Standards of excellence exist for a reason. Why would Brian Herbert allow this to happen to his father’s legacy? An unfortunate turn of events. The new books have little or nothing to offer someone who is/was/will be a critical reader of the original works. The new books can be used, however as very effective kindling… the only books I allow my young children to draw on, or make paper airplanes from.

A valuable lesson as well, since I taught my children that “almost all books are to be held sacred, and literature is to be exalted, but there are exceptions” – with these books I can really show them what to do with the exceptions.

Dune is a film addressed to your audio-visual senses in a unique way, forcing you to participate and not just sit there while it is “done to you.” A miniseries restoring the out-takes would make this even more apparent.

That’s how I wrote the novel, wanting you to participate with the best of your own imagination. I did not aim for the lowest common denominator and “write down” to anyone. You and I have a compact and my responsibility is to entertain you as richly as possible, always giving you as much extra as I can. I assume you are intelligent and will enlist your own imagination. You’ll see that when you read the Dune excerpt and the other stories in this collection.

How different that is from the approach of the current hack who writes under the title DUNE, who assumes that the reader suffers from deficiencies of both memory and intelligence and has no imagination!

Since you just quote without comment (hmm … now who does that sound like?), it’s difficult to say what you really had in mind, but I think most would agree that this is in keeping with Herbert’s statement to the effect that he expects his readers to bring their own imaginations to the task of reading. (I can’t find the exact quote at the moment, maybe you have it?) I like to think that he would be quite disgusted with readers today who demand that someone else do all the work and fill in the details (and “gaps”?) for them. And with his two self-proclaimed “biggest fans” who are trying to force their(?) version on the world as his vision.

He conceived of the story told in the first three
books as one story. God-emperor was an indulgence.
The last two were written because he was offered more
money than a sane man could refuse. (which is very
different from saying “he did it for the money”)(That’s
Brian & Keith)

jesus wept.

let’s just start with the simple stuff – on effing page
one, Frank says {in English} Paul was born on Caladan.

Keith takes however many pages it took to explain why
this just wasn’t so.

I really don’t have the energy to type out here all
the inconsistencies in Keith’s dictation. There’s
pages of it at Jacurutu, go look for yourself.

and for the rest of your arguments, too, this has
all been hashed over so many times, my head hurts.

as to Frank’s comments in 69 not having an impact
on this discussion, he was talking about Dune in
particular and a writing principle in general.

damn. I started to write a bunch of stuff about
the why’s and how’s of Frank Herbert, then thought,
WTF ? do the work yourself. I’m really fatigued
by all this ignorance wandering into Dune discussions.

as to your “credentials”, this is the internet.
the only thing you can possibly be judged on is the
merits of your argument. I can tell you I’m an
Medieval English Literature Chair at Cambridge, you
can’t prove otherwise.

I work on a basic premise in this debate:
if you do not understand how horribly bad Keith’s
“writing” is, if you do not understand how the HLP’s
handling of Frank’s Legacy has damaged it, if you do
not see the tragedy of Dune being turned in Star Wars,
your opinion is of no value to me whatsoever.
{hence, die in a fire}

no, we can’t all just get along.

We agree on that. Dune is a classic, and the new novels are pale imitations, of depressingly-low quality. They are certainly no Catch-22. But the new books aren’t cheapening Frank’s work – it isn’t changing anything he wrote. KJA & BH are just displaying their lack of skill for the world to see. Dune up to Chapterhouse is still an amazing story.

Marty & Daniel are independent Face Dancers, it says
so right there in the book.

That is all it says, though – it doesn’t set up any kind of origin, or motivation, or anything else for the characters. As to the fact that KJA & Little Herbert hijacked the ending – well, no one knew that was happening until the end of Sandworms (at which point, it was too late).

The no-ship is an “open ending”, not a “cliff-hanger”. You’re used to simple writers telling you a simple story. I’d tell you (again) to read Frank’s own words in the McNelly Interview, but I’m afraid that would just confuse you further.

The no-ship, on its own, would be an open ending. As part of the larger picture of “New Sisterhood, Master-full-of-ghola-seeds, God-like Face Dancers, and approaching-but-unknown-Enemy,” it’s definitely part of a continuing story. And I don’t understand why you keep citing the McNelly interview when talking about the ending of Chapterhouse – that was 15 years before Chapterhouse was published. I found it, read it, and enjoyed it when you posted it before. I assume you are referring to Frank mentioning how he deliberately left Dune with lots of strings hanging (such as no details of the Guild), so people’s minds could fill in the gaps. That statement isn’t really relevant to this discussion, though, as he was writing (had finished writing?) Dune Messiah at the time, and wrote four more books and a short story after that, which discussed most of those dangling threads from Dune. Obviously his desire to tell more of the story trumped his desire to leave the original “open ending,” and as he invalidated his own statement, it can not apply here. If I am wrong, and you are referencing a different statement he made in the interview, I invite you to post it when you respond.

Have you every considered that maybe you, and people
like you, are responsible for the declining literacy
and critical thinking that’s evident in America ?
That the reason that the economy is in shambles, 15
million people are out of work, &etc. is because lazy
kids have become lazy adults and accept anything they’re
spoon-fed because they’re lazy ?

Actually, no, I haven’t considered that I am the cause of those problems. I, and people like me, are the reason this country is still working, despite the lazy people. Since you are questioning my literacy and critical thinking skills, I feel obliged to inform you that I am about half-way (fingers-crossed) to my PhD in Inorganic Chemistry, with my dissertation being on the design of a new type of solar cell. I have previously published in the Journal of Nanomaterials, and I have two more publications pending. I also volunteer for a non-profit science education group, to help promote scientific literacy. Now, what credentials do you have detailing your critical thinking skills and your commitment to the success of this nation?