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 standalone books they’ve put out. But I really started reading their stuff with the last two of the main series… Hunters & Sandworms.
These two pick up the threads left behind when Frank died before completing his epic and they close out the series. Both books are fine, and do a good job of closing it all out. And they’re probably the best of their Dune output (imho, of course).
Which brings me to my main problem here… I’ve never really cared for any of their Dune books. And I’ve struggled for ages to figure out why. The stories they tell are fine, and they do a great job of building out the pre-history of the Dune universe. But they’ve always been off-putting to me.
I think I’ve finally figured it out. I just picked up Tales of Dune (a collection of their Dune related short stories)… I know, if I don’t like the way they write, why the hell do I keep going back. Probably a form of insanity (you know, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results… similar to my relationship with Thanksgiving sweet potatoes. But I digress).
Back on point… as I’m reading Tales it finally dawns on me what’s been bugging me throughout all of their books… I simply don’t find any of their characters believable or engaging. They’re all caricatures of real characters. The villains are all mustache-twirling, Snidely Whiplash capital-V Villains, while I picture the heroes as the guy with the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other and he’s over-theatrically shunning the devil.
And, having said all this, I realize that this same black & white, Good vs. Evil paradigm is present in all their storytelling… so while I don’t hold back from saying they do a fine job of telling their stories, ultimately those stories still suffer from that same simplicity as their characters do.
So while the stories are not bad from a plot perspective… as I mentioned, they do a fine job of universe building, and they handle the epic scope and action requisite for these stories just fine. But I can’t engage with any of their characters or, ultimately, the stories themselves because they’re all just too… simple.
and, oh god, now I’m gonna go back and punish myself with the rest of Tales of Dune. At least now I know why I’m so annoyed.
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