Dune

September 3, 2012

I’m supposed to like this, right? It’s a classic. And I remember I liked the film a lot when I was younger. Maybe that was just because Sting was in it. Dune by Frank Herbert has been sitting on my shelf for a good five years since it was bought for me by a friend in a ‘You haven’t read Dune?!’ moment of horror.

I got over three hundred pages in before I finally gave up. I just wasn’t enjoying myself and then I questioned why I was putting myself through the tedium of trying to finish it. There is a question over a cat that has to be milked and the mouse duct-taped to it. The question is WHY? Answers in the comments please.

I don’t think there’s anything particularly wrong with the book. It didn’t really seem to get going and I felt I was waiting for it to start for the first two hundred pages. The stuff about the mental powers and reading body language and other clues didn’t come across that well. I don’t know how you could really show that working though. It’s ambitious and isn’t quite pulled off. There were parts of the book that were entirely dialogue for pages and pages. That was quite interesting from a writing technique perspective. It worked. A touch more action and description would have grounded it a little more, but it would have taken very little.

If you haven’t read Dune already, you can probably live without it. This picture of a cat is way more entertaining.

Victoria Snelling

Books, Reviews, Sci-Fi, writing

Didn’t finish

7 responses to “Dune”

themisanthropologist

September 4, 2012

I was actually planning to read Dune after I get through with the book I’m reading now. I don’t know what to expect really. I mean, I know about it, obviously, but I have never seen the movie. But, yeah, it’s the type of book that is highly recommended by everyone and you kinda feel bad if you end up not liking it. That’s how I feel about Cloud Atlas (the book I’m reading now). Everyone LOVES it…but I’m not too crazy about it.

Reply
1. Victoria Snelling
  
  September 4, 2012
  
  Cloud Atlas is on my list and I plan to get to it before the end of the year. I’m not really sure what I think it will be like – but yeah, a lot of people seem to really like it.
  
  Reply
  1. themisanthropologist
    
    September 4, 2012
    
    Well, the movie is coming out soon, so you can watch it as well. Imo, the movie looks a lot more interesting than the book.
Thanasith Chinsangtip

September 4, 2012

Dune hype were widespread many years ago through a lot of media like movies and games (which are based on the books), I owned three books out of six (in Thai *dang*), and personally, I found many of their concepts are worth reading, good blend between environmentalism, religion, and Sci-fi. Apart from those amazing concepts are big let down, tedious dialogue kept me away from finishing this series (which is sad)

Than

Reply
1. Victoria Snelling
  
  September 4, 2012
  
  Hi 🙂 I didn’t know there were Dune games. There are a lot of books in the series though, and I have heard it gets really bad after book five. There were some interesting ideas in it, but it wasn’t fun to read.
  
  Reply
  1. Thanasith Chinsangtip
    
    September 4, 2012
    
    Hi 😀 I dare say Dune games played a big part that make Dune become so famous nowadays. First of them came out since the time of DOS!!
bellezebub

September 7, 2012

I did the same thing with Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel. I thought, well, Niel Gaiman says it’s good, so it must be. Right? No. A book 6 inches thick on bible pages, and not a single thing happened. Nothing. Nada. How do you write a book on magic and fairies and fail to make it even remotely interesting? ANd yet the book garnered enough awards to paper a wall. Maybe it was just me.

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