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Anyone here read the DUNE series of books by Frank Herbert? It's my favorite book series and one of the reasons is how openly he demonstrates the Bene Geserit manipulating religions to accomplish their goals. The books create a prophet, a religion and even an actual god for people to worship for thousands of years. It was amazing to me to read how it could actually be done, given time and resources.

Not too keen on the prequels written by Frank Herbert's son, Brian with Kevin Anderson. And what they did to finish the series showed either a lack of comprehensive notes by Frank Herbert or just bad writing. None of the prequels or sequels had anywhere near the depth and intrigue of the original series.

redbai 8 Apr 4
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32 comments

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3

My father gave me Dune to read at about age 14 or so. It's one of the reasons I fell in love with science fiction.

2

I read the first 5. At least as good as the Foundation Series.

2

Love the originals and like the sequels and preguels . I agree that Brian Herbert ones aren't written so well but the story still kept me interested

1

I read God Emperor for a book report in High School. I wound up reading all of them (the 6th wasn't even out when I started), and for a good many years, I read them annually. There's too much in the books to make for interesting movies and television, they just don't translate well (maybe if HBO took it on as in Game of Thrones it could be done). The work done after his death may be based on Frank's notes, but it certainly didn't satisfy the way his own works did.

1

I read most of them back I the early 80's . I was a big fan of them at the time. The mini series on the SYFY channel was better than the 1984 movie.

was that the one with Sting ?

1

I haven't read them which is surprising as I am a huge sf fan but your description really has me intrigued. Thank you for the recommendation! ~Katie

1

I need to try them.
I am a huge sci-fi/ fantasy fan, but saw the movie when I was 14 or so, before I had gotten into reading.

The movie sucked so bad I have shied away from the books. All my friends love them and keep telling me I need to try them. Maybe some day. LoL

1

Awesome books!!!

1

Yes a long time fan of Herbert and as you say the Bene Gesserit (Latin for "Sucess to come" it's also a latin anagram pun for great Tigress) and their long game statergy is genius writing.

1

I read the series some time ago and loved it. I like the film as well.

1

I tried several times to read the series but the writing style annoyed me too much.

0

I agree, is one of my all time sci fi series. The son of dune didn’t quite meet the mark for me either.

0

One of my favorite series as well

0

I found the large spans of time to be difficult to identify with from the ongoing books but loved the first few.

0

I read Dune series years ago. I loved them, especially Dune.

0

Started reading Dune back in the early 70,s while in France with other members of our local youth club,

as an appendum, regarding creating a religion.... Scientology was invented by L. Ron Hubbard, as a bet,

I tried reading L Ron Hubbard's book and I even tried watching that horrible movie "Battle Field Earth" which was supposedly based on his book. Had better success with the movie, but not much. After reading Dune I became fascinated with the idea of religions being created and trying to read Hubbard's book was part of my research. Note that I 'tried' to read it. From what I remember, it was a terrible book that I did not finish. Bad dialog, bad science, bad fiction. I'm to analytical for that many bad things to coincide in one story.

0

No, I didn't...but I am reading "Origin" for my book club. Has anybody read this one? So far, I have read only four chapters but the Catholic religion's tentacles are already in motion,

0

That's funny because 30 minutes ago, I was talking to my son about Dune. He said he got about 40 pages into it and I said that's about 38 pages more than most folks. It came up because I saw a meme saying we thought we were heading towards a Star Trek future, but it seems to be heading more towards Dune with future wars being fought over resources. I saw Frank Herbert lecture in college and enjoyed his thoughts. Some of his other books were more accessible to me, not as dense as Dune.

0

Yes, nearly all of them, just a couple to go, might be out of sequence now but who gives a shit.....

And how can this be?

0

I read the original series years ago, and still have them on my bookshelf. Tried to read the prequels but gave up. I was sad that the movie was so horrible - I had to reassure people "read the books, they're amazing, don't let the film scare you away!" Might just have to start reading them again.

0

I've read all the Frank Herbery DUNE books. with the possible exception of Asimov, I would consider him to be my favorite science fiction writer. That said, when I went back to reread them, there was too much time spent on the religion of the story.
My favorite aspect of the BG was that they used science, along with their discliplinary practices, to make it appear that they were witches, casting spells and reading minds.

0

I read the main series as a young adult, I didn’t quite enjoy the movie but it was dealing with a lot. The prequels and sequels written by Franks son and Kevin Anderson did help to pull the universe of Frank Herbert together, even if their writing was different, but they were taken from Franks own Notes. The ideas of the religious societies that were built up were as alien to me as many of the beast and other characters in the books. It was the 70’s when I read them and even though I really wasn’t into religions at that time I really didn’t understand the entire change in complex societies due to religious doctrine , fervor, and extremism that Frank was showcasing

Phin Level 6 Apr 4, 2018
0

It was really annoying that George Lucas managed to get away with stealing so much of these books for Star wars that the film version had to practically invent a new subplot, to fill in the blanks and still got accused of "ripping off" Star wars.

There's very little of Dune in Star Wars. There's more stolen from Moebius/Metal Hurlant/Valerian and 1930s swashbuckling and SF serials and Samurai movies than anything else.

@jperlow I'm not saying Dune was the only place Lucas "drew inspiration" from, just that Frank Herbert's Lawyers identified 115 point of similarity in the original trilogy and the Dune Saga, which was enough for Lucas Film to come to an unspecified agreement with Herbert, that resulted in Lych's film version of Dune having no mention of the Jaba like duke Leto II, the sound weapons being added and the force like powers of Paul Muad'Dib being hidden, Paul sister being relegated to one tiny appearance at the end of the film so as not to be too Leia like and the villainous Padishah emperor almost being written out altogether along with Duncan Idaho and the Bene Gesserit power of the Voice being only used once so as not to show them up as being too like the Jedi.

If you look up the adaptation of Lucas' original script for the first Star Wars movie, which was published as a comic book mini series a few years ago the similarities are even more startlingly obvious.

0

I liked the first 3. The rest got very tiring and the ones written by his son, Brian, which are prequel novels seem very contrived.

0

I read Dune 42 years ago. It impressed me (and as a long-time sf fan already, of course I'd heard of it). But I never felt a desire to read other books in the series.

I don't think I appreciated at first (at age 15) what the book was saying about religion and manipulative forces within cultures.

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