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Why did every Frank Herburt Dune book after the first suck?

MinnesotaBrant

Philosopher
MinnesotaBrant
Joined
Apr 20, 2011
Messages
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This might date me but when I read Dune back in high school it was a life changing experience. Frank took the trouble to create a believable world with a life of its own. Why then did every sequel to the Dune book suck? Is Frank Herburt still alive so I can go ask him?
 
I enjoyed Dune immensely, Dune Messiah less so, and I think that Children of Dune was extremely entertaining and almost on a par with the original.

But with God Emperor (I have an personally autographed first edition) the series started to go downhill rather badly and very quickly.

Sequalitis is a disease which many SF (and other authors) suffer from. Burroughs wrecked Tarzan, John Carter and David Innes by writing interminable sequals to what should have been at best trilogies. Asimov's Foundation and Robot prequals/sequals almost wrecked the original short stories for me, and Heinlein's multiverse - well let's not even go there.

Steven Donaldson? Is anybody even bothering with the third Thomas Covenant series? The first three were entertaining, the second three, well he lost it completely with The One Tree and the series never recovered.

Of course, there is a ready made audience and big advance $$$$$$$ for sequals to best sellers. So the author just writes them and damn the quality.

Norm
 
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theprestige said:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=frank+herbert
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That is a False Frank Herbert. The avatar I recognize died about ten pages into Dune, when it became boring. Much less in any of the sequels, which were both boring and pretentious. And the first one was both, though the "boring" drowned out the "pretentious."

This is part of the late 1960s-80s Sequelmania. What was written and purchased before 1976 had a chance because he, his friends, his editors, and anybody who could cadge a copy, asked (FAR too late), and treat it as something new?

It's a stem most folks don't take.

And give the smelts an hour. Fair-weather fishermen won't last.

Neither did I, having dismissed the host as a scoundrel, and he didn't tell her we ere part of his support group.
 
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The first three were thematically linked, and although the second two were weaker than the first, I thought of them more as appendices rather than sequels.

I actually liked God Emperor, but it was the last one I enjoyed. It finished off the plot of Dune Messiah, and had some exquisitely sad moments. Although Herbert took way too long to do it, we finally saw Leto go back to the sand. That was, in my mind, the end of the story that started with Paul facing the gob jabbar -- it was the ultimate test.

The rest was just stuff set in the same universe, and not of the same quality.
 
Really, for me the first test was failed when I was asked if I'd buy a sequel. Please note that I, along with many of the non-illiterates, find your parlour tricks worthless.
 
I hate when people say that. God-Emperor of Dune was a boring snoozefest to trudge through, yes, but the last two volumes are fantastic, IMO the best ones since the original Dune.
 
Morrigan said:
I hate when people say that. God-Emperor of Dune was a boring snoozefest to trudge through, yes, but the last two volumes are fantastic, IMO the best ones since the original Dune.
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Yeah, I'm guessing that many of the folks who disparage the latter part of the series didn't make it past Dune: Messiah - for me, that's the "odd man out" of the Dune canon, but still enjoyable reading. I didn't have a problem with God Emperor, but the last two books are definitely fantastic achievements.
 
Morrigan said:
I hate when people say that. God-Emperor of Dune was a boring snoozefest to trudge through, yes, but the last two volumes are fantastic, IMO the best ones since the original Dune.
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Those were the ones where there's an invasion of sex goddesses who enslave men with their awesome sexual skills, right? Then it turns out that the only way to stop the invasion is to train the ultimate stud to enslave the sex goddesses right back with his own awesome skills in the sack?

Thought-provoking stuff. :boggled:
 
Mick Houlahan said:
Yeah, I'm guessing that many of the folks who disparage the latter part of the series didn't make it past Dune: Messiah - for me, that's the "odd man out" of the Dune canon, but still enjoyable reading. I didn't have a problem with God Emperor, but the last two books are definitely fantastic achievements.
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When you read a bad book by an author there's less motivation to read more of his/her work. I tossed the second Dune book to a shipmate about 50 pages in and never went back. Too many other good writers out there. (And yes, some of them wrote dogs as well, but their earlier work told me to try successive books, something Herbert's books didn't.)
 
I am glad I've never read them given that I didn't particularly like the first one very much either. I started reading Dune Messiah but disliked it a lot and didn't bother finishing it.
 
angrysoba said:
I am glad I've never read them given that I didn't particularly like the first one very much either. I started reading Dune Messiah but disliked it a lot and didn't bother finishing it.
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The mysticism left me cold. If it had been a straight up thud and blunder book, I'd have been okay, I think, or hard science fiction type. The New Age undercurrent to Dune was hard to get into, however, as was the overt sexism. "Try looking into that place you dare not look, you will see me standing there!" Women were, for the most part, sneaking, conniving, weak little dears, run by their "mothers-in-laws", like Helen Gaius Mohian. (SP?)
 
Gawdzilla said:
The mysticism left me cold. If it had been a straight up thud and blunder book, I'd have been okay, I think, or hard science fiction type. The New Age undercurrent to Dune was hard to get into, however, as was the overt sexism. "Try looking into that place you dare not look, you will see me standing there!" Women were, for the most part, sneaking, conniving, weak little dears, run by their "mothers-in-laws", like Helen Gaius Mohian. (SP?)
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To be honest I can't really remember but it does ring a bell when you talk about the mysticism. I just found the book surprising as it really wasn't what I was expecting. The people I knew who had read and liked it were also fans of Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov so I thought the sci-fi might be on those lines but instead it was a bit ... well... like you said, mystical.
 
angrysoba said:
To be honest I can't really remember but it does ring a bell when you talk about the mysticism. I just found the book surprising as it really wasn't what I was expecting. The people I knew who had read and liked it were also fans of Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov so I thought the sci-fi might be on those lines but instead it was a bit ... well... like you said, mystical.
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Telepathy, precognition, animism (I think that's the right term), race memory, etc. Very mystical.
 
Kevin_Lowe said:
Those were the ones where there's an invasion of sex goddesses who enslave men with their awesome sexual skills, right? Then it turns out that the only way to stop the invasion is to train the ultimate stud to enslave the sex goddesses right back with his own awesome skills in the sack?

Thought-provoking stuff. :boggled:
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Is that really all you got out of them? Ehh....
 
I only read first book, and I hated it so much I never finished it.

Two reasons that I can remember:

1. I could not stand the whole mysticsm thing.

2. I hate romanticising of nomadic warrior cultures. Nomadic warriors, at least ones with remote resemblance to Fremen (or to any romaicised version in any book you care to name) are NASTY. Apaches, Monglos, Beduins, you name it; it's impossible to top their cruelty -- towards their enemies, their slaves, their women and toward each other. Those are cultures whose destruction at the hands of Europeans I unreservedly cheered. Seeing them portrayed as good guys just makes me puke.
 
Gawdzilla said:
The mysticism left me cold. If it had been a straight up thud and blunder book, I'd have been okay, I think, or hard science fiction type. The New Age undercurrent to Dune was hard to get into, however, as was the overt sexism. "Try looking into that place you dare not look, you will see me standing there!" Women were, for the most part, sneaking, conniving, weak little dears, run by their "mothers-in-laws", like Helen Gaius Mohian. (SP?)
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I actually quite liked the last books, more than the first in fact :blush:.
The portrayal of women, however, was why I gave up on Robert Jordan... Well, that and the fact that the plot developments made me suspect quickly accelerating senile dementia in the author somewhere after book 4.
 
As many problems the later books have, they are still blinding stars of genius compared to the sub Hubbardian space opera hackery that his son is putting out under the Dune franchise.
 
fromdownunder said:
I enjoyed Dune immensely, Dune Messiah less so, and I think that Children of Dune was extremely entertaining and almost on a par with the original.
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Exactly my own opinion.

But with God Emperor (I have an personally autographed first edition) the series started to go downhill rather badly and very quickly.

*snip*
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I liked GEoD better on a re-reading, and it was interesting. I don't much like resolutions-that-don't-resolve-anything however.

I didn't read any of the books that followed, so that says something I suppose.
 
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