I’m about 150 pages into Dune by Frank Herbert, and so far I’ve found it to my liking. I know from the wikipedia entry that there are sequels, a movie (from 1984) and a miniseries from 2000.
Are any (all?) of the sequels comparable in quality to the book? Are either (or both) of the movies/mini series worth the effort to watch?
Thanks!
I read up to God Emperor of Dune. Bogged down in that one, and have not revisited it since. The first book is the best. I still play the Avalon-Hill board game once or twice a year with my old gaming buddies…
Short answer: no.
Long answer: Hell, no.
The original book was a landmark SF novel. The sequel, Dune Messiah, sucked rocks through a straw. Children of Dune was better, reaching the status of potboiler, but God Awful . . . Emperor of Dune made Dune Messiah look like the great American novel. I gave up in the middle and didn’t bother with anything more.
As for the movies, the David Lynch version is a honorable failure; he did his best to try to do it, but was defeated by the material. I didn’t bother with the miniseries.
Dune, the movie, with Sting, was garbage. The Sci-Fi channel’s miniseries was nothing spectacular, either. I don’t think either did the book justice.
As for the book sequeuls, *Dune Messiah *and *Children of Dune *are decent. They follow events shortly after Dune. Subsequent *Dune *books, starting with God Emporer of Dune, are somewhat distanced from the orignal and, in my opinion, not as nearly as good. I stopped there, but I think the popular opinion is to just read the first three. The unanimous opinion, from those who have read them, is to stay as far the hell away as possible from any Dune books that Frank Herbert’s son, Brian, wrote.
Reading Dune was practically a right of passage here in the PNW. All my friends read it and loved it. I didn’t read it, though. I thought the movie was pretty good - interesting, if flawed, but I remember I really enjoyed it. As we were leaving the theater, all my friends were saying how oh my god that movie totally sucked and missed the mark so far and was the lamest adaptation of a novel that ever existed and blah blah blah. So if you read the book and love it, you can probably skip the movie. If you can approach the movie as a stand-alone work, and forget the book it is based on, you might enjoy the movie.
Concur with the above posters, mostly. First book was definitely the best (I just finished re-reading it about a week ago, coincidentally). The others pretty much go downhill relative to the first. I read quite a few of them (up to 5, maybe?), but don’t recall the plots too much.
If you enjoy parody, try to find a copy of National Lampoon’s Doon, and read it immediately after you finish Dune.
Hilarious.
Yes. Also concur.
I am in the minority in that I like all of Frank Herberts Dune books, (not so much his kids, its almost like reading a Dune meets Xanthe series)
Herbert explores different themes in each book and this tends to throw readers off who just want the epic fantasy of Dune to keep going on. if you read them for what they are instead of what you think they should be you may find them to your liking.
the sci-fi channel mini series is the truest adaptation we are ever likely to see and they are possibly the best work to come out of that channel (not exactly high praise).
at least one of his running themes has affected the way I approach teaching in general.
I loved Dune and Dune Messiah, and read Children of Dune as it was being serialized in Analog. I didn’t care for God E,mperor of Dune, and got fed up with a series that xtended over such a long period to no apparent purpose.
A few years ago I went back and read God Emperor and Heretics, but I still haven’t read Chapterhouse.
As for the movies, I liked the Lynch version overall (despite his changes, like the “weirding modules”), if only for the wonderful weirdness of the vision, and how committed he was to it. The problem is that he tried to film the entire freakin’ novel and the studio wanted it as a two hour movie, and you can’t do that. They actually filmed a LOT more material than appeared on screen. Frank Herbert gives a partial list of the filmed-but-not-included scenes in his book Eye. He declared, by the way, that he liked the movie.
Years later, they released a version of Dune to independent stations that included several (but by no means all, or even most) of the cut scenes, along with a new introduction. Lynch hated it, and wouldn’t let them use his name on it (so it bears the directorial credit “Alan Smithee”, the standard Hollywood shorthand for “the director doesn’t want his name on this”), but it was clearly done by someone who knew and loved the books. It’s not hackwork, but neither is it Lynch’s vision. Unfortunately, AFAIK it’s not available anywhere except on the tapes of folks who recorded it.
I liked the SciFi channel miniseries, which had good production va;ues (and William Hurt as Duke Leto), and avoided “weirding modules” and an insane, terminal-acne-ridden Baron Vladmir Harkonnen, but which had some problems of its own (including the silliest hats since Atlantis, the Lost Continent). I think it’s worth watching, as is the SciFi sequel, Children of Dune (which includes the stuff in Dune Messiah. Brian Hervert likes both the Lynch and SciFi versions, for different reasons, and has said so on his website.
PNW denizen here and yeah, we all read it in high school if not sooner, even friends who were even readers. I advise the OP to not go further than the two sequels. Messiah and Children. Neither surpasses the original, though.
I have a love/hate relationship with the film and miniseries. I wish I could take some of the effects from Lynch and insert them into the miniseries. Some of the departures Lynch made were head-scratchers, not the least of which was what he did to the Baron. The Baron in the novels is actually an interesting character but Lynch turned him and his entire house into idiotic caricatures played mostly for laughs. Like Jackson and the LOTR movies, it ain’t so much what Lynch left out but what he was “inspired” to invent out of whole cloth that ticks me off the most.
To the OP, finish reading the first novel and then rent the adaptations. Try to see the glass as half full and think good thoughts. Then read the next two novels. And stop. 
The Lynch movie is a glorious trainwreck. It completely fails as a story, but it’s packed with great visuals.
It’s definitely a David Lynch effort. As for the TV shows, I enjoyed them very much. They stay more true to the books than David Lynch did, and they have a style of their own. It’s a shame they didn’t get Saskia Reeves to play Jessica in Children, though.
Ahh, it always warms my heart the huge variance in rankings of the books 
I’ve read the whole series at least 6 times through. Mini-comparisons…
Dune: Classic landmark sci-fi novel, the most action-heavy of the series at the expense of politics and philosophy.
Messiah: A follow-up collection of episodic magazine content collected as a novel, and reads like it. Otherwise, good political read but not much happens in the big picture.
Children: A wonderful follow-up action-heavy continuation to Dune. Sets the stage for the leap from planet-focused to universe focus.
God Emperor: Simply the best of the series, and one of the finest novels ever written. It has everything at Herbert’s peak writing…action, philosophy, politics, intrigue. This is the only book that I re-read separately outside of the series.
Heretics: Smaller scope than God Emperor, but does a wonderful job of following up the previous four books and realizing how the events of the first book created the current circumstances.
Chapterhouse: Likable, but strange in context of the others. It feels more space-opera and a bit of obligatory contract fulfillment, like Heinlein’s later works when compared to the peak. Still, the story and politics are important and well fleshed out.
I experienced first the David Lynch movie. I thought it was weird as hell and kinda slow-paced, but I liked it. I decided to read the book afterward, and I was captivated. I kept reading the sequels mostly because they just kept expanding and adding more to this grand sweeping, epic story that spanned millenia. Like most sequels, though, they don’t compare to the original.
I loved the Sci-Fi channel Dune mini-series when it came out. Didn’t like the Children of Dune mini-series quite as much. (I blame part of this on the absence of Saskia Reeves and Uwe Ochsenknecht.)
I have now read:
Maybe one day I’ll get it in my head to kill some time finishing the Prequel to Dune series.
I saw on Wikipedia that there are even MORE Dune books. :dubious:
I’m now picturing two buzzards named Brian and Kevin stripping the flesh off the rotting corpse of a cow that was milked to death a long time ago. 
I’d say to go with the consensus. Stop at the first book. Maybe see the 1st mini-series for some pretty visuals. Avoid the sequels.
The two miniseries had stupid hats, but apart from that they were pretty good.
Enjoy the first book and move on to something else.
I love the first, like number two okay and appreciate three and four for the over-arching storyline, without being a huge fan of the individual books themselves. And that is where I stopped myself.
I have no advice. But I’m glad you’re enjoying the first book which I think deserves its masterpiece reputation.
Almost forgot: the girl playing St. Alia-of-the-Knife in Children of Dune is drop dead gorgeous. Crummy actress, but who cares? Also, I gave up on House Atreides when when I read something about an Atreides munching something. The Atreides do not “munch”.
Absolutely. I was considering editing my previous post just to bring this up. 
I did not understand Chapterhouse. I liked all the other books (by Frank, never read Brian’s), but none were as good as the first. Dune Messiah is the second best.
I thought the Lynch movie had amazing visuals but fell short of the mark due to fast pacing. I also saw the SyFy production, which was faithful to the books, but lacked panache.