-in novels; fictional universes that have been milked for more than they were ever worth by an endless string of vapid, uninspired hired pens. Lorded over by an corporation that uses ‘canon’ as a tool to herd them into the direction that brings the greatest short-term monetary gain.

By debating canonicity, you implicitly assume that someone has this kind of authority for the Dune Universe. There is no debate about the authenticity of the Dune books, and nobody holds authority about ‘canonicity’ unless the readers give it to them.

There's Stuff By Frank, and Stuff Not By Frank.

Naïve mind wrote:By debating canonicity, you implicitly assume that someone has this kind of authority for the Dune Universe. There is no debate about the authenticity of the Dune books, and nobody holds authority about ‘canonicity’ unless the readers give it to them.

There's Stuff By Frank, and Stuff Not By Frank.

That's the canon the OH stand for.

I'm not sure what your point is though.

A canon is a rule or a body of rules or principles generally established as valid and fundamental in a field of art or philosophy.

from the Wikipedia article about the general usage

The use of the word "canon" in reference to a set of texts derives from Biblical canon, the set of books regarded as scripture, and which are contracted with non-canonical Apocrypha.[5] The term was first used by analogy in the context of fiction to refer to the Sherlock Holmes stories and novels, written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, to distinguish those works from subsequent pastiches by other authors by Ronald Knox in a 1911 essay "Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes".[6][7] It has subsequently been applied to many media franchises. Among these are science fiction franchises such as Star Trek, Star Wars, Halo, Fallout, Mass Effect and Doctor Who, in which many stories have been told in different media, some of which contradict or appear to contradict each other.[7] In many comedy franchises canon is often contradictory as plots are designed primarily for humor and only secondarily for consistency.

From the wiki article about its use wrt fictional series' or franchises. What's interesting is that your preference for Apocryphal kind of comes right around to using canon anyway b/c the books of the Apocrypha are those that were deemed non-canon. I think its legitimate classification scheme where the Dune Canon consists of the 6 FH books and everything else is "inspired by".

The concept of multi-level canon like SW has doesn't really come into my vision of things Dune. It works for SW because George is still around and has made his wishes relatively clear on it: other people are welcome to play in his sandbox but he retains the right to stomp on their sandcastles whenever he wants (or, less common, to build them into his own sandcastle).

lotek wrote: I'm not sure what your point is though.

To adopt the terminology of a franchise is to adopt its mindset.

It changes the discussion from relevancy and enjoyment to one about legitimacy; Legitimacy is heavily tied up with ownership, and guess who the owners of Dune are?

A question to illustrate the problem: What is the 'canonicity' of the Lynch Dune movie?

It got some things right.

To adopt the terminology of a franchise is to adopt its mindset.

If only that were true, the hack would not have made such a pile of turd...

And I don't care who owns Dune, copyright is not right.

Naïve mind wrote:

lotek wrote: I'm not sure what your point is though.

To adopt the terminology of a franchise is to adopt its mindset.

It changes the discussion from relevancy and enjoyment to one about legitimacy; Legitimacy is heavily tied up with ownership, and guess who the owners of Dune are?

A question to illustrate the problem: What is the 'canonicity' of the Lynch Dune movie?

I don't think it changes the discussion; there are just two different discussions that are tangentially related and which we all have varying levels of interest in.

Its an odd part of my life, looking at it from the outside, that I do concern myself over the canonicity over works of fiction, but I do. When DC reboots its line, I want to know which stories are still part of continuity and which are not- it matters to me even as I know that it really does not matter.
The question of canonicity is, to varying levels important, and its a legitimate point of discussion for literary works- even look at the Sherlock Holmes works or Conan, or the Cthulhu Cycle. In each case there is a dispute over what is and is not canon; its not a discussion that doesn't exist just because you'd rather not talk about it.

Now, as a personal choice, you can of course decide not to care about that part of the discussion. I agree that relevance/enjoyment are different matters than legitamacy and I think we probably share a similar view on what 'counts' as Dune (Frank) even if you prefer to avoid the canonicity discussion. the story of Dune is covered in teh 6 books; everything else is, to my mind "inspired by" or "endorsed by" Frank Herbert.

My definition of Dune canon is anything that doesn't fit with what Frank wrote.

Easy peasy, take a random sample of nüdünZ (yeah capitalized at the end, because well, it's ulre awesome) and put it where it is "supposed" to fit in the "timeline".
It will stand out like a sore thumb.

I think I see what you're trying to demonstrate but I think that the problem would be so much easier to solve if the HLP hadn't sold its soul and arse to the rimhack.

As I said, I have no qualms whatsoever to see anyone who loves Dune try to do something worthy of that story we love, even if it fails... as long as it shows the proper respect.

(and the Lynch movie has one thing over the others, it has pug dogs)

lotek wrote:(and the Lynch movie has one thing over the others, it has pug dogs)

Only because Patrick Stewart refused to carry an aardvark into battle.

Aardvark is a killing word.

1) I love Lynch's Dune for all the reasons that people who love Lynch's Dune love Lynch's Dune

2) I think the canonicity (really, not a word?) of the Lynch movie is clear: its not. Like any adaptation of a work moving from one medium to another it is merely that, an adaptation.
The Avengers movie is not part of the Marvel 616 Universe canon, Conan the Barbarian is not part of the Robert E. Howard canon, the Star Wars EU is not the same level of canon as the 6 movies.

Anyway, read Lundse's article- first one i've read in Philosophy of Dune- very enjoyable.

Freakzilla wrote:

lotek wrote:(and the Lynch movie has one thing over the others, it has pug dogs)

Only because Patrick Stewart refused to carry an aardvark into battle.

He kind of already did

lotek wrote:My definition of Dune canon is anything that doesn't fit with what Frank wrote.

“Only what Frank Herbert published and did not later contradict --retcon-- is Canon”

SandChigger, Kalima

Naïve mind wrote:Very interesting. I did not know about the existance of these books until now.

leagued wrote:Thanks for the tip/links.
Even more excited to delve into these books now.

Newbies ... Omphalo's Dune Secondary Source Bibliography. Enjoy