Literally what the fuck am I reading?
I'm not even six pages in and it's throwing lingo and exposition and history and political rivalry at me all at once. I don't even know what the environment the main character's in while he's thinking to himself looks like. There's no frame of reference, not setting: just trivia, history lessons, and Crash Course's political science video.
Who the hell thought this was the greatest science fiction piece of all time?
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>Caladan
>Arrakis
>gom jabbar
>Thufir Hawat
>Kwitsatz Haderach
>Harkonnens
>Arrakeen
>CHOAM
>Yueh
Literally what the fuck are these words? When you want to come up with some made-up space words that's fine but make it at least somewhat not-obvious that you're just saying vowels and consonants.
Also also:
>All these super stupid words and names and titles and places
>Main character's name is "Paul"
What the hell?
It's honestly not that good. The fact that so many people say this is one of the best sci-fi books ever written really turns me off from wanting to read any other sci-fi books.
Are you literally retarded?
Pretty sure I read it at age 12 or something without getting confused tbphwy.
That said, it's definitely not a Veeky Forumserary great.
What’s better? Phillip K. Dick?
Same here, I enjoyed it a lot but is there really nothing that tops it?
did you download a pirate version that doesn't have the terms explained at the end? kul wahad, what an idiot.
>When you want to come up with some made-up space words that's fine but make it at least somewhat not-obvious that you're just saying vowels and consonants.
Kwisatz Haderach is Hebrew - "a step along the path"
but you're an amerifat, and y'all's don't speak english that much gooder even.
I read Dune for my Speculative Fiction module in Extension English class. I admired its originality and its story, but felt it not particularly well-written and the characters rather 2-D. I was only 16 though. Perhaps I'd appreciate it more today, I don't know.
The characterization is stilted but I wouldn't call it flat. The prose is pretty bad in any case.
If you're looking for well-written scifi, two names that always come up are Gene Wolfe and Ursula Le Guin.
>well-written
>sci-fi
Sci-fi is not and should not be well-written. The rule is that the trashier it is the more value it has as speculative fiction.
Wow bunch of butthurt readers itt. The only thing I'd agree with is that the characters don't feel extremely "developed" in a connective way to the reader, but that's not really the point of Dune. It's world building meant to comment on the state of politics and society, so pretty par for the course with 60s/70s writing. You're focusing on the socio-political ramifications going on, not if Paul feels "real" enough.
Also side note, exposition isn't that bad if done right. It's not a cardinal sin. There, I said it, can we all get over ourselves now?
>I'm not even six pages in
You might wanna try some pixie books instead
That book is considered a masterpiece mostly among people who have YA on their shelves. You know, like the people you seem to make fun of? Don't really know what you were expecting.
give up right now. Dune is my favorite series, but by far it is not incomprehensible. try something else, with explosions and punching.
>Yueh, Hawat, Caladan, Arrakis,
Those are names... for people... and places...
Do you also get mad when reading words like Marmeladova, Raskolnikov, samovar?
>making up more words
Names can virtually be any word you want.
Not entirely true. The French government limits what words can be added to the French dictionary, versus the English language where anyone can add whatever the fuck they want, unregulated, to it. God, this fucking language is so dumb.
Dune is a bad book on nearly every level and enshrined only because it was the first to attempt a serious sci-fi setting and story with greater themes and a real sense of meaning. It's kind of like old films such as 12 Angry Men, where the film itself is tacky and poorly done in retrospect, but buoyed into the modern world by people who say THIS GOOD THING ME LIKE without understanding what it is, what it's doing, or where it came from.
you want flat, stilted characterization? read the fucking prequels. characters so cardboard that you can see the ripples and smell the glue.
> i can't believe i just told someone to read the fucking prequels
nice b8 m8
> "Everybody, pay attention to me!" - Rik, "The Young Ones"
>I'm not even six pages in
what the fuck is wrong with you? keep reading you gargantuan faggot. how tf are you going to expect all of your questions about the setting of an 800 page book to be answered in the first six pages?
Uh, maybe because the the point of the beginning of a book is to draw the reader in? If an author doesn't immediately draw the audience in on the first page, then he won't buy the book. It's basic writing. Why am I explaining this to you?
>kul wahad
im 99% sure this is bait but i'm gonna respond anyways.
>If an author doesn't immediately draw the audience in on the first page, then he won't buy the book.
1. i was hooked as soon as the gom jabbar was eluded to.
2. most people who are picking up an 800 page book are going to have an attention span which exceeds that of a 12 year old gamer
3. selling copies isn't the reason why people become authors. if they wanted money they would be doing something else.
You know how dictionaries work right? Not just anyone can add to it, there are panels with experts in various fields and linguists and changes and additions are highly debated.
...
spergs for the sperg throne
Pearls before the Swine Mongers.Give up now, Op.
...
I'm genuinely confident that this book has issues. If I was baiting, I'd be a little more atrocious with my post. As per your points:
1. No context is provided for a made-up title to something. The suspense and mystery is gone if there's nothing discernable or enticing in the name.
2. Most people who pick up an eight-hundred page book don't want to waste their time reading an eight-hundred page book.
3. People gotta' eat. The author is not entitled to write what people want, but he/she is incentivized to at least make their product good.
Kill yourself.
In yet the English dictionary seems to operate as if it doesn't have such a panel. It liberally adds words with each edition.
???
If you have to have a section in the back of the book dedicated to explaining what your book is, then you haven't made a very polished nor structured work.
>it was the first to attempt a serious sci-fi setting and story with greater themes and a real sense of meaning
You’re fucking dumb
>I'm genuinely confident that this book has issues
you've read six pages. and one of your critiques is "the neologisms sound weird"
>No context is provided for a made-up title to something
are you serious? there's a ton of context for it. mohaim literally says something like "we'll see how tough he is when he meets the gom jabbar" and jessica is visibly worried for his well being. the fact that we don't know what a gom jabbar is makes this MORE exciting. because now we know he's meeting some threat to his well-being in the morning but we don't even know what this threat is.
>Most people who pick up an eight-hundred page book don't want to waste their time reading an eight-hundred page book.
i didn't mean literally picking up a book. i meant choosing to read an 800 page book.
Oh, I see. You seem to have problems with English.
what structured? the glossary is there for spergs who can't work out what Kanly is from context. btw i declare Kanly. enjoy your next cup of coffee, it'll be your last.
Three angry posts and no argument against it. Hmmm. It's almost as though this is just backlash against attacking nostalgia instead of legitimate discussion on the merits and demerits of a work.
Literally what is the point of world-building if none of the characters are written well, making the reader care about them in the world they're in and what they do to interact with or change it? If I wanted world-building like that I'd just read a history book. Actually, even a HISTORY TEXTBOOK has better characters than what a lot of you people are defending.
I had a pretty similar experience. People had sold it to me as Space Lord of the Rings, or like scifi on the same level as Asimov's Foundation.
Then I read it for a bit and I just could not get past the combination of godawful highschool-tier prose and stupid names for EVERYTHING.
It's not Space Lord of the Rings, it's Space Eragon.
>Space Lord of the Rings
It is, in terms of world building.
>Asimov's Foundation
It is, in terms of political and historical thought.
>Space Eragon
It is, in stylistic terms.
It's not the purpose of sci-fi to be a beautiful work of art.
Asimov is also a pretty bad writer for that matter though arguably not quite as bad as Herbert for the most part.
The characters are fine and serve their purpose perfectly well. It's just that the prose is hilariously bad sometimes.
>meanings within meanings within meanings
kek
How bad IS the prose? Isn't the guy an accomplished writer? It's not, like, 5th-grade edgy bad, is it?
Well, I don't know how bad 5th-grade edgy bad is.
It is kind of hilariously try-hard sometimes.
For example the phase I quoted or a variation of it is used every time to describe something as very deep and complex.
There are a lot of character that have to pass as super cool and intelligent but that is frequently conveyed in a very clumsy and silly manner.
For example the first time you read the novel you might get the impression that Paul, the main character, is a horrible self-insert Mary Sue because Herbert seems to be trying too hard to make him seem clever and perfect in a very awkward and unnatural manner but I recommend you read the book in whole and think about it before you make any hasty judgments of such kind.
>Paul, the main character, is a horrible self-insert Mary Sue
yeah, but he's literally the result of a thousands years plan involving eugenics and psychic training. He's pretty much space Mohammed/Jesus with superpowers.
If you buy in the world building, his perfection is coherent with the Dune's universe.
No, his character makes perfect sense. It's just that this is so poorly conveyed that a first time reader might just dismiss it without thinking further about it.
I was so excited to have a Dune thread, but to my shock and horror most people in this thread are retards who can't understand sci-fi names or anything that isn't explained to them in the first 3 pages.
>most people
>literally just OP
What did he mean by that?
>No, his character makes perfect sense.
uhh, that was, uhh, like, my point.
> It's just that this is so poorly conveyed
not that poorly, the magic granny literally explains it to the reader at the book's start
I meant "No" like in "I didn't disagree with that in the first place", not like in "I disagree with that".
I meant "poorly conveyed" like in "poorly written", not like in "hard to understand".
Yeah, it's quite obvious the language and setting is reminiscent of Hebrew, Christendom and Islam. Spoilers ahead: Paul is Mohammed and gets the sand people to go on jihad
>Le Guin
Where should I start? Was thinking of borrowing Left Hand of Darkness from the library
nice. Lets shake hands and agree we're agreeing with each other
I can't tell which posts in this thread are bait and which aren't, and which are responding to bait posts in order to troll people into telling them they are replying to bait posts, and which are doing it because they can't tell it is bait.
Dune is one of the best science fiction books ever written. The only people that disagree are people that haven't read a lot of science fiction. Most authors in that genre, including Heinlein, Le Guin, Asimov, Clark, Zelazny, Lem, Ellison, and Herbert wrote a lot of shit, and people only ever bring up the best things they wrote. All the people with valid complaints about Dune (such as complaints about the prose, pacing, etc.) end up comparing it to works outside science fiction, or compare it to the best of other top-tier science fiction authors like Le Guin or Dick.
I remember I bought this book and brought it along for a 6-hour airplane ride. It was the only piece of entertainment I had available to me on the entire flight.
I made it about 20 pages in before my head was aching and my stomach was boiling. Perhaps the worst 10 pages of anything I've read in my life. I think I spent most of that flight staring at the back of the seat in front of me.
>all the people itt complaining that the invented language sounds weird
it takes place thousands of years in the future wtf did you expect? of course it's going to sound weird. also, how is that a criticism?
I too found it shit at first but eventually something clicked and I found myself engulfed in the world of Dune and it's complex yet retarded politics. It's for sure not a meta style of writing.
i think its a real good book imho
dude i grew up with vidya and internet...im not dumb but i dont think i should have to do any work to be entertained, why should I?
>i dont think i should have to do any work to be entertained, why should I?
t. hedonist degenerate
This but unironically. I read the whole thing, and I fucking love sci-fi and psychedelic drugs. This was supposed to be my book, and I was pretty disappointed. It's alright, but I felt that for an epic space opera it was pretty thin on intrigue (Ooh, I wonder who the bad guys are in this story). It wasn't complicated enough for me. The names were overkill at points, but whatever I'm not a pleb it takes more than big words to make me give up a book.
I'm planning on continuing the series anyways, just because it's supposed to get more philosophical. Not rushing into it though.
It's not very good. Read it when I was 18 or so and still afraid of literary fiction. I haven't read a lot of sci fi but my favorite work in the genre is Hyperion by Dan Simmons.
>Literally what is the point of world-building if none of the characters are written well, making the reader care about them in the world they're in and what they do to interact with or change it?
Exploring an interesting world. How is this even a question?
I felt drawn in as the story set up compelling intrigue.
>I fucking love sci-fi and psychedelic drugs
i hope for the safety of yourself and your family that you've already read pic related
>if none of the characters are written well
who is leto, gurney, yueh, jessica, stilgar, kynes, alia, and the baron?
ill give you that paul, chani, and duncan are all pretty one-dimensional (the latter is made up for tenfold in the next book) but the majority of the characters in this book are fantastic
Yueh's betrayal was so contrived for the purposes of furthering the plot that I felt my intelligence insulted just for reading it.
>Yueh's betrayal was so contrived for the purposes of furthering the plot
what's wrong with that? it's not like it was supposed to be some big surprise. herbert talked about it openly from like the second chapter of the book onward until it happened. there was good, believable motivation behind it, the idea of using an imperially conditioned doctor as your sleeper agent is genius on the baron's part, and the concept of breaking the imperial conditioning through psychological torture was awesome
>neologisms
When you're mocking someone, but you can't conceal your intellectual prowess
Read everything Dick's ever written as far as I know. Probably missed some of his short stories.
ok good
ok bad
ya dune was pretty unmemorable
i don't know, maybe one day i'll read it again and try to force myself to read it again and like it more
probably not though
there's plenty of other, better books, and better series to read
nah, you wouldn't
it's as bad as OP claims
Weak.
you aint woke yet bruv
youtube.com
>stupid names for EVERYTHING
>sci-fi names
The names are all muslim, catholic and hebrew with tons of buddhist influence as well. Paul is suggested to be a christian in a muslim majority galaxy.
The whole plot is psychology of history and religion and how people changed their beliefs and culture over time. Its about decadence and its corrupting effects on that religion and culture.
Fremen start out as tough harden warriors like the arabs and from their success become decadent and weak in later books just like the emperors troops became decadent and lost to the fremen. Women are shown as poor leaders, making decisions upon egos and weakness. Its literally /pol/ combined with the collapse of western civilization.
It's not comically awful in a fanfic way- it's generally just unremarkable. Although the repeated character thoughts in italics did grind my gears for some reason.
On the positive side, it does have some neat and memorable made up quotations/sayings, often as excerpts between the chapters.
>it's good for its genre, but the standards of the genre are generally shit
Probably true, but a bit depressing.
>emperors troops became decadent and lost to the fremen.
Harkonnen troops sure but the Sardaukar were simply overwhelmed, I wouldn't describe them as decadent or weak, they were just as commited as the Fremen, all that was suggested to be a weakness in them is overconfidence brought on by never loosing.
>he's literally the result of a thousands years plan involving eugenics and psychic training.
>born a manlet
OP is a literal mongoloid. This is hilarious.
Dune is far better than The Foundation. Not that I don't enjoy The Foundation, but cmon.
Which reminds me that I haven't read anything of The Foundation beyond the first book in high school.
"Never let morals stop you from doing what is right."
That kind of quote got stuck in my mind.
Do you think it is naive?
What is right? What your morals dictate?
>What your morals dictate?
Not necessarily.
>i dont think i should have to do any work to be entertained