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101 of 111 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Best of the Herbert-Anderson continuation of the Dune saga, September 28, 2008
Though I'm still not a fan of the writing style of the Herbert-Anderson team (more on this later), I have to say that "Paul of Dune" is by far their best effort to date in this new series of Dune novels. Here's why I say this.
1. It's longer. The leisurely pace avoids the screenplay rush of the first few books of this new series of Dune novels.
2. The plot is suitably intricate.
3. The history of Paul, Jessica and Alia as well as the fascinating Count Fenring are fleshed out in interesting detail, as are other characters such as Shaddam IV, Wensicia, and Irulan.
4. The book has an interesting dual timeline that flows well--you do come to expect the shift to the alternate story line when it occurs. This technique is not easy to do, and it makes for interesting, episodic reading.
5. The concluding four or five chapters are by far the best, but--seem as if they were written first. I got the unmistakable impression that the end was the first part of the book to be finished. Was it? I don't know.
Episodic can be good--and bad. There are two timelines (young Paul, and the Jihad after Paul becomes Emperor.) But they devolve into episodes because the drive towards the culmination of events in the timeline, which would be Dune Messiah of the original series, seems hazy at best.
There is a lot about the jihad, the war to unite the universe under the Fremen and Paul-Muad'Dib. There is a lot of intrigue of the minor houses alluded to by Frank Herbert and expanded well by the authors. But the episodes in this timeline ultimately do not drive powerfully to the conclusion. They just don't entirely hang together, though they are exciting in and of themselves. The new material in the life of young Paul is less satisfying--the characters are familiar names but hardly seem the same. As usual, the fleshing-out of characters is poorly handled and sketchy at best. And the conversation style is glib and contemporary, not fitting the original style. This is problematic, because we know the names of the characters, we know their motivations, but we now see a different person at almost the same point in time as in the original series. It's jarring--and disappointing.
Worse yet, however, is the writing. Sad to say, even though this book is hugely improved, as were the last two or three previous (Hunters of Dune, in particular,) the writing is positively an example of what NOT to do in fiction. Silly adjectives are used in abundance. The authors don't show the reader, they tell the reader. (For example, "Her beautiful gown was spattered with blood." No, no, no. Show me why the gown is beautiful as in "The cobweb-silk lace of her wedding gown was soaked crimson in her own blood") There are sentences following others that use "he" or "him" but the previous paragraph is about someone else. You have to stop and figure out whom the author is now writing about. And the chapters are clearly written either by one author or another. (And one author is worse than the other, but I don't know which one, so don't ask.)
The thoughts of the characters are flat and facile, the sentences often end in cliches or in a modern style not in keeping with the imperial formalities of the Dune Empire. The shift to the high language is jarring.
If ONLY, as Kurt Vonnegut once remarked about Kilgore Trout, the brilliant but bad sci-fi writer in his novels, he could learn to write. There ARE good courses and workshops on what to do and what not to do. The Herbert-Anderson team has great ideas and concepts. If they could apply decent writing techniques, we'd have a series worthy of the original.
Recommended, with reservations, but still, the finest of the new series without a doubt.
____________________
My ranking for my reviews is as follows:
Five Stars: a must read or no flaws apparent to me, perfectly written, superb
Four Stars: good! but has a few small thing I take issue with, either in writing style or in content
Three Stars: Like a three star movie that's good for a rainy evening when nothing else is on the tv, it's readable, has content worth looking at, but the flaws in writing overshadow the overall achievement of the book.
Two Stars: Read it if you like that kind of thing, but the book (or other item) is pretty terrible.
One Star: Never should have seen the light of day.
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87 of 109 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
And the violation of Frank Herbert's legacy continues to continue..., September 24, 2008
I find it ludicrous that my previous review on this abomination was deleted, despite the fact that I gave out several good points as to why this book was a bad one. Yet, there's all these shill five-star reviews for this book that make it clear that they didn't actually read the book. For shame.
If you're a person who hasn't read this book and are reading this review, then please know that many one-star reviews for this book were deleted, to up the overall rating of this book and that many shill, vague five-star reviews were added to increase the overall rating as well. If you want to see what this book is really like, then read any review below a four-star rating.
Sigh. Where do we start? The cardboard characters? The plot inconsistencies? The contradictions with Frank Herbert's books?
Again, another unnecessary addition to the Dune series. If Brian and Kevin had put all their effort into writing Dune 7 than piddling around with two prequel trilogies, then we MIGHT have a worthy read.
But no. They just couldn't stop at Dune 7 and move on to go back to writing their own original series. No. Dune is their cash cow, and they're going to milk it, by gum!
Here, we see an wholly unnecessary novel. 'Dune Messiah' was about the consequences of Paul's Jihad. That was what Frank Herbert was concentrating on. He wanted to show us the consequences of Paul's vision, and not waste time with explaining about all of the battles on various planets and what not. And we were happy with that, because Frank Herbert wrote about what was relevant, and though sometimes it's fun to see how things happened or what happened to make things the way they were in the future, in the Dune series this was not missed because Herbert had a greater message to share with us. (which was completely ignored in Hunters/Sandworms of Dune, BTW)
Here we are presented with a book that spends a good amount of time in the past in Paul's childhood - entirely unnecessary as the House trilogy was - and all you can do is bang your head in frustration. The Harkonnen/Fenrig offspring that was hinted at in the canon Dune books was supposed to be just that - a tempting little rumor that made us think. Here, it's ridiculous. The Fremen are also very out of character, and the editing mistakes in this book are downright laughable. Contradictions are abound - in this book, Paul has been offplanet several times before the family move to Arrakis, yet in the original Dune novels, Frank Herbert makes it clear that Paul has never been offplanet, and Arrakis was his first trip away from home. This is but one of many mistakes and contradictions that plague this... this... "book".
Many things are told, not shown. Frank Herbert was wonderful at putting in details here and there that add up to the greater picture, without wasting time on useless fluff and filler. But here in Paul of Dune, so much time is wasted on so many things, and the characters of Dune are not quite the same here in Paul of Dune, and there were far too many Brian/Kevin-created characters for my liking.
The classic Dune was like a lovingly prepared homecooked meal by Mom, who clearly cared about what we were eating and put all her effort into making the meal as best as it could, and boy, do we ever remember these meals with love and fondness! The books by Brian and Kevin are like greasy fast food - easily snarfed down when there's nothing else to eat, hunger momentarily sated, and then stomach cramps and other rather unpleasant effects later on. They even admit themselves that they're making Dune more "accessible" to the reading crowd. Meaning, dumbed-down.
Near the end of this book, another disturbing "fact" is revealed to us - that Herbert Sr's works are no longer canon, and are rather an inaccurate history (because Irulan wrote so many books), which is Brian and Kevin's way of saying to us 'We'll retcon whatever we want out of Dune, and you will LIKE IT!'
To do this to someone else's work takes unmitigated gall, but after two poorly-written trilogies and a horribly disappointing Dune 7, should we be THAT surprised?
If you MUST read this book out of curiosity (or out of masochistic urges), then go to the library. Don't waste a single penny.
The six books by Frank Herbert, along with the Dune Encyclopedia, are canon, and nothing but. Brian and Kevin's books are poorly written fanfiction at best, and an utter and complete abomination at worst.
Repeat after me, my fellow Dune fans. This is the litany against the False Dune books.
I must not fear the false Dune books.
The false Dune books is the mind-killer.
The false Dune books is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face the false Dune books.
I will permit it to pass over me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the false Dune books has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.
(Originally, the fifth line was 'permit it to pass over me and through me', but I do not want the false Dune books to pass through me, no way!)
Repeat that Litany, my fellow Dune fans, and do not fear. There are only six (or seven, including the Encyclopedia) Dune books. No more, no less. The books written by Brian and Kevin are nothing but a blasphemy, and I await with bated breath (in disgust) for Jessica of Dune.
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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
End of the line, January 4, 2009
I give up. I've been slugging through these new Dune books due to my love of the original Dune universe, and that possibly I might be a masochist. Enough is enough though, there is only so much that a person can take. With the rest of the prequels I took all the various inconsistencies, downright contradictions, and simplistic writing thanks to the "joy" of reading something new on Dune. Enough is enough.
I will not give out any spoilers, but what these writers did to justify their various contradictions of Frank Herbert's original books is completely horrifying and outrageous. In the back of my mind as I read that final chapter I was no longer visualizing the Dune universe, I was visualizing the two writers congratulating themselves on their own cleverness at "solving" the neat problem on how to change whatever else they want to change about the universe Frank Herbert created. And to do so calling it the "real" story enabling them to write many more books along the way as well. In my minds eye I saw them slapping each other on the back and that is the vision I held of this book.
As for the actual writing style of the book, it is adequate. I would not complain if it were a stand alone space adventure yarn, set in its own universe and characters. As for a Dune book, like the rest of the prequels everything is flat and two dimensional. The characters of Dune are a far cry from the complex creatures that the father created, they are cardboard characters that can only express a single emotion and whose complexities never delve much deeper than the complexity of putting together a sandwich. I was incredibly surprised (and a little relieved), that some of the characters did not just spontaneously break out into a maniacal laugh to show how evil they were. I was incredibly surprised Shaddam had the brain matter to remember how to breathe.
I would like to write more about the flat plot and characters of the story, how they altered Paul's history, but that would take an entire essay and probably welcome a deletion by Amazon. Needless to say "Paul of Dune" left a taste in my mouth reminiscent of ashes (not that I know what ash tastes like but I am pretty sure that this was close). Their literal dismissal of Frank Herbert's work was outrageous and to me the straw that broke the camel's back. If you're a Dune fan you won't pass this book up because like me you'll read it on the sheer basis it is a Dune book. Otherwise..
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