08-03-2019, 03:07 AM
(08-03-2019, 02:13 AM)Mattias Westlund Wrote:(08-03-2019, 01:10 AM)Nayrb Wrote: I'm a big fan of the book; but I haven't read any of the others besides the first. I remember being bored by the second book.
That sounds a lot like general opinions about Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game vs later novels. Are you familiar with those?
It's been a long time since I read it, but I think Dune is clever in the way it takes sci-fi and turns it on its head, depicting a future that is superstitious and backwards while at the same time so advanced that we have no idea how their tech works. But reading it I felt no love for any of the characters, and everything that happened felt like an excuse for Herbert to show off the world he had created. Not a bad thing in itself, but it spawned a ton of sequels IIRC and I just don't understand what's so great about it.
If we're talking classic sci-fi, I much prefer Asimov's Foundation books. Not that he was much of a character writer either, admittedly.
I'll need to do another read through of Dune before I can say yea or nay on whether I agree concerning character development; but I get what you mean about him showing off the world. And if it's a world you don't really enjoy, then you won't want to go there via the books. I know Herbert wrote something like six books himself and his son(s) carried that on to a seemingly infinite number that is apparently still going. For my part I'd like to give the other five Herbert novels a go and see what's up with them. I just remember finding the second book less appealing right off the bat after enjoying the first so much. So much so that I never actually got very far in the second one. But that was also probably fourteen years ago.
I've not read any Orson Scott Card or Asimov, unfortunately. I need to rectify that.
