NOVELS: "Dune" by Frank Herbert.

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Tas, 22nd 2005 July, 05:25 wrote:
Dune:
It's a long story, but that movie got me into pic. It wasn't very good at all (as you know), but it led me to the book (to understand what the heck it was all about). As I was reading it, I got a flyer about some new game called Rogue Trader being released with cool Space Marines known as Angels of Death (who sounded like Sardaukar) - thus I bought RT, and so it led me, in turn, to other GW products and the rest is "Tas-manian Gaming History." The BBC Miniseries was much better, but I'll always have a soft spot for the Hollywood version. Even though it doesn't make sense unless you know the book! :)

Hi Tas,

I just finished rereading the Dune novel and have to say...

I was very disappointed in it. It is one of the few cases where I'd say the movie was better than the novel.

Herbert's prose is abominable. He could have easily cut Dune by fifty to a hundred pages and kept all of the plot arcs and removed so much of the superfluous pretension.

Also, his understanding of Middle Eastern cultures stinks. The Fremen are supposed to be based on Arab / Bedouin culture, but he clearly didn't understand either group. His Arab / Bedouin cultural characteristics are based on very crude and negatives stereotypes of both the Arabs and Bedouin. To my knowledge the only contact that Herbert ever made with either Arabs or Bedouin was through the sterile pages of a book and it shows.

I've come to the conclusion that Herbert was a few steps behind the scientologists.

That being said I loved the movie.

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

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