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102 of 111 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Road to Dune, August 22, 2005
A Kid's Review
My main excuse for buying Road to Dune was the roughly 150 pages of deleted scenes, from Dune and Dune Messiah. The cut chapters were interesting, but they were frequently incosistent with the canon material--the original Dune trilogy, and the prequels by Brian and Kevin. Examples:
-Road to Dune has it that the spice was found by men working for Dr. Kynes' father. But, in Dune: House Atreides, Pardot Kynes leaves for Arrakis AFTER spice has already been found and is being spread by merchants througout the galaxy.
-Road to Dune puts Paul's age at his departure to Arrakis at "almost twelve", even though in the first few sentences of the final publication of Dune is age is set as fifteen.
-IRULAN DIES....this is a very unclear chapter, complete with an odd final note by Frank Herbert.
There are other problems, too, which might be confusing, but that's why these scenes weren't published with the original novel. Still, this portion of the book is worth reading, and sheds a small amount of light on the Duneiverse as well (why Paul was inspired by the desert mouse, why the Guild controls the stars without competition). But, it isn't enough to justify spending 25 dollars.
The short stories, written by Brian and Kevin, are adventuresome and worth a look. The first story is set during Dune, but the three that follow are set in the Legends of Dune era. "Hunting Harkonenns" is set before The Butlerian Jihad; "Whipping Mek" is set before The Machine Crusade; and "Faces of a Martyr" is set before The Battle of Corrin.
But, there's a flaw here too. "Whisper of Caladan Seas" has appeared in two other places, and get this: YOU CAN READ THE LEGENDS OF DUNE SHORT STORIES FOR FREE ON DUNENOVELS.COM. No need to spend money on free material.
The novel "Spice Planet" is like a parody of Dune but serious. This was a design for the novel Dune that was abandoned, and features alternate names, and events both vaguely familiar and totally unlike the final publication. It's not all that great, and is certain to confuse the fans. Still, it is interesting.
There are also several letters and articles in here about Frank Herbert's journey to get Dune published. Ironic, that the Supreme Masterpiece (and bestselling novel) of Science Fiction was published by some company that did auto repair manuals.
All in all, the Road to Dune only has something to offer for those of you that have already explored the Dune Universe and still want more. It's not a bad installment, but there are so many actual novels out there...
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25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not what it could have been, May 5, 2006
The Road to Dune contains some fascinating material, but it fell well below my expectations and hopes. Sadly, only about half the book contains primary source material written by Frank Herbert himself.
The book starts with a moving Foreward by Bill Ransom, who co-authored the excellent Pandora novels with Herbert. Anderson and Brian Herbert then introduce what follows, describing the boxes of draft material, letters, outlines and notes that they had to draw upon. My heart rate doubled and my spirit soared as I read this section, thrilled at the prospect of seeing how the Dune series evolved in Herbert's mind, and of gaining greater insight into his fascinating characters and events.
This promise was not to be fulfilled, however. The first section contains "Spice Planet", a novella written by Brian and Kevin based on Frank Herbert's original concept for Dune. As a ahort advemture story, it's quite enjoyable, and there are moments of real tension. However, any traces of Frank Herbert's original work are all but smothered by his chroniclers' writing style and ham-fisted characterization. Even an incomplete collection of outlines, notes and draft chapters would have been preferable to this disappointment.
The next section contains the true Dune source material: Frank Herbert's letters, and unpublished chapters from Dune and Dune Messiah. This section is fascinating as both a study of Herbert's alternative ideas for Dune, and as a historical account of how Dune came to be published. The unpublished chapters' inconsistencies with the published work only makes them more fascinating. This section is only 150 pages long, but it's the pearl in this oyster. If the whole book had consisted of this kind of content, I would have given it five stars.
The final section contains four short stories by Brian Herbert and Anderson - the first set during the events of Dune, the final three set during the authors' Butlerian Jihad trilogy. These stories have no place in a volume about the genesis of Dune, and are, in any case, available for free on the Internet. Why the authors included them is mystifying to me.
This book was so much less than it could have been. It's clear from their introduction that the authors had enormous amounts of source material to draw from. In different hands, we might have received a study of the evolution of the entire Dune story, much as Christopher Tolkien's "History of Middle-Earth" series was a study of his father's work. Instead, we get this.
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16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Surprise and Thanks, November 1, 2005
As one who has read Dune (and its sequels) over and over for 35+years, and rejected the recent prequels becasue of their lack of literary quality and ideas other than formulistic writing, this book is different, and harks back to the real original (or prequel if you prefer). I'm glad the authors used real notes, stories and scenarios in an intelligent and a logical manner. This work offsets the prequels. The original Duneworld presented here had all the outlines of the later book and from what is missing and what is there, one can trace the mental progression and increase in bilogical and related knowledge advances by Mister Herbert as he progressed from Duneworld to Dune. Even for the points that did not show in Duneworld,I felt there were clear hints of the Fremen, the real brutal viciousness of Harkonnens before it was smoothed out to thinking brutishness and a host of other real and almost real subplots. The stories also included later in the book were all Dune, in feel, tone, style, manner and approach. Whether they were Mr. Hebert's or the authors (or some combination thereof as I did not pay attention to whom wrote which), all were clear Dune in feel and approach. Thank you for returning to Dune's roots and given us something else than the made up and generally poor recent prequels. -- A much better job.
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