Am I a filtered brainlet if I don't care for Dune (1965)? I think there are some great individual lines in Dune but the actual story is just Hamlet+The Man Who Would be King in space and doesn't seem nearly as original as it's made out to be. Is there something I'm missing?My favorite Dune books are actually Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune because the protagonists in those aren't super OP gods that know the future like Paul or Leto.
Read through Dune and Messiah and stopped there. Messiah is better than Dune btw.
>>25287152The plot and Paul's character arc is supposed to be archetypalDune is a classic because of its worldbuilding
I gave up after 2/3 of the book. Boring.
no, awful book
>>25287152>Miles Teg isn't a super OP god
>>25287152>doesn't seem nearly as original as it's made out to beWhat other sci-fi novels are more original than Dune, in your opinion?
>>25287330A Princess of MarsDo Androids Dream of Electric Sheep FoundationElric, if that counts
>>25287442>A Princess of MarsTypical pulp magazine story of the period.>Do Androids Dream of Electric SheepIn what way are robots original? Especially by the late 1960s?>FoundationStandard space opera setting.>Elric, if that countsIt doesn't, but see my first remark. Pulp is never original. It's just a rehash of the same common tropes.
>>25287152I feel the same. The next three books fix it by basically subverting the hell out of all of it, including making it come across as in-setting propaganda writen by Irulan. God Emperor makes it all worth it.Probably my biggest misgiving is the amount of time that the first half spends on building up the Baron as a cool and dangerous villain, so that the other half can make him look like a total retard and kill him off stupidly.
>>25287558>In what way are robots original? Especially by the late 1960s?I like Dune but you're being a bit reductive here. Electric Sheep is just about robots? It's like saying Dune is about deserts.
>>25287648What is particularly original about Electric Sheep? Its philosophical ponderings? Because that used to be what sci-fi was all about.
>>25287648he's obviously baiting
>>25287651Robots that are externally perfect mimics of humanity, which we have no means of analysing internally (for the most part). Do you have to take an internal state of consciousness on faith based on external appearance? Is there an alternative to that? Feasible technology that creates an image of a man without any possibility of God being the creator."philosophical ponderings" is reductive again. What's original about any book? Words? Books are always all about words.>>25287662You're probably right. I'll peel off here.
>>25287651It's a sort of perfect opposition to Asimov's concept of a robot as essentially a golem; this thing is a slave and that is a good thing because humanity needs slaves and besides we can make them happy to be slaves! But actuallly doing so is pretty difficult because of our own insecurities interfering with the otherwise innocent and sinless system.Dick is essentially saying that this is a pointless endeavor in the first place, any functional replica of human will never be a slave. Truly autonomous labor cannot exist without truly autonomous ontology.In both cases it is a very present and pressing question, as befits science fiction. Humans objectify each other all the time. Parents objectify their children. Employers objectify their employees. They are not stories about robots learning to be more humans, they are stories about the perils of mankind turning into machines.
>>25287152>Am I a filtered brainlet if I don't care for Dune (1965)?No but you're a brainlet for asking that question.
I found God Emperor to be significantly more literary than the first three, haven't read anything after that. I liked the first one as a teen and finally slogged through children of dune, God emperor was completely worth it. The other ones aren't bad, but it seems like the series is going in a less cool direction, then it really delivers with God Emperor raising ideas which go beyond the scope of the earlier ones
>>25287152Reading through it now and I'm having a jolly good time
>>25287152>I think there are some great individual lines in DuneOnes he wrote himself or stole?
>>25289743Herbertbros... We're fruads.
>>25289743most of these lines aren't the ones the book is known for like >The mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.>The people who can destroy a thing, they control it.>Survival is the ability to swim in strange water.
