Dune

[Lianachan]

Many, many years ago I started to read Dune but couldn't stand it and abandoned it (a rare thing, I usually finished even that which I could not stand). I saw some of a TV series based on it and couldn't stand that either, and I've not seen the Kyle McLachlan film (which is on now, which is why it's come to mind). I loved the game though.

I'm aware that the book is a sci-fi classic, and should be right up my alley. The question for my esteemed colleagues here is - should I revisit the book, as an adult? Do you good people regard it highly?

[Arneb]

I think it'S worth a try. I read it because I felt one should and enjoyed it. It has on alluring thing in common with the Lord of the Rings: It plays out in front of a tapestry of history, mythology, poetry and religion, which are in themselves rather fascianting, are hinted at but never made too explicit. That gives it a certain allure, and the story, a rather conventional variant of the prince-regains-his stolen-kingdom-learning-the-ways-of-the-meek-and-being-helped-by-them motif, is not too bad.

Of course, then, in the elventy-thousand-ish books that se-/pre-/simulquel the original, the tapestry is painted out in exquisite, excruciating, and boring detail, by the original author and others, ad nauseam. Kind of like what happended to Aismov's robot/foundation universe, Clarke's Rama theme.

But the original is easily good enough for a rainy weekend with a good drink at hand and nothing substantial to do.

[Lianachan]

Thanks, Arneb - that's good enough for me. I shall borrow it from my dad's extensive library. He has thousands, and I mean that literally - thousands of sci-fi books. It'll be there somewhere.

[Enzo]

Go for it, at worst you put it down and walk away.

I tried to read Dune back when "everyone" was reading it. I couldn't stand it. A few chapters was all I could stand. Call me heretic, but Lord of the Rings struck me the same way.

And I do have to think ad nauseum is a good descriptor for the foundation series and Rama. I kinda tired of Asimov using the same old super genius guy with all the answers who then would explain in excruciating detail what was going on. Like a recent era John Travolta movie. And Rama? Gee, this mysterious place arrives, we go look around in it, can't figure it out, and we leave as it exits. Then the follow up books try to rationalize some sort of back story for it. I was sorely disappointed. I remember near the end of the first book, thinking, Gee, how are they gonna wrap up this story in the next ten pages? Of course, they didn't.

I like SciFi, but I am hard core. I want a story, and I want it to be science fiction, not fantasy. I think what I want is essentially a submarine war story but set in outer space. I used to belong to the science fiction book club, but after a while the selections were all magic and dragons, or vampires.

Dune? Imagine you sit next to someone ina tavern, and he wants to tell you the story of his friend. And then he starts discussing the friend, and all the people he knows, where they came from, why they left, what they ate for breakfast. HEY! How about just telling me what your friend DID?

[Arneb]

Also, I once, during some godforsaken night as a student, I watched this 70s film version that has Sting as the villian, and it really, really made everything more intense. I suspect everyone on that film was on anLSD trip.

ETA: Yes, Enzo, these were my feeling with Rama and Foundation exactly.

[Enzo]

Was it the McLauchlan film? He was riding on the back of a giant worm that could swim through the earth. Ther have been other stories where something tunnels everywhere at will. And I thought to myself, why doesn't the ground just collapse after they swim around a while. I mean karst sinkholes would have nothing on this place.

[Heid the Ba]

Never read it, never wanted to. I read Foundation when I was 12 and loved it, I suspect I wouldn't get through it now. Started Rama as a 12-13 yo and didn't finish it.

I'm not saying they aren't good, just that they don't hook me.