Ampoliros wrote: Moved here from the review thread.
I'd love to have you respond to some questions. I'll try as hard as I can to be diplomatic. You remember Franks definition of diplomacy right?
Simon wrote:
So (I) finished Paul of Dune this morning, and of course I enjoyed it. This is no surprise really, I have enjoyed every addition to DUNE.
I really liked that Paul of Dune tied up some loose ends and was as brief as need be.
First question, Which loose ends? Brief?
Just to name a few things I was interested to see: We have a glimpse of the "twisting" process, we discover that House Tantor (Xavier Harkonnen's adoptive House) was the renegade family which burned Salusa, we see the BT KH, and what became of Feyd's daughter.
Loose ends: Just things like what we have above, The BT KH, Marie's fate, the beginnings of the fall of House Vernius.
Nothing that "answers it all!" by any means but interesting (IMO) little dangling threads (Of FH vintage and a few of their own) followed up.
Simon wrote:
I thought the books were going to be laid out like so: Paul of Dune and Jessica of Dune would feature the post DUNE jihad and Irulan of Dune was going to feature the War of Assassins plot line. So I was expecting everything that happened in PoD to occur over the course of the three volumes, I was really surprised, though pleased. (I'm curious to see what is going to be in the other two books.)
Brief: Like I say above, I thought the story laid out in PoD would span Paul, Jessica and Irulan of Dune. I liked that the story was short and tight, it worked for me. I happen to agree with many of you where Hunters and sandworms is concerned regarding the need for two volumes.
While I liked the core story, I just felt like there were a few to many red herrings. I felt like PoD got to the meat of it's story with much less fuss then the previous two.
Ampoliros wrote:
A comment, this leaves me wondering what they intend to have in those 500-page books? More Assassination attempts? (I moved the rest of this to the post after so as not to interrupt the flow)
I wonder myself, I haven't heard a word outside of things related to the story(s) featured PoD.
I was put off by the duel stories thing at first (I'm not a fan of reading multiple books at once, I prefer to give my full attention to one volume at a time) but once I saw the juxtaposing between Young Paul and Emperor Paul and realized that the core of this story was the examination of Paul's coming to terms with his need to employ duality, I found it easier to deal with.
Ampoliros wrote:
Paul dealing with duality? He's prescient, something this book seems to want to forget. He has to deal with infinity. Bene Gesseritt and Mentat training alone would have taught him to deal with more than just simple duality. I don't remember any part of the Old Paul sections that asked him to deal with duality. I skimmed the young Paul sections as I can basically ignore them completely as having no basis at all for existing.
In PoD they show Paul reconciling his desire to rule as his fore fathers had, as "the People's Duke" and the conflicting mandatory need for the ruthlessness of his rule, as dictated by his desire to save humanity. At first he seems resistant to the reality of his vision's requirement. Where as in Dune Messiah (assuming the "expansion" timeline) he is past his resistance, mourning the necessity of his terrible purpose and it's looming climax (mainly the death of Chani).
Interestingly they didn't go into his refusal of becoming a "Man-worm", in CoD he mentions "the path he could not take", though as of PoD he hasn't come to that realization yet (seemingly).
Just to name a few things I was interested to see: We have a glimpse of the "twisting" process, we discover that House Tantor (Xavier Harkonnen's adoptive House) was the renegade family which burned Salusa, we see the BT KH, and what became of Feyd's daughter.
Ampoliros wrote:
To answer this I'd say "Wrong. Don't care, didn't happen. Wrong. Very Wrong. Marie Fenring is just about the most blasphemous part of this book. Just because she carries the bloodline does not make here a KH. One, she's female. Two, she's six. Three, Bene Gesseritt training, while good, does not make you an unstoppable killing machine. Four, being trained by daddy dearest to be a good assassin doesn't mean jack compared to being an Kwisatz Haderach. Marie is not a Reverend Mother, it is insulting to claim that she is almost as wise as Alia. They insinuate that Marie is both invisible to prescience and possibly is pre-born. They just didn't have the guts to go all the way and say it outright. I'm putting money that a Marie Ghola shows up in the next books. Thallo the "I'll show you!" smiling douche "KH" is another story.
Sorry I got into rant mode there. I do that when people belittle my intelligence and try to force feed me bullshit.
She isn't a KH. Just "up there" in the gene pool. As for Thallo, I liked his brief appearence, though I Knew you gents would not. That was one of those parts that I thought might kill TMB or Nekhrun.
In the end, while not at all FH, this is the closest they have come to his classic style.
Ampoliros wrote:
Ha Ha Good one! I can't believe Byron actually believed that you feel this way. This book is the closest they have come to recreating one of Frank Herbert's bowel movements.
I stress "while not at all FH".
If you aren't a fan of the other BH/KJA works then you will probably feel about the same on this one (though perhaps pleasantly surprised that they did address a number of OH continuity concerns, that's right, Duncan first blooded his sword on Grumman! Laughing) as for fellow fans of NuDune, you'll really enjoy this one.
Ampoliros wrote:
Addressed our concerns? How, by breaking just about every rule that Frank made in the structure of his universe? By trying to spit in our face, and then failing miserable when the have to admit in the book that historical errors will be made. By claiming that we can't trust Irulan's facts to be accurate, they basically invalidate everything ever written in the Duniverse including their own writing. Especially their own writing, as supposedly we are learning about young Paul to explain her Biography.
Duncan's sword is first bloodied, but of course we have to have him kick ass before that...er we'll give him another sword! That's exactly the kind of 'clever' bullshit they try to pull which only makes them deserve a bitch slap. Seriously how does that fool anyone? Simon, I'm looking at you. Please defend this if you dare.
I wouldn't say they were trying to fool anyone, it just seemed to me like they were addressing what some of you claimed was inaccurate.
For me it was never a story ruining issue, Duncan was ranting drunk when he was going on about blooding his sword on Grumman in Dune, drunk people say weird, often incoherent things. I would have bought that in the expanded timeline he was slurring a bit in DUNE when he was referring to Grumman/s.
I'm sure had Frank written these parts of the story he'd have done it differently, I mean clearly BH and KJA have gone their own way in the Duniverse, for better or worse. So in the end.... (everybody!)..
"It's just a matter of opinion!"