I love the first book; have read it ~5 times. I never picked up on this "heroes are disasters" theme until last week, when a review of the movie said the same thing. Still love the book, not sure if it was that effective at getting that message across. Maybe my opinion will change when I re-read it again with knowledge of that underlying motivation.
Makes sense, thanks for the color. That makes me give Part Two a little more slack. But only a little. Loved Part One but Part Two was a disappointment for me.
Yes, read each of those books once. I think I got up to God Emperor. Next time I have the itch to read the first, maybe I'll just force myself all the way through to Chapterhouse...
I don’t think it’s even possible to read that theme out of book 1; the only real suggestion of it is the jihad prophecy, but by the end of the book our hero has only really done good things for good people and has dramatically escalated in power over his enemies with essentially zero negative consequences… and even as you read through it, it seems like Paul is going to eventually avoid that future (because he’s so constantly aware of heading towards it), so even thats not useful. It only really shows up in the next books, and then with hindsight
It wasn't obvious to me until I read God-Emperor. God-Emperor is the key to understanding exactly what Dune is about. These days when I re-read all six books (as I do maybe every five years or so), the original trilogy just ends up feeling like prequels.
> but my superhero concept filled me with a concern that ecology might be the next banner for demagogues and would-be-heroes, for the power seekers and others ready to find an adrenaline high in the launching of a new crusade.
That was a big surprise for me. I always took the book as an earnest ecological message. Totally missed the "heroes are disasters" central theme and therefore the underlying warning about greenwashing.
> The scarce water of Dune is an exact analog of oil scarcity. CHOAM is OPEC.
I didn't realize that was the official line. I always thought spice was supposed to be a metaphor for oil rather than water. Especially since spice was only found on a single desert planet but the heroes came from a world covered with water. If water was supposed to represent oil and the heroes had any sense of basic economics, they would have just shipped tonnes of water from their homeworld. Or have gotten water from stellar ice or hydrogen.
One of the positive pro-technologies messages from the Dune series is that the spice monopoly is broken once synthetic spice is created. I viewed this as an optimistic future where synthetic carbon-negative hydrocarbons (or solar, wind, fusion, etc) would replace our dependency on oil pulled from the ground.
Yeah, always wondered what's the upper limit on a Heighliner - load one up with water. There seems to be plenty of energy available for transfer to/from LEO.
"power structures tend to attract people who want power for the sake of power and that a significant proportion of such people are imbalanced-in a word, insane."
Years ago I read someone who was paraphrasing this and use it to describe how governments go bad. I did not realize that Herbert originated it (afaik)
Can’t remember where I heard it but “people who desire public office should be utterly barred from it”.
Very few are able to escape their own prejudices, viewpoints and succeed in the office. Extremely difficult to make a positive difference for everyone. So many recent examples.
Imagine a political system that was filled with randomly selected people rather than those motivated by power.
It could work. Since anyone can do the job of a politician imo... it's not like medicine or engineering that requires hard skills. :laugh:
Read through book 4, God Emperor of Dune. At that point, “rails” are a distant memory. It’s wild, it’s wooly, it’s a 3 thousand year old worm king writing in his diary.
Book 2 is grim and deflating, 3 picks up the pace again but is really just setup for 4.
After 4, Herbert’s wife passes away and he takes up with his much younger editor. From then on, the books get significantly hornier. YMMV.
Affair: a sexual relationship between two people, one or both of whom are married to or in a long-term relationship with someone else.
"his wife is having an affair". (Google)
Do read Dune Messiah, the sequel to Dune. I believe it was written specifically for those who failed to get the negative implication from Dune. Hence, it was not so well received. It is my favourite in the series (well, maybe after Dune itself), firstly because it is very explicit about the tragic consequences of Paul's jihad, which was only hinted at in the first book, and secondly because of the way that it greatly enriches the literary universe of Dune by filling more details of the various political actors, the Guild steersmen, the amoral technologists of the Bene Tleilax, gholas, the mysterious planet Ix, and so on. And the Dune Messiah is surprisingly short!
You should probably read Children of Dune to round off the trilogy, just to learn the fate of Paul Atreides, although he is not the primary character in that book.
The second trilogy is distinct but the stories are told told in the same setting; enjoyable but not essential.
I will, thanks. I was planning to read book 4 as well, since people are saying that's the best one, can I stop there? Or will I have too many unanswered questions?
Tim O'Reilly, of the famous publishers, interviewed and later befriended Herbert while writing his 1981 book on the author, Frank Herbert. It covers a lot of the themes of the linked essay in an effort to explore the origin and meaning of the Dune trilogy, as it was then.
The book is freely available on oreilly.com[1] and likely worth a look for anyone interested in TFA.
For example, O'Reilly claims "in writing about the mystique of the superhero, Herbert himself was prey to it" quoting Analog editor John Campbell's rejection letter for Dune Messiah: "science-fictioneers [...] want heroes—not anti-heroes. They want stories of strong men who exert themselves, inspire others, and make a monkey's uncle out of malign fates! As Paul did in Dune —not as he fails completely to do in The Messiah"
Campbell misses the point, O'Reilly says, " that Herbert deliberately looked for this reaction from his readers. To Herbert, the hero mystique is symptomatic of a deadly pathology in contemporary society, a compulsive yearning for easy answers. As long as men are looking for simple solutions to their problems, they will give over their ability to think for themselves to the first person who comes along and promises a solution. The Dune trilogy is an attempt to unveil that pattern and, in some small part, to change it."[2]
"I now believe that evolution, or de-evolution, never ends short of death, that no society has ever achieved an absolute pinnacle, that all humans are not created equal. In fact, I believe attempts to create some abstract equalization create a morass of injustices that rebound on the equalizers. Equal justice and equal opportunity are ideals we should seek, but we should recognize that humans administer the ideals and that humans do not have equal ability."
I feel like we've been seeing exactly this in contemporary political movements. Identify some perceived injustice with society, create a power structure to address it, more injustice is created in the process, festering resentment at the power structure develops and produces blowback.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 63.3 ms ] threadDid you read Dune Messiah and Children of Dune?
Yes, read each of those books once. I think I got up to God Emperor. Next time I have the itch to read the first, maybe I'll just force myself all the way through to Chapterhouse...
Damn, he was spot on about this.
I didn't realize that was the official line. I always thought spice was supposed to be a metaphor for oil rather than water. Especially since spice was only found on a single desert planet but the heroes came from a world covered with water. If water was supposed to represent oil and the heroes had any sense of basic economics, they would have just shipped tonnes of water from their homeworld. Or have gotten water from stellar ice or hydrogen.
One of the positive pro-technologies messages from the Dune series is that the spice monopoly is broken once synthetic spice is created. I viewed this as an optimistic future where synthetic carbon-negative hydrocarbons (or solar, wind, fusion, etc) would replace our dependency on oil pulled from the ground.
Years ago I read someone who was paraphrasing this and use it to describe how governments go bad. I did not realize that Herbert originated it (afaik)
Very few are able to escape their own prejudices, viewpoints and succeed in the office. Extremely difficult to make a positive difference for everyone. So many recent examples.
How many of the books would you recommend reading to get the whole story? I've heard they go off the rails later on (or was that the Ender saga?).
Book 2 is grim and deflating, 3 picks up the pace again but is really just setup for 4.
After 4, Herbert’s wife passes away and he takes up with his much younger editor. From then on, the books get significantly hornier. YMMV.
I never realized that the change in tone in 5 and 6 were due to a new editor. Interesting, but it makes sense.
I think 5 and 6 were ... fine. But I have trouble pinpointing what they were really about. There is a lot of movement but no direction.
I hesitate to use the word because afaik Herbert was a widower at the time, but can’t think of a better one that hits the right tone.
Affair: a sexual relationship between two people, one or both of whom are married to or in a long-term relationship with someone else. "his wife is having an affair". (Google)
Websters: “a romantic or passionate attachment typically of limited duration”
You should probably read Children of Dune to round off the trilogy, just to learn the fate of Paul Atreides, although he is not the primary character in that book.
The second trilogy is distinct but the stories are told told in the same setting; enjoyable but not essential.
The book is freely available on oreilly.com[1] and likely worth a look for anyone interested in TFA.
For example, O'Reilly claims "in writing about the mystique of the superhero, Herbert himself was prey to it" quoting Analog editor John Campbell's rejection letter for Dune Messiah: "science-fictioneers [...] want heroes—not anti-heroes. They want stories of strong men who exert themselves, inspire others, and make a monkey's uncle out of malign fates! As Paul did in Dune —not as he fails completely to do in The Messiah"
Campbell misses the point, O'Reilly says, " that Herbert deliberately looked for this reaction from his readers. To Herbert, the hero mystique is symptomatic of a deadly pathology in contemporary society, a compulsive yearning for easy answers. As long as men are looking for simple solutions to their problems, they will give over their ability to think for themselves to the first person who comes along and promises a solution. The Dune trilogy is an attempt to unveil that pattern and, in some small part, to change it."[2]
1: https://www.oreilly.com/tim/herbert/index.csp
2: https://www.oreilly.com/tim/herbert/ch09.html
I feel like we've been seeing exactly this in contemporary political movements. Identify some perceived injustice with society, create a power structure to address it, more injustice is created in the process, festering resentment at the power structure develops and produces blowback.