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145 of 148 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
I tried to like it, September 1, 2006
I really did. I went into this novel with the most optimistic mindframe possible. Brian's work with the original Dune Prequels (the "House" ones) were really not that bad. I enjoyed them, to some extent, because at least he wasn't messing around too much with the Dune timeline we were familiar with. The "Butlerian Jihad" trilogy was... less impressive. It left a sour taste in my mouth. But nevertheless, I resolved to give "Hunters" a fair chance. I told myself: "I accept Frank Herbert's genius was not passed onto his son. I understand Brian will use a different literary style, with less emphasis on the complex interplay of politics, religion, and philosophy. He'll include a lot of meaningless action scenes and write at a lower level. It won't bother me". It did bother me. A whole lot. Here why: The * NO spoiler * parts that sucked - He's writing for middle school kids. Seriously. The writing style is so simplistic it's insulting to an adult reader. He's basically telling us all we're morons who can't remember what happened 20 pages ago, let alone what happened in previous Dune novels. The result? TONS of unnecesary recap of previous storylines, both Frank's and Brian's. Conversations involving characters who both know the same thing, yet explain it to each other for 5 pages (i.e. the audience is dumb, let's break it down for them). And overuse of the same stupid words over and over. I swear, between his 2 prequel trilogies and "Hunters" he's used the word "esoteric" 156 times. Get a thesaurus! - The characters are denser than blocks of wood. They're all so stupid it's insane. Remember the incredible intuitive leaps characters like Odrade would make? It almost annoyed me how easily she figured out all of Waff's secrets in "Heretics". She was a genius, easily deciphering the most complex problems with the just faintest hint. The same for Duncan and Teg: both intellectual giants in previous novels. Forget it now. These characters are so dumb they're lucky they don't forget how to breathe. How long does it take Duncan to figure out Teg can move at incredible speeds? 3/4 of the book? "Gee, Teg just disappeared and inexplicably the ship took off, with seemingly no one at the controls... oh wait, Teg is there somehow, even though I left for the bridge before him. And there's still that rumor about Teg moving at super speeds on Gammu... But how to decipher this puzzle? What does it mean? Oh well, guess I'll go mope about Murbella some more and be absolutely worthless". Gah. I almost want them to die. - Brian just can't resist tooting his own horn by including stupid characters / places from his prequels in the new novel. There is no need for them. You don't need to reference your "additions" to the Dune universe every 2 pages. Just pretend it never happened, and move on. - Why spend hundreds of pages developing characters when you are just going to kill them off in absolutely meaningless deaths? A major character getting swallowed by a sandworm serves what purpose? None. This isn't real life, it's fiction. If you're going to kill someone important, make it a death that somehow contributes to the plot. Sandworm digestion has lost its novelty by this point. Now, a few * SPOILER * parts that sucked. STOP READING if you don't want to know the identity of the "SECRET enemy" (heavy on the sarcasm). - Stupid gholas. Why so many? It's ridiculous. Let's bring back Dr. Yueh, I'm sure he has much more to contribute to the plot. Great idea. Why Brian, why? I can see Frank Herbert POSSIBLY bringing back Paul, or maybe just Gurney and Hawat. But Leto II? That seems a little much. Considering the enormous role he played in the Dune universe, it seems anticlimatic to bring him back again. Besides, Frank always seemed focused on moving humanity forward in an ever evolving metamorphosis. Even Duncan, who has ties to the past, is changed drastically in his various ghola incarnations. To bring all these original Dune characters back seems more like a cheap trick to get the audience involved again, like when a TV drama brings back a character from season 1 who was supposedly dead to get a boost in ratings. - And, of course, robots. Damn robots. I kept praying throughout the novel "Please don't let the enemy be robots, please don't let the enemy be robots. Let it be super face dancers, or aliens, or gigantic intergalatic jelly fish, or cyborg dinosaurs in a no-death star. Anything but robots." Of course, it was robots, as anyone with a brain who read the prequels could've guessed. Of course, Omnius and the "independant robot" (god I hate that phrase) Eramus were actually Daniel and Marty. The revelation of Daniel as Omnius made me so furious I cursed Brian Herbert with eternal syphilous out loud. Perhaps Frank intended the enemy to be machines. Back in the 1980's, that wasn't such a cliche notion. But after being inundated with movie after movie (Terminator, Matrix, etc.) of the same theme, the last thing I want to read is another "man vs. machine" epic. So how does Brian decide to solve this problem when he first sees his father's secret notes? He goes and writes 3 ENTIRE BOOKS about men fighting machines, then decides to take those same machines and put them in Dune 7 & 8. Sweet. Can't wait to see what tricks the old independant robot and adorable Omnius have in store for us. Maybe Serena Butler (aka the Oracle of Time. Gimme a fricken break) will fly by on her magical wings of prescience and throw esoteric sandworms at Omnius, causing Eramus to slowly lower himself into a pool of magma while giving the "thumbs up" to an onlooking John Connor. * END OF SPOILER * There's plenty more to write about here, but I'm too angry / tired to go on. Suffice to say, many hardcore Dune fans will be even angier than me, and most mild fans should be reasonably upset. Will we all read book 8? Almost definetly. We need closure, no matter how terrible. Just be ready for more mindless fight scenes and moronic characters. Damn you Brian Herbert.
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269 of 294 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Here's hoping it ends well, August 27, 2006
I have been a long-time fan of Frank Herbert's Dune series, even when it started heading into strange territory with Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune. I read The Butlerian Jihad and started reading House Harkonnen before throwing it away with great force (following Twain's advice that some books should not be thrown away lightly). In truth, Brian Herbert is not the writer his father was, even with the assistance of Mr. Anderson. I gave Hunters of Dune a chance because it is supposed to be based on an outline by the old man himself, and because I was curious to see how one could follow up on the rather ambiguous ending of Chapterhouse. Infuriatingly, this book has not done very well, and it is one of two, leaving another book--Sandworms of Dune--to come. The book infuriates me because it does NOT match the elegant prose, careful character study, and philosophical insight that made Frank Herbert's writing so rewarding. The biggest gap between father and son is subtlety. What Frank Herbert implied with a sentence, B. Herbert and Anderson drag out into a paragraph-long explanation. It's almost as if the authors underestimate the intelligence of the reader. Frank Herbert forced you up to his level, making you THINK, like good SF should. There is another very disturbing trend in the Herbert/Anderson books, which is the utter lack of morality among the characters. There was almost no one I cared to admire in the book, except some of the innocents. Every other individual or society in the Dune universe has become brutal, coarsened, amoral, or utterly cynical. Even some of the more likeable characters from Chapterhouse--Duncan Idaho, Bellonda, Murbella, Sheanna--have become driven autocrats or corrupted souls. One can get a general idea of who "the enemy" is based on the plots and counterplots, alliances and counter-alliances, but one is not taken up with the notion that one side is much more admirable than the other. The Dune series has been, if anything, about the use and abuse of power. While both the Harkonnens and Atreides of the earlier books were rather shameless aristocrats, they exhibited at least some noticeable differences in approach. You knew whom to root for: the Atreides stood for loyalty to ideals (even if those ideals were often flawed or turned to evil purposes) while the Harkonnens held no loyalties except to themselves or to masters of convenience, and worshipped at the idol of power. The universe portrayed in Hunters of Dune portrays a gang of murderous thugs against the militarized and scarcely less brutal Bene Gesserit/Honored Matre synthesis called the New Sisterhood. In absorbing its darker side, the Bene Gesserit under Murbella appears to have been consumed by it. Murbella does not hesitate to kill viciously any and all who oppose her. And as the alliances shift back and forth, engaging in increasingly more violent carnage, Duncan Idaho and his fellow travelers continue to wander through the universe in their stolen no-ship, performing experiments of their own. I will read Sandworms of Dune, if only to be certain that the saga ends well. However, I cannot conceal my disappointment in the Dune prequels and sequels. Other people are playing with Frank Herbert's brilliantly conceived world, and handling it much less ably.
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106 of 118 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Unnecessary sequels and prequels aside don't expect anything resembling Frank Herbert's DUNE, September 2, 2006
Judged on its own merits Brian Herbert And Kevin Anderson's prequels and sequels to Herbert's pivotal novels lack subtly and that's because they are geared towards a dumbed down audience. The duo acknowledge that Frank's series as it progressed sold less and less and that's because the series became denser focusing on much larger issues even than in the first trio of books in the series. That said HUNTERS OF DUNE does try to pick up the strands left hanging at the end of CHAPTERHOUSE. While it may suffer by comparison the duo create a solid adventure that will appeal to young SF readers who don't care or who haven't read the first three of novels by Herbert. To their credit the style is certainly breezier. Sure there's still clunky dialogue (there was in Frank's novels as well)but its clear that these novels are written with 30 years of change in writing styles,plotting, etc. HUNTERS takes up where CHAPTERHOUSE left off. The novel does give run downs on what happened in the previous book since it was published in 1985. The Ithaca wanders space with a clone of Miles Teg, the ghola (a clone created from the dead DNA and with memories of the original person)of Duncan Idaho, Sheana and others. They are also being pursued by a group of Face Dancers that have infiltrated much of what remains of the government. The vast no-ship also carries stunted sandworms and the crew must avoid being captured by the Reverend Mother Marabella. The Bene Gesserit Sisterhood has taken in many of their dark counterparts the Honored Matres and corruption has seaped to the very core of their society. While the novel may lack much of Frank Herbert's insights this book (along with the forthcoming sequel SANDWORMS OF DUNE)is actually drawn from Frank's outline for the final volume to follow CHAPTERHOUSE. The workman-like approach to these novels may reduce the series to another space opera but it is an enjoyable space opera nonetheless. For better or worse Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson have turned Frank's series of novels into a franchise much like the STAR WARS novels/films that George Lucas put together (which is ironic given that Lucas borrowed so much from Herbert's first novel and themes in the first place). That seems to be the trend in the publishing industry lately since these series novels tend to sell to the less demanding public. I have no doubt that this novel and its sequel will sell like hotcakes. I'm not so sure that's a good thing. If you enjoyed the prequels that the duo wrote you won't be disappointed with this novel. If, however, you are a fan of Frank Herbert's novels you probably will be as these are "high concept" (Hollywood terminology for a simple concept easily digested)in comparison. I have mixed feelings about the books that the duo have written. Hopefully they will attract readers to Frank's original novels.
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