Review of "Frank Herbert's Dune Saga 6-Book Boxed Set : Dune, Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune, and Chapterhouse" on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
A truly epic tale about intergalactic (and domestic) political intrigue, ecology, religion and a society's fight for freedom, while producing drugs for everyone. Or something like that.
Obviously "Dune" has had tremendous influence on other sci-fi authors, and it's an amazing story, and some of the characters are remarkable, and the universe this story is set in is incredibly detailed and nuanced and immersive. Reading this book made me feel like I am experiencing the events myself, while slowly understanding what is going on in the background. The use of new and borrowed words and the particular style of language, both in courtrooms and in the desert, was fun to explore. I enjoyed reading "Dune"!
HOWEVER.
- The language used in the book features imaginative inventions and transfers from real-life Earth languages. This is great - unfortunately my edition did not explain terms where they first came up, but in …
A truly epic tale about intergalactic (and domestic) political intrigue, ecology, religion and a society's fight for freedom, while producing drugs for everyone. Or something like that.
Obviously "Dune" has had tremendous influence on other sci-fi authors, and it's an amazing story, and some of the characters are remarkable, and the universe this story is set in is incredibly detailed and nuanced and immersive. Reading this book made me feel like I am experiencing the events myself, while slowly understanding what is going on in the background. The use of new and borrowed words and the particular style of language, both in courtrooms and in the desert, was fun to explore. I enjoyed reading "Dune"!
HOWEVER.
- The language used in the book features imaginative inventions and transfers from real-life Earth languages. This is great - unfortunately my edition did not explain terms where they first came up, but in an inconveniently placed glossary at the end of the (e-) book. I often only had a vague idea what exactly they were referring to.
- Much of the plot is focused on macho-men and their fighting strategies, both in 1-on-1 and military battles. (And then those battles are often omitted and just reported on after the fact!)
- In contrast, I did not learn enough about the politics and the intrigues that go on in the background. Much is just implied, leaving me to guess a lot.
- The book just barely passes the infamous Bechdel test, which requires two female characters with names talk to each other about something else than a male character. There are strong girls and women in this book, but over the course of the story they lost influence and became more "decorative".
- I couldn't really relate to the protagonist - too many sudden changes in behavior, powers that I did not really understand until much later, and an unbearable "I'm the chosen one" attitude.
- The book is really long. That's not a problem per se, but I feel the same effect could have been reached with 20% fewer pages.
- I was particularly annoyed when one character popped up again literally hundreds of pages after he had been introduced (briefly!). I have a good memory, but I was happy about the search function on my e-reader for this one.
I'm considering to read the second book of the series to see how it develops - it's much shorter, and focuses more on the politics rather than rebel battles. Let's see!
