FelixEisen at aol.com writes: > > For me, it's definitely _Dune_, and *NOT* the Dune series. I read the > > first three, I think, possibly even 4, but it was definitely a mistake > > for me. > > -- > > David Dyer-Bennet > > It would have been the fifth book that you stopped at. > > To be honest, I thought that way as well for the longest time -- I hit the > fifth book, 'Heretics of Dune', and came to a dead stop by the third or > fourth chapter. So I dropped it, came back to it a few years later, and > still couldn't do it. Then -- eventually -- I tried it again, went through > those chapters, and I burned through 'Heretics' and 'Chapterhouse: Dune' like > a Colorado wildfire. (Ahem.) No, definitely before heretics. That hadn't been published yet. I know I read Children, not sure if I read God Emperor. > IMNSHO, these last two books are very much what the entire series is about: > the Bene Gesserit and the desire for humankind to 'grow up'. Having read and > re-read them, oh, a dozen or more times each, and the first four books (for > y'all unfamiliar with the series, these are 'Dune', 'Dune Messiah', 'Children > of Dune', and 'God-Emperor of Dune') three or four times in a row each, I > have to say that Herbert started out basic and worked his way up the > complexity scale with each book. Yes, one can say that 'Dune' is complex on > many levels, that Herbert wanted to write a book about the dependence on oil > (which is what he says in one of the fore- or afterwords, IIRC), the Messiah > effect, all that sort of thing, but to be honest, 'Dune' is a very > straightforward book in comparison with those that follow. I can only talk to the three following Dune, of course, but I found Dune brilliant, I rank it as one of the top 5 SF novels of all time. The next three are much less well written, and much less consistent, and much less interesting. I know Dune was nearly an uncredited collaboration with John W. Campbell (the editor who originally published it in Astounding SF); I suspect that it worked so well because Campbell brought *his* strengths to the project as well, and Herbert was young enough to listen. > If I can encourage you to do one thing in regards to books (considering that > you already like Steve's writing), it would be to force yourself to read > through the slow beginning of 'Heretics of Dune' and get to the meaty stuff. > > There are times I want to be Bene Gesserit ... but I'm the wrong gender. I've heard from a lot of people that Heretics is where the series picks up again, but most of them didn't dislike the intermediate books as strongly as I did, so I'm haven't yet been convinced to spend more time and money on it. But I'll keep it in mind. -- David Dyer-Bennet, dd-b at dd-b.net / New TMDA anti-spam in test John Dyer-Bennet 1915-2002 Memorial Site http://john.dyer-bennet.net Book log: http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/Ouroboros/booknotes/ New Dragaera mailing lists, see http://dragaera.info