Weird trivia note for Dune. Herbert submitted his manuscript to a whole bunch of publishing companies and couldn’t find anyone who would accept it.
Chilton Publishing Company is a specialty publisher. They publish automobile manuals. But the owner happened to be a science fiction fan. So somebody suggested Herbert submit Dune to Chilton. He did and they published it. Chilton also published James Schmitz’s The Witches of Karres.
Daniela Amavia
I agree with both of these, read the first book and think of the movie as a work that is not the book but oddly enough just happens to share the name and a few characters. THink of it like reading slash fic as opposed to the original fic, just filmed instead of written.
I read all six of Herbert’s Dune novels and enjoyed them all, though the original is hands-down the best of the series. God Emperor is probably the hardest to get through, and by Heretics it practically takes a flow-chart to figure out who’s allied with whom in a plot against what at any given moment, but they’re still enjoyable.
No matter what you do, however, do NOT read the prequels or sequels by Brian Herbert - they’re tepid, generic, potboiler space operas at best, and at worst they outright TRAMPLE on Frank Herbert’s legacy and the established continuity and backstory.
I actually like God Emperor the best of the first books. Heretics and Chapterhouse are interesting, but there’s just this huge feeling that there should be one more book after them that never actually got written.
Anything besides Frank’s 6 books is just fanfiction.
There was to be another book after Chapterhouse, but Frank died. Tragically, his son was/has taken charge in finishing the series - I don’t know how this has progressed, since I never read past the first Brian Herbert book, it being the atrocity and slap in the face that it was.
I’m like Gargoyle in that I thought that God: Emperor was a great read and a perfect summation of the series so far. What a lot of people don’t like about the books after Dune is that the first novel sets up Paul Atreides as a God-like figure, then the next three novels are about why this Was a Bad Thing. In Dune: Messiah (supposedly DM was to be part of the original novel, but had to be lopped off for cost reasons), Paul realizes that he has turned into a monster. In Children we find that his two kids also realize this, but at the time are largely helpless to prevent their aunt (Alia) from falling into the same trap, and in God: Emperor, Leto II spends 3,000 years teaching the rest of mankind why it’s bad to look for ultimate authority figures.
So if you love the first book, you’re probably not going to cotton to the rest of the story telling you why you shouldn’t have loved the first book. 
[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
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
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[QUOTE=standingray]
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.
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Ian McNeice nailed the role of the Baron in the miniseries: brilliant, ruthless, gluttonous, a total schemer but one who knew what he was doing.
The miniseries billed itself as being more in line with the book, which it was to a degree but there were still some whoppers. The way they handle space travel, for instance: the totally non-canonical scene where Princess Irulan comes to Arrakis early in the series had most people who’d read the book yelling “NOoooooooooo!”.
People who haven’t read the book I think are disappointed that’s it’s sci-fi/fantasy and involves multiple planets yet space travel is almost all off-stage.
No, I disliked the books simply because they were badly written crap.
God Awful of Dune basically was a dull philosophy lecture and I finally gave up with I realized that Herbert wasn’t interested in plot or characterization in the slightest, and, whenever plot actually broke out, he put a quick stop to that and gave another lecture.
The entire series grew ponderous and self-important as it went on.
How do you pronounce Bene Gesserit? In my head it’s BEN-ny JESS-er-it.
I liked all of Frank Herbert’s Dune books, but like many God Emperor of Dune is my least favorite. I really thought his last two were the best: Heretics of Dune and Chapter House Dune. For the record I think Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson have spent the last decade raping Frank’s legacy with their books.
As to the movies, while the Lynch film got the atmosphere right, the story is somewhat jumbled and the ending is contrary to the themes of the books. The Sci-Fi mini-series did better on the story, but feels very sterile and is hard to connect to. Their Children of Dune mini-series (books 2 & 3) was better.
The original well deserves its status as a classic-- It’s excellent. The second one, though, is one of only a very few books I’ve ever just gotten bored with and given up on. I’ve never bothered to read any further.
I think Herbert just only had one good book in him.
Herbert definitely had more than one good book in him. I cite his nonDune books as proof.
I’ve read all the way through Chapterhouse. But, that was about twenty years ago. I liked most of the books. Though some did get caught up in lectures about politics.
IMO Lynch’s film was an amazing thing. He did the best he could given the limits he had to work within.
The mini series is much better. As mentioned, the actor playing the Baron Harkonen does a marvelous job.
From what I’ve heard, the books by the heir Herbert are awful.
Pretty much. Wiki shows it as ben-ee-jess-ər-it citing this as its source: Dune - Creating The Audiobooks
And watching that video, at 4:13 there’s a shot of Frank’s own pronunciation notes showing it as “Benny Jess-er-it.” Doesn’t get any more authoritative than that.
I enjoyed some of his non-Dune books. Whipping Star and The Santaroga Barrier come to mind.
I liked all of FRANK Herbert’s Dune books, even the ones that didn’t make a whole lot of sense. I like the Dune Encyclopedia, which isn’t by any Herbert but was approved by Frank.
I consider the pre/sequels by Brian Herbert and Kevin Hackerson to be anathema and some of the few books I’d consider burning.
Okay having cleared up the Bene Gesserit issue, anyone want to take a shot at Bene Tleilax? My best guess is it’s supposed to be pronounced like Benny Lilacs but that sounds like a gay mobster.
I’ve pretty much always heard it in my head as “Benny Tleelax”. And, by extension, “Tleelaxoo”.
Same here. Tleelaks
According to this site, which has actual sound clips from Frank Herbert’s pronunciations in the audiobook edition of Dune, it IS “Tleelax” and “Tleelaxu”
