David Pennington

Its been a while, since Jan I've been reading several scifi for fun, and to have something to do with my son while he doesn't really process what I'm reading to him.

During this time I've been reading Dune, Snow Crash, and a "novella" called Manna, however I will discuss the others in the next posts.

The Villenevue Dune movies are my favorite movies in theaters that Ive ever seen especially the second movie. When I'm just looking to put on something while Im doing something else I usually throw on the dune movies so that i can look up and see some parts of the story and think about how epic the entire run is. They have stunning visuals, and as I learned, they follow pretty closely to the books, with a few differences here and there to make it feel like a more modern story. That being said when I started reading the original dune books I had a lot of expectations for what the story would be, so nothing really surprised me as I was reading it.

One of the key aspects of the structure of the book that I enjoyed was the callbacks to "other writings" in the universe by either princess Irulan or other saying/proverbs. There were many quotable moments to take from the starts of the chapters.

I found the pacing of the book to be quite slow however thats probably because i was reading it 10 pages a day to an infant, and I had already purchased Messiah and was itching to get to something new.

Of the differences that the story has between the books and the movies, I appreciate that theres hidden information in the films about Thufir, Alia, Leto II, who has obviously had her time in the movie shifted to be later in the story, and thats getting me excited for the release of the 3rd movie.

I personally find the relationship between Paul and his mother better in the books than the movie, something about the disdain that Paul has for his mother in the movies doesn't make sense to me and it seems that it creates a different dynamic of Paul being a loner, which I dont really see in the books at all, he's supported from all sides by everyone in the story. It also results in his mother being isolated from the rest of the tribe, which again doesn't happen in the book at all. For all intents and purposes Paul and Jessica are seen as Fremen in the book, and as Strange outsiders fulfilling a prophecy pushed on the Fremen by the Bene Gesserit in the movies.

The movies actually read to me like they are pushing a completely different narrative, one of struggle between religons or races, not of the independence of a people to choose their own path (Fremen terraforming to create a paradise is barely explored in the movies) and i think that has something to do with our current geopolitical climate more than it does with wanting to update the story of the book to fix anything about it.

To me the dune book talks about the terrible purpose directly, and Paul is only the antihero in so much as he has to contend with his terrible purpose. In the movies, he is pushing directly into a massive conflict for his own survival as far as i can tell, its not clear why if he sees billions dying if he goes so that he goes through with it, and if anything i feel like this is a hole in the story of the films that I hope is filled in the coming movie. In the books he cant really see the ramifications of he actions because its a blurry feeling or a precipice or dune that he doesn't have line of sight over.

One learning from the book that I'll take with me is about "Fanatical leadership" you can see the way that the Duke Leto respected people and culture to a point that was destructive to his own being, and that created an air of political fanaticism and loyalty, something that I think is part of the true nature of leadership. In order to lead people you need to be a part of them, and you need to do this almost to a fault. Separately if you look at the Emperor or the Baron, they lead through machiavellian fear and I think Herbert is trying to say that there are many ways forward in leadership. If you want to build a following not through fear but through loyalty you need to be more than just loyal to the people who follow you, you should be ready to risk everything for them.

I HATED that in the first page Herbert mentioned the Butlerian jihad but then literally never brought up what events had taken place, I know from doing some online research that his son and others did some writing about it, but I wish he had explored this part of the story more (what were thinking machines, why were they outlawed) especially because these stories feel ever more present in our time, we could be moving towards a technical revolution that could either see us freed from the duties of labor to the enslavement of all but a few. THIS is why i picked up Manna, and I'm looking for more stories like it.

Overall i loved the story of dune, and cant wait to dive in to the other books, i can see myself getting through to god emperor. but after messiah we will see if i have enough time to continue on this year.