Dune Prequels

[CivCube]

I am torn. The prequels by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson look like entertaining reads. However they are most despised by the fan community and aren't even considered canon.

If you have read them, is there stuff that might ruin the original storyline? Should I skip them entirely?

More importantly, is this the right forum? I have suspicions.

Moderator Action: Moved to OT.
I like them. col

 

[Dell19]

Why is this in Humour and Jokes? The ones directly before the Dune series weren't that great IMO but the latest books documenting the butlerian jihad have been pretty good so far.

 

[CivCube]

I was a bit too hasty with posting and forgot to see which forum this was.

 

[Dell19]

Might be a good idea to get it moved to OT then

 

[nonconformist]

Isn't Dune a game? If so, it should go to Other Games.

 

[CivCube]

Might be a good idea to get it moved to OT then

I've already told col, don't worry.

The Dune computer games are based on the novels, BTW.

 

[Dell19]

The main reason I don't particularily like the 3 prequel books is that the path they use to explain the original books seems too unbelievable, too much on luck rather than on realism that this is how the empires came to be in the situation they were at the start of Dune and it doesn't help that you know largely what will happen whilst with the Butlerian Jihad books, alot of the ideas are far more original and whilst some events are known they don't seem to take over the whole book.

So my ranking would probably be:

The original books since the story told has not already been partially told and the way that things develop is quite interesting though the later books.
The Butlerian Jihad, I've only read the first two books but its an interesting and largely original story.
The Prequels still good books but I feel the plot of the books suffers too much by being forced to create the situation in the original books.

 

[nonconformist]

What is Dune?

 

[Dell19]

Brief description, possibly a bit spoilerish but you did ask...

Its a series of books, with a couple of poor films and a pretty famous game based on it (Dune the game that spawned the Red Alert games and basically the RTS genre). Its set in the far future with planets ruled by different families. There is a crutial resource that the universe depends on but it is only found on one planet controlled by the evil Harkonnens. The universe is largely controlled by one emperor but his power is balanced by the council of planets which represent the individual families and CHOAM the trading company. Further facters are the Tleilaxu (A mysterious race) the BG (Highly trained female organisation with special abilities) and the Spacing Guild who have a monopoly on space travel. The book progresses with the Atriedes being placed on Arrakis (the spice planet(The one resource) - also known as Dune) they are then betrayed but several people survive and over a series of years they come back and retake the planet with some interesting tactics.

 

[LLXerxes]

Isn't Dune a game? If so, it should go to Other Games.

No, I think the other games forum is for Sid Meiers games. Like Alpha Centaurai. If not, I've been missing out on alot!

 

[Dell19]

The Other games forum is for all other games and then it also has several sub forums for particular games where there have been more interest in a particular game.

 

[AceChilla]

I have only read the first original book, the rest didn't really did it for me.

And I played Dune 1 the adventure game alot. That was really great, it had the dune atmosphere and great music.

But you should go ahead and read the prequels and form your own opinion, die hard dune fans don't have a good judgement over these kinds of things. Just like civ2 fans who didn't like civ 3 because it didn't turn out the way they were expecting it.

Go ahead and form your own opinion.

 

[Grisu]

Actually I like the prequels (at least house atreides, harkonnen and corrino) more than some of the later books, like children of dune or god-emperor which I didn't like at all. I haven't read books about the butlerian jihad yet.

They are of course not as good as the first Dune book, but IMHO they still are worth a read.

 

[Kev1916]

I am torn. The prequels by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson look like entertaining reads. However they are most despised by the fan community and aren't even considered canon.

If you have read them, is there stuff that might ruin the original storyline? Should I skip them entirely?

More importantly, is this the right forum? I have suspicions.

Moderator Action: Moved to OT.
I like them. col

==


Worth the read, well written and I enjoyed them, the first two Prequels are cool, thought it was pretty neat learning about the Old Duke and how all the main Lieutenants in the Dune book came to serve House Atreides.
Third one was a bit bizarre and Ott, but not to bad.


And Btw what does the term not considered Cannon mean ?

 

[CivCube]

It means that it's not considered to be "official".

 

[funxus]

I held the first book in my hand and was thinking about buying it last week, but then decided not to... Maybe I should though.

I liked the movie, but I expect the books are much better once you read them.

 

[Dell19]

Not sure which film you watched but the general opinion always seems to be that the actual book is a lot lot better than any of the film versions so you should read it.

 

[col]

I found the film unwatchable - and it probably made no sense at all unless you knew the book pretty well.

Dune - brilliant. One of the classic SF books.
Dune Messiah - pretty good
Children of Dune - Ok
the rest became more and more eccentric and less and less readable,

 

[embitteredpoet]

I really like the explanation for the excessive weight of Baron Harkonnen in the (first?) prequel, not been able to get hold of the other prequels. This thread has reminded me how good Dune is, not *quite* as good as Foundation though...

 

[test_specimen]

I only read the original 6 books and found that it encompasses all I want to know about the Dune universe. I liked the first book best because it has most depth and you can easily identify with the characters, while the others are quite good from a philosophical and historical pov (e.g. rise of free sexuality in the 60's, the Agamemnon connection, the Jews and their fate, some hints to the Bible, fear of nuclear holocaust, genetics, breeding and learning vs. imprinted intelligence, fear of technology etc.). I also liked the first book best, because it has more of inner monologue than the others. The others are good reads as well, but the first one is outstanding.

Why I didn't read the prequels: I heard they were inconsistent, I didn't need an explanation for the houses (since most of the explanations you need are given in the original series), I did not expect the prequels to be good to read. Frank Herbert made the points he wanted to make in the original series, it's not only about a linear story, it's more about the themes and subjects that are treated in this story.

I hope everyone who made a movie adaptation after David Lynch will die a horrible death.