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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 o...

I've been on an SF/Space Opera jag for a while now. I think it started with Iain M. Banks " Culture " series, then I segued jnto Neal Asher's Polity universe. Galactic civilizations, post-human evolution, sentient (and often sarcastic) AI, ancient civilizations and fantastic alien life forms... These books really scratch that itch in my brain.  Looking for other options, once I'd devoured all of the above, I've sampled a lot of the recent space opera, but also done quite a bit of looking back.  First stop was Asimov's Foundation/Robot/Empire novels. Asimov did a pretty impressive job of tying his disparate SF series into a cohesive universe by the latter days of his career, and it's interesting to read those novels in story-chronological order. It's an earlier era of SF, so think robots in place of AI (and oh-so terribly serious robots at that) and no aliens to speak of. But a galaxy spanning story that kept me interested through the full set of ...

I read Mira Grant's Feed last year and loved it. I'm actually not a HUGE zombie story fan, preferring my supernatural stories on the vampiric side of things, but since romance authors co-opted the genre years ago, it's been tough finding a good vampire story that doesn't involve some kind of tortured love triangle. So I'm open to branching out into other venues. Feed hooked me right away, making me laugh out loud in the first few pages, requiring that I buy the book immediately and find out more about these characters. I was not disappointed. (No, the book's not a comedy—quite the opposite—but it's not afraid to have some fun, along with a healthy dose of social satire, in the midst of its zombie-outbreak horror story.) I just finished the sequel, Deadline , today (equally entertaining) and picked up the next book, Blackout . To my surprise and delight, I found this on the back cover: Blackout is the conclusion to the epic near-future trilogy t...

Last year about this time I was speculating about Frank Herbert's motives when he wrote Dune Messiah. I had decided to read the entire series — starting with Frank's books then circling back to read Brian's. I got sidetracked briefly by Paul of Dune *, but have continued on with the original series… with some dismay, I have to admit. The last time I tried reading the Dune series I got as far as God Emperor of Dune … and could proceed no farther. I hated to admit it, but I was simply bored by it all by that point.

I'm only speculating, of course, but I'm beginning to wonder whether Dune Messiah was Frank Herbert's " I Am Not Spock " moment. (Maybe I should take the more literary path and suggest it's his Arthur Conan Doyle moment?) I started rereading Herbert's Dune novels recently and have just finished Dune Messiah . I've read Messiah before (at least twice that I remember), but I've never been struck by how… disappointing… this book was compared to its predecessor before today. It's almost as if Herbert looked at everything that made the first book good, and stripped them out for its sequel. His main character, Paul Atreides/Muad'dib, has gone from heroic young man to dour Imperator, cursed with the gift of prescience, and a near infallibility brought on by that knowledge of the future. (Frankly, nothing could be more boring than a central character that's invulnerable to change.) His friends and cohorts from the first book are all ei...

I'd stopped reading comics long before they grew up in the 90's, but Batman had always been one of my favorite comic book heroes. I've been rediscovering his darker side ever since learning about Frank Miller's Dark Knight comics several years ago, and have been regularly picking up graphic novels and compilations of Batman comics since then. Some good, some not so much, they've all been fun reads. Joker, of course, being Batman's iconic arch nemesis, fills nearly as many of these novels as the Batman does. Recently I picked up " The Joker: The Greatest Stories Ever Told ", a compilation of Joker stories that span the entire existence of Batman comics, from his introduction in Batman #1 through to stories from this past decade. One of the interesting things about this compilation is watching the way the comics mature. The earliest ones, for all their dark undertones, are rather light-hearted (and, in fact, I realized that the kitschy '60's ...

(Or, a lesson in not judging a book by its cover.) Lately I've been having a tough time finding something to read that holds my attention for more than a couple of chapters. Apparently I'm jaded when it comes to science fiction and nothing new has captured my imagination. Vampires, one of my stand-by genres, have been taken over by Romance and YA authors (with a few notable exceptions), and werewolves and other things that go bump in the night have been dragged along with them. (Zombies seem to be immune from the romance infiltration, presumably because it's tough to make the shambling, mindless undead sexy… but zombies have never been one of my favorite tropes, so that doesn't do me much good.) There have been some interesting books in the dark fantasy area… The Blade Itself and Iron Angel come to mind, and Interred with Their Bones was a great read as well (think of it as a Shakespearian DaVinci Code). But scattered amongst those books, I've started and stopp...

I'd never heard of Delia Bacon prior to reading Bill Bryson's " Shakespeare: The World as Stage ". There's a chapter towards the end of the book where Bryson talks about Delia, and her obsession with Sir Francis Bacon… the man she believed to have written Shakespeare's works. Turns out that, prior to Delia's ravings (she was eventually institutionalized for her obsessions), no one had ever questioned Shakespeare's authorship, so all the debate about "who wrote Shakespeare" can be laid at Delia's feet. (Bryson is none too impressed with Delia, and dismisses her postulations, observing that during her travels in England, she never once actually visited any location connected to Bacon, instead choosing to commune with nature to help her find answers to the 'mystery' of Shakespeare.) Speaking of Sir Francis brings me to Interred with Their Bones , a sort-of Shakespearean DaVinci code, where Sir Francis and Delia (as well as the earls ...

In a blatant display of bandwagon-jumping (something I try diligently to avoid) I've been reading a lot of graphic novels in recent years. I always enjoyed comics when I was a kid, and have rediscovered a taste for them as they've matured into the graphic novels of today. But I noticed something recently, when I was reading previews of The Dark Knight and The Watchmen . The Dark Knight article referred to a pair of Frank Miller Batman graphic novels ( Batman: Year One & The Dark Knight Returns ) that I've got sitting in my bookcase today. But the articles made reference to things and events in these comics that I simply had no memory of… despite a firm recollection of reading the damn books only a short while ago. The Watchmen is, hands down, one of the greatest comics ever created (so sayeth the scholars and critics) and I finally got around to reading it last year, but I'm suffering the same problem… scenes and characters that I simply do not remember. Even mor...

I used to get lost for hours in used bookstores, but it's been ages since I've found a good one. (I did a search on bookstores in our neighborhood a while back and, with the exception of the quintessentially homogenized Barnes & Noble and Borders bookstores, the only thing I could find were Christian bookstores.) I think Acres of Books is still around (at least, they've still got a website ), but outside of that, the few used bookstores I've found lately have been small, cramped and not terribly inviting. My other problem in finding a good used book store is that my favorite genre is Science Fiction. SF, sometimes, seems to be the Rodney Dangerfield of literature. ("Rodney Dangerfield of" apparently my favorite analogy of the month). Acres of Books has an SF section, but it's buried in the back warehouse, in a corner with no lights. Finding ANYTHING there is an accomplishment (and probably explains why I haven't been by recently to find out if the...

So a few weeks ago, I stumbled across this title at the local Borders bookstore: Star Wars on Trial: Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Debate the Most Popular Science Fiction Films of All Time After months of listening to the rabid S.O.A.P. fans rattle on about their movie (no comment on how that translated to actual success of said movie) I have to acknowledge the power of a really cheesy title. And this one ranks right up there, I think. I've got to admit I picked this one up and set it down several times, over several trips to the bookstore. But eventually I succumbed to the lure of topics like "The Politics of Star Wars are Anti-Democratic and Elitist" and "Women in Star Wars are Portrayed as Fundamentally Weak." Then I read David Brin's intro. And Matthew Woodring Stover's intro. And I realized that, despite the extended conceit of putting the Star Wars saga on trial (complete with a droid judge to oversee the proceedings), there was some serio...

I go through phases in what I'm reading. I had an Arthurian legends phase, where I read virtually anything I could find set in that "universe". Years ago, I had a Mafia phase. Dragons, space opera, dark fantasy, Three Musketeers swashbucklers… I'm nothing if not eclectic. For the longest time now, it's been vampire fiction. I think Interview with the Vampire started it, but it could even have been Dracula itself (nothing like going to the source for this stuff). There've been some really great novels/series (Nancy Collins Sonja Blue series comes to mind) and some real stinkers (Sadly, pretty much anything from Anne Rice since Memnoch The Devil or, perhaps even worse, Brian Lumley's Necroscope novels). Suffice it to say, I've read a LOT of vampire fiction. A while back, someone suggested Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake novels. I'd seen the books before but hadn't been terribly inclined to pick any of them up. But since a friend had re...