Friday, May 4, 2018
The Summer of Dune
Several years ago I finally got around to reading Dune and absolutely loved it. I went on to its sequel, Dune Messiah, then realized I wanted to read all of Frank Herbert's books in one go, so I put it off until I bought all of them and had the time. I'm usually reading a novel and a short story collection at any given time, so I decided to make all the novels I read this summer Herbert's Dune novels. I'll re-read the first two, and then continue on to Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune, and Chapterhouse: Dune. Herbert's son has cowritten several sequels, prequels, and interquels to his father's legacy, and I might check those out, although the reviews don't treat them as anywhere near as good.
Probably you should look THE DRAGON IN THE SEA, which was Herbert's first novel. DUNE was great, but the sequels not so much so -- they suffered from sequelitis, I guess.
ReplyDeleteAnd I much appreciated the WHAT MAD UNIVERSE catch -- I've got a volume of Brown's collected SF novels on my shelves. How'd you like THE LIGHTS IN THE SKIES ARE STARS?
I loved Lights in the Sky. Robert Bloch once wrote that it was groundbreaking because it had a hero who was a) old, b) handicapped, and c) sexually active. I'm more of a fan of his short fiction though. You have Martians and Madness, his collected novels? Get a hold of From These Ashes, which is all of his short science-fiction. And often it's really short, like a page or two. The man was an absolute master of the form.
ReplyDeleteOn my list now, and thanks for the suggestion!
ReplyDelete