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 Problems, realistically speaking.  Dune is one of my favorite books ever. Full stop. And I’m quite happy with Villeneuve’s Dune films (and cannot wait for his Dune 3 closing act). I liked Dune Messiah and Children of Dune nearly as much. But things kinda fall off a cliff after that.  I hated God Emperor so much that, when I decided to finish the series a few years ago, I skipped over it completely and simply started with book 5. 5 & 6 (Heretics & Chaperthouse) were fine, though I had problems… the books are very talky with a lot of the action seemingly happening “off-screen”. And the sexual politics of the latter Dune books are best left undiscussed (the Bene Gesserit are constantly referred to as witches, while theHonored Matres are usually called whores. Let’s leave it at that.) And then we get to the Brian Herbert/Kevin J. Anderson Dune books. They’ve done far more with Dune than dad ever did, turning it into their own extended universe. I’ve lost count of the trilogies and

So I've been watching the remastered Star Trek TOS lately (needed something to have playing on in the background while doing chores, working, etc.). That whole background thing maybe not so effective, since I keep sitting down and watching, but hey, it's Star Trek, so not bad, right? Some of the things I've noticed... With these remastered, color corrected episodes, it's amazing just how green Spock really is. As I recall from the old reruns I used to watch, he never seemed all that green... But damn, he's green.  We all know the Motorola flip phone was inspired by Star Trek communicators. But there are other moments of "prescience" or inspiration. Watching Requiem for Methuselah, for instance, there's a scene where the immortal Flint is watching Kirk on a flat screen monitor that wouldn't look out of place on my desk today.  And then there's the infamous third season. Long reviled as the weakest of the original series seasons, I can't argu