Defending Children of Dune
When it comes to Dune and the media universe it spawned, it seems there’s not much middle ground. This is more of a perception than a carefully reasoned position with evidence to back it up. But I gather that people like Dune a lot, or they just don’t get what the fuss is about.
I’d put myself in the former camp. I read a great deal of SF in my early years, before drifting away. Somewhere in there I discovered Dune and I read the original trilogy (yes Virginia, Dune was once a paltry trilogy) several times. Near the end of my SF reading days God Emperor of Dune came out and I read it a few times.
A few decades later I decided to revisit the Dune universe. By now Frank Herbert was long gone, with two more installments published in his later years. There was an ill-fated and much-maligned movie directed by David Lynch (I maintain it’s not that bad of an effort at shoehorning the massive Dune story into two hours). There were some better-regarded miniseries adaptations that aired on the SciFi Channel. And a flood of Dune novels by Herbert’s son Brian and Kevin J. Anderson. There are currently fourteen of these spinoffs.
It’s here that I began revisiting Dune. Which seemed like a good idea at the time. The novelty of reading about Dune again got me through six or seven volumes. Then it dawned on me that perhaps they didn’t measure up to the originals. I’ll leave it at that.
Another perception I’ve formed is that even for those who like Dune, the first book was the end of the line. Which I’d agree with, but only to a point. I probably won’t read any more Herbert/Anderson books, and I see no reason to revisit books five and six of Frank Herbert’s original run.
