BOOKS
2005-08-02
Man, I'm trying to listen to the audiobook of The Butlerian Jihad, one of the Dune prequel books and I'm having a hard time with it. On the one hand, the book is **horrible**. I'm talking "Oh my god, my ears! GAH!" bad. It's like they ripped off some first-semester creative writing student's bad fan fiction and because it's Dune and it's Frank Herbert's son, nobody dared edit it. It's this kind of science fiction that turns me off of the genre for months or years at a time. There's actually a line to the effect of "They were drawn to kiss each other as if pulled by a magnetic field."
The bad part is that I love the original Dune books so I’m very interested in seeing how things played out before the first book. This thing is so weighed down by damnable scifi cliches and crap though that it’s hard to think they took very much from Frank Herbert’s notes, no matter how much they say they’re being faithful. I seriously doubt I’ll be able to get through this first of the 3 prequels so I might just have to read about what happened on the web.
The main book I’m reading right now (Deadhouse Gates) is kind of the opposite. It’s the sequel to a book (Gardens of the Moon) that had every single hallmark of being generic Extruded Fantasy Product but in the end turned out better than I expected. Gardens was no masterpiece but it was compelling enough to remind me of the fun I had reading all the Dragonlance books when I was a kid, but combined with a very adult sensibility. If I enjoy Deadhouse Gates I’ll probably continue reading the series (up to book 5 in England I believe, out of a projected 10 books!). It’s been a long time since I thought I’d read a 10 book fantasy series. Between this and my love of the His Dark Materials series, I’ll have to hand in my “Fantasy? Bah!” club card. And that’s before I say anything about my plan to read all the Harry Potter books in order once it gets closer to the release of the 7th book.
Technorati Tags: grommes, books, fantasy, science fiction
ze in connecting 6 dissparate short stories than one narrative whole. Hints were dropped at a reincarnation connection but that didn't go anywhere. When the hitman Smoke asked Louisa Rey she if she always felt this way before death, I was sure that wouldn't be left untouched but in the end, I didn't get any connection. Maybe I missed something but I don't think so. This didn't dilute the power of the book but with a stronger thread I think it could have something great, rather than just a really good book.
ys it probably didn't, that we're to the point where a book really has little chance of coming along and making substantive changes to society as The Jungle did when it came out and first exposed the horrors of the meat packing industry a hundred years ago. I hope I'm wrong, that people did pay attention because this issue needs attention. We spend so much time and money looking at horrors across the world when people are suffering just the same in our own backyard. People are always up in arms about child labor in eastern Asia but what about illegal immigrants brought here and made to work in much more horrible conditions? Is that unworthy of our attention? The fast food industry has destroyed many,many more lives with it's fast, unsafe, and unsanitary system than Nike and it's shoe factories ever have. Yes, kids sewing shoes for a dime a day is horrible but it's not worse than making a teenager spray down a moving, blood-covered conveyor belt with chlorine gas and then firing that person when they get sick from the inadequate breathing protection. The cost in human lives and dignity is not worth saving a nickel on a hamburger and yes, a nickel is all it would cost.
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