What are You Reading Right now?

During my Dune reading I also knocked out some of Herbert's short story collections and a couple shorter novels. There was another one I was considering reading, The Dosadi Experiment, but I think I'm going to end it here...



The Dune books were the only thing really worth reading in my opinion and while I enjoyed the story I was pretty disappointed in the writing. It's an amazing universe he created but he mostly used it to opine about everything from politics and religion to trendy restaurant decor. I don't remember the last time I had a hard time understanding a book, my reading comprehension is usually up to any challenge though I might have to look up a word or phrase but this guy loses me constantly. Not just with the more vague/abstract concepts but just like somebody walks across a room and opens a door but the way he says it is so vague and confusing.

But I did enjoy them enough to continue along with his son's novels (at least far enough to see how it ends and maybe some of the prequels), and I disliked Frank's writing enough to be excited about somebody else taking over the series. So I'm reading this...



So far I'm enjoying it, but I'm not too far in. I get where people might not like it as it loses some of the gravitas of Frank Herbert for something that feels more like a Star Wars EU novel but at least it's crisp and clear. Things happen and people do things instead of dwelling on philosophical and sociological issues all day.

 

Ulysses by James Joyce and I just finished dark disciple

 

I've read The Dosadi Experiment, way back when, but I don't remember it that well. I think it was some sort of brainy-SciFi (ala Philip K Dick) meets a space opera detective story, or something. Nothing too special, I'm affraid.

As for Dune, while I don't share the writing issues, I do understand them. They are certainly old books...

One book you might be interested in checking out, (or not), is Road to Dune. It's a sort of behind-the-scenes look at Dune, including loads of cut scenes from Dune (=interesting insights into the story), and the entire manuscript for Spice Planet, the earlier iteration of the story that became Dune.

 

Well I was kind of vague, I didn't really want to get too deep into my thoughts as I could fill a book with what I liked and disliked about those novels. I think I understand these as well as any Dune fan... which is to say not entirely. It's just that my OCD really comes out in my reading and it's a bigger problem for me than some other maybe, those questions drive me crazy. It seems to me even the most hardcore Dune fans, even the Dune Wiki, admit there are things that are confusing because either Frank was ambiguous or because of acknowledged plot holes and inconsistencies. I understand everything that happened and how the events played out, there were just a lot of questions of why and how. I used all the resources available in this day and age and what I found out is that Dune fans have been asking these questions for decades and don't really know what to tell you. It's not the age, while I have my guilty reading pleasures that I've shared on here that can be quite dumb (like the film novelizaton of Demolition Man ) I'm capable of reading the classics of sci-fi and literature in general without a problem. Just speaking of age, if I can handle Homer I can handle Herbert. I've read my Verne, Wells, Asimov, Campbell, Pohl, PKD, Heinlein, Clarke, etc as far as science fiction goes. I just found a lot of problems in his writing and like I said I could go on forever but I won't bore you with it all.


As for the Dosadi Experiment, I was only going to read it because I'd read a couple of short stories involving the same character and they were some of the better ones. He went on to write two novels with him in it, that one and Whipping Star. The latter isn't supposed to be very good but The Dosadi Experiment seems to be considered one of his best non-Dune novels so I was planning on checking it out but after The Dragon And The Sea (which has the most inexcusable plothole I can remember reading) I moved on.

 

Oh, I understand completely. It's just that I'm so in love with the book that any weirdness in the style and such doesn't bother me. Also, the book is better on the second read, even better on the third read, much bether on the fourth read, and so on... (which, admittingly, is a weakness of the style). I didn't mean to indicate that you couldn't handle Dune I for one couldn't get into The Iliad, so kudos to you, @NunbNuts!

 

I had thought it might be better on rereads but at the same time you'd already know all the twists and turns. That was one of the more entertaining things about the books to me, after the first book I was usually in a state of "I didn't see THAT coming". One thing I loved about Frank was his ability to make me think I knew what was going to happen then pulling the rug out and flipping things. He could even spend the whole book telling you how it would end and you still get surprised how it ends. Like Dune Messiah (spoiler alert by the way for anybody who might read it), basically from the opening page it's telling you that you're reading the account of Paul's fall from glory. So the whole book I felt like I was watching a slow motion trainwreck and no matter what Paul did one of these d-bags is going to bring him down. To my surprise Frank found a way for Paul to beat everybody and still have his downfall. But then again by the time I got to Chapterhouse it was kind of expected, I knew there was no way that final battle was going to work out the way they thought... even when they seemed to have won. These books seem to always be a stalemate or bittersweet victory at best and the battle was so one-sided that I just kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. I wasn't real impressed with how he turned the tables on that one, they just whip out a secret weapon that makes all their enemies on the planet drop dead instantly. Except Dar and Teg who just passed out. In fact I was a little confused on that, was this THE weapon they keep talking about? Because that one burns entire planets and this one just made all the non-essential characters drop dead with no sign of trauma.

 

I'm on the second book of the 2 part expanded Dune finale that is Hunters of Dune/Sandworms of Dune. It's kind of dumb but fun, they're more over the top and dumb compared to Dune maybe but they're better than most EU novels I've read. I took Angelman's advice and am also reading Road To Dune. So far I'm just reading the early draft of Dune which makes up about half the book. It's interesting but I'm more looking forward to the other material. I could just skip to it but I'm interested enough in some of the differences to see how this early version plays out.

Before I brought Road To Dune into the mix I was reading this for a little light-hearted fun between Sandworms Of Dune sessions...



For a long time I've been planning on picking up and reading an Alan Dean Foster novel as all I've ever read were his movie tie-ins/novelizations. Star Wars, Star Trek, and Alien franchises as well as his great novelization of John Carpenter's The Thing... I've read like 8-9 of his books but none of them his original work. So I went to the used book store several months back and was looking to remedy the situation only to find myself grinning like an idiot kid at this book and ignoring his other books. I loved this movie so much as a kid I had to read it. Plus I like reading these old novelizations, sometimes good but mostly bad they are always at least interesting as a fan of the film. This wasn't that great though, it was a very visual movie and even with ADF trying to fill in and expand the plot is still very thin and the novelization just makes you dwell on plotholes and things the movie doesn't give you time to think about too long.

 

Finished the Dune two-part finale... it was interesting. Dumb but fun. My main issue with those books was that instead of just being a sequel to the Dune Chronicles these guys also made it a sequel to their prequels. So they want you to read Frank's 6 novels and after the cliffhanger go read 6 prequels before finally getting back to the final 2 books. It wasn't confusing but I didn't get the full effect, plus it had a lot of spoilers for books I'm now starting to read. The ending was surprisingly happy for Dune, a series where you're going to get a bittersweet ending at best usually. I just got started on the Prelude To Dune Trilogy.




So far they aren't bad but aren't that interesting either. But keeping the Dune theme going I'm reading something else along with it that's the opposite, very bad but interesting...



I came across it no Open Library and it's hilarious. There's not much real insight into the production, it's just a cheap fluff piece they commissioned to hype the movie but for that reason it's pretty funny. Especially the father/daughter De Laurentis' going on about how big this movie is going to be and scoffing at the idea it could fail. It's like that interview where Travolta said Battlefield Earth was going to be bigger than Star Wars only expanded to book length. There's constant bragging about the huge budget they wouldn't recoup while an author desperately tries to put an optimistic spin on a bunch of interviews given by miserable/disappointed people. Reading between the lines you can tell the production was one disaster after another and everybody just wants to leave except maybe Kyle.

 

Still on the Prelude To Dune series and I just started this, when I saw it on Open Library I peed a little



I'm sure it's going to be terrible but I couldn't NOT read this. While it's not a masterpiece I've loved this movie since I was a kid and I was just surprised there was even a novelization for it. Not the typical action/adventure/sci-fi type movie that got a tie-in book. I imagine a lot of the comedy will fall flat in book form (though there was some funny stuff in the first couple of chapters) but it can't be any worse than Spaceballs: The Book.

 

So far, it's one of the best SW novels I've read. Taking place not long after ROTS, Palpatine and Vader get their Star Destroyer blown out from under them, and they find themselves stranded on a primitve planet full of members of a hostile resistance group, as well as really nasty natural predators.

 

LORDS OF THE SITH
Should have called it Lords of Cham Syndulla's Stupid Resistance Group

 

Star Destroyer blown out from under them, and they find themselves stranded on a primitve planet full of members of a hostile resistance group, as well as really nasty natural predators.

 

After finishing Spies Like Us I started this as my non-Dune reading. As a child of the 80s I grew up on the movie but had never read the book. After watching it the other day I decided it would be fun to check out. I couldn't find it in the book store and asked a clerk then was only slightly embarrassed to be a 40 year old man being led to the Young Adult section. And only slightly disappointed that it was a mass market paperback with the above cover instead of a big leatherbound job with the snake amulet. I'm enjoying it and so far pretty surprised how closely the movie follows it though I'm only a few chapters in. I expected the actual novel to be the book within the film and just figured the stuff with the kid reading the book at school and interacting with the story to be a framing device invented for the film but that's not the case.

 

Cheers,
Jayson

 

Reality transurfing by Vadim Zeland.

 

I finished the two books I was reading, The Neverending Story and the second book in that Prelude To Dune trilogy so I started the third book and decided to start this one that I picked up on sale on the Kindle store



I love the Bond films and have read a lot of the novels (all 14 of Fleming's originals plus just as many of the continuations and novelizations) so I'm really looking forward to it.