What's his memory-restoration trigger? Reading his son's books. The Tleilaxu did use pain and conflict, after all.

🤣🤣🤣

I agree ehehe

Or what I tend to use the quantum physic/multiverse and timelines. Like the Link's multiple timelines. Is the Starwars issue, don't like the new sequels, simple in your own universe timeline only occurred ep1 to 6 then they live happy ever after. Like the new sequels, then in your universe the sequels events happened, multiverse theory allows that. Maybe this can be apply here.

Has anyone stopped to think that the story of dune not ending the way it was "supposed to" is actually perfectly meta for Frank's original intent? "Look at this awesome space adventure! Isn't it cool? Can't you see yourself in this guy? NOPE! your heroes are frauds and you should never trust your leaders!"

That's exactly the way I felt a bout Chapterhouse, that it would be the end of the series and would at the same time suggest that there is no end. Through Duncan Idaho, in this book, mankind faces their creators in the characters of Daniel and Marty, who actually stand for the creators of the book, Frank and Beverly Herbert. OF COURSE these characters would appear to be face dancers, because that's essentially what authors are, taking the shape of the characters that they create while writing the story.

This

@@christianealshut1123 Doesn't quite square with their appearance in Heretics of Dune. They ask to stop being spied on, but if anything they are spying on their characters. I admit that there is some meta stuff going on, but I dont think its that simple. Daniel and Marty seem real in universe. I think they are face dancers that have absorbed many gods reaching an even higher form of godliness. But they are still using the laws of the universe which is how Duncan can escape their net.

@@BT-oj1bn They are real, and they are Face Dancers, because these are the only terms that Duncan Idaho can see and describe them in. As creators of the Dune universe and all the characters in it, they have to put themselves (figuratively) into the shape and bodies of their characters through whom they speak, and that is, strictly speaking, precisely what a Face Dancer within the Dune universe does - pretend to be someone else than they are. Duncan Idaho may be the ultimate Kwisatz Haderach and he may have gotten a glimpse beyond the fourth wall of the universe of which he is a part, but he is still bound by the concepts of this universe and can only express himself in its terms. He gets a glimpse, yes, but he does not FULLY understand what he sees because he is not part of that other universe.

@@christianealshut1123 ok, but even if you don't buy my analysis what about what they say to each other here Daniel chuckled. "That would've been funny. They have such a hard time accepting that Face Dancers can be independent of them." "I don't see why. It's a natural consequence. They gave us the power to absorb the memories and experiences of other people. Gather enough of those and..." They are talking like they are face dancers. I'm sure these are not things they would say to each other even in Frank's imagination. Unless he was imagining himself as an actual face dancer in his book, which I could totally buy. But then he is an advanced face dancer, not an author.

this.

There are only SIX Dune books. Everything since is exploitation and, more importantly, poorly written trash.

$$$$$

Yep

I thought it was that omnius and the butlerians were both extremists and wrong. Humans and machines living together in harmony and all

In god emperor, it's implied that the machines will return in a vision he showed Siona. Which I think is fine, but clearly how the series "ends" was absolute trash. They just wanted to connect the "end" to the prequels they had already written. There's no way that's how Frank Herbert was going to end things.

+Duncan, it would've been better had the final books have Marty and Daniel (evolved face dancers) colluding with Omnius and Erasmus (AI machines) and they together be like the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse, bringing doom to the humans. Then, also, at the same time, it is revealed that Marty & Daniel and Omnius & Erasmus are having verbal disputes/disagreements and plotting to backstab each other.

@@impcnrd i think it would have been better if marty and daniel had been face dancers that absorbed omnius and erasmus, instead of the other way around

Evolved facedancers fits in with the themes that Herbert laid out. The idea of generations of genetic manipulation and enhancement getting out of control. Its "wild talent" in action and perfectly plays against the Tleilaxu hubris. Also, why would they talk with EACH OTHER as if they are facedancers if they arnt? Why the weird breaking the 4th wall misdirection? That really does not fit into Herberts narrative.

They butchered what should have been one final book in the original series. They made an interesting House trilogy but otherwise their other works are terrible and tortuous.

The thing is at various times they’ve said the notes are 30 pages or just a few pages. I’m guessing the notes were just a very slight outline and if they released them now people would be angry about how little of books 7 and 8 are actually from Frank Herbert

+Brendan Walsh, I agree.

It can’t cheapen the classic series if you don’t read them. Kind of like how, whoever’s making new Star Wars movies is of no interest to me. I’ve got the Despecialized Editions of the only three movies that matter to me in that series. And I’ve got the Dune novels to reread any time I feel like immersing myself in that world again.

@@Activated_Complex that's my opinion too, ignorance is bliss as far as I'm concerned! Everything I've heard/read about the BH & KJA books makes my brain bleed from the amount of nerd rage I feel.

I suspect we already know how he would have ended it, and it’s the way he did. He admitted once that he deliberately tried to stop each book at a point in its narrative that would not offer a satisfying conclusion. One could accuse him of doing so to keep fans coming back to buy more sequels, but the themes of the series point over and over to the notion that history will never simply run its course (unless that means apocalypse), I can’t imagine a seventh book would have ended on a more conclusive note than the sixth did. Furthermore, I think Frank Herbert just didn’t have the drive and energy to keep going after his wife died, and he must have known his own time was running short. I subscribe to the notion that Marty and Daniel were author stand-ins created to offer valediction to long time fans; it’s kind of lame but I do think it’s the biggest sentimental gesture his personality would have allowed. I believe there are no notes and that Brian Herbert invented them as a marketing ruse.

@@aperson22222 You pretty much summed it up for me

@@aperson22222 actually if you knew anything about novel writing there are usually massive amounts of notes and outlines authors write out ahead of time the fill in the blanks as the write. They normally write out and structure of the book touching on the major topics almost like a lattice, then as they start writing the meat of the book the fill in story with much more detail.

@@JR-cd1ol Okay? That doesn’t mean he was planning on writing a novel at all. Don’t act like an arrogant smart ass just because you misunderstand what other people are saying.

Well, Frank had left us with "final Duncan" on the no-ship and the advanced face dancers with their tachyon web. Remember, by absorbing consciousnesses from their victims, they have acquired many new skills along the lines of a KH - however they may not actually "slurp" in the part that counts in this battle. Showdown between them of some sort - my guess is the "win" would be caused by one of those face dancers trying to absorb Duncan, whose deep ingrained instincts would kick in and instead of him just having access to the current life and the memories of the original Duncan, he would gain access to all of the knowledge, all of the experience, and all of the sense of "self" that came from all of those lives... a face dancer trying to absorb such a person might actually be sucked in BY them, followed in quick succession by the others - if they weren't all dealt with at that same instant. Kev guessed right that final Duncan was very important; we might guess that Leto had seen that the only way to win at Kralizec was to create such a being - one who lived over and over and always had that same sense of self and duty and honor. Such a person exposed to thousands of lives as that same basic person may be so firm in their sense of self they may laugh off an attack by an opponent able to slurp up most humans, even those with lots of gifts like BG or mentats. That's my personal thought on how Frank would have ended the saga... definitely no soap opera AIs that are supposedly wise beyond compare but act like petulant toddlers (some of the worst writing I've ever forced myself to read in my life).

That is a plausible interpretation if there had been some signs of creating the environments needed for the sandworms elsewhere. Possibly the actions were to ensure the political viability of such a project but the delay seems long.

@@Lawofimprobability Remember they tried with Shahlud and it failed it wasn't till Shatan that they could be taken off world and survive.

It could very well be both. The sandworms being limited to a single world meant that either there would be a tyrannical monopoly on travel hindering humanity forever, or endless war over the only source of the spice up until artificial means were created, and artificial means can be lost under the right circumstances. Best to ensure both a diaspora of humanity AND sandworms because because without spice, humanity is trapped and easy pickings.

That’s a fascinating take, you’re on to something there.

But before Spice long distance travel was already fast and possible, just more dangerous. Sandworms are only crucial because of Leto.

I agree. Too short. I feel it ended rather abruptly. Good discussion!

Well said.

@@dominokos keep in mind he's doing his best to allow us to read between the lines, and not directly provoke that talentless hack KJA. He's almost as bad as a Scientologist - he tolerates no criticism, and of course since his "additions" to Dune are all laughable, there is a LOT of legitimate beef... which he will not tolerate on any level. He's the ultimate thin-skinned loser. If you dare to criticize the "Dune and Friends" books in any way in the main Facebook group, your post gets deleted, flagged as hate speech, or you might just be booted from the group... courtesy of KJA, his wife, or Brian's annoying spoiled daughter who hasn't caught on that daddy can't write fiction to save his life, and it was ALL Kevin (but she insists daddy wrote "a lot"). For some astonishingly bootlicking reason, the admin of the page allowed those three to become admins... hello, conflict of interest?

@@chouseification dude. You ok?

@@adamlombard3771 You're obviously extremely new here if you ask that. Kevin is notorious for chasing down those people who dare to criticize his "amazing" novels, even though little children can write better without even trying.

I can't speak for Frank Herbert of course but we could already see in God-Emperor that the Tleilaxu were making changes in the Duncans, by the time of Chapterhouse Duncan has gone through so many iterations and alterations/improvements, and let's not forget the memories of around 5000 years worth of lives. So I don't think Duncan started special, apart from the mutual bond with Paul/Leto, he evolved over millenia into this amazing being. Millenia of groundhog days... ;)

Style note: I wanted to read your post but it defeated me. My eyes glazed over. In future, you might consider breaking up the text into paragraphs, one main idea for each paragraph. Then put blank lines between paragraphs. Yes, Retired School Librarian and teacher / MI US

@@veramae4098 Fair point. I seldom post on KZfaq, and I wasn't actually sure that a KZfaq reply was formattable. Try it now!

@@davidrhode7019 I think Duncan represents the idea that everyone could become the Kwisatz Haderach if pushed enough, evolved enough, and exposed to enough over enough serial lives. Just like the Bene Gesserit, Mentats, and Spacing Guild are about the maximizing of human potential in three different areas (politics for the first, mathematics for the second, math and physics for the third), I've always seen Duncan as the next step: surpassing human potential. Making superbeings not from 10,000 years of galaxy-wide selective breeding, culminating in a being who could not be sufficiently predicted or understood, as well as all of these other near-KHs such as Feyd Rautha, Count Fenring, and doubtless many others over the long millennia prior to Dune and in the, what, 15,000 years after? Taking a single man, already understood, and seeing what needed to be done to elevate him to this near-Godhood. Why then could the process not be 1) separated from the spice as much as possible (as it was...) thus removing a dangerous, single-point-of-failure dependency...2) shortened, reduced in difficulty, reduced in expense, and made possible without a nearly-immortal demigod like Leto II overseeing the process, or conversely, the KHs and the full BG Reverend Mothers choosing to be immortal, each with the obligation not only to physically procreate, but also to raise 2 other beings to KH/RM status. The intersection, ultimately, of the breeding program KH and the serial incarnation KH. And yes, I think this was all done for human survival over not just 20 or 30,000 years, but for millions across multiple galaxies. Add Siona's invulnerability to prescience to the Mentat and BG powers, and even a spice-independent form of what the Guild Navigators do, and you could have humanity as a collection of nearly immortal, nearly omniscient (in a very limited sense) beings with the memories of their past incarnations, the voice, prana bindu training, truth-sensing, total physiological control, and perhaps even prescience, though it's unclear how that would work in a universe populated with trillions of prescience-immune Bene Haderachs.

If Duncan represent Humanity, than he is doing a great job... Though he sacrifices himself every time, he is an important figure that helps to protect humanity. What is interesting Atriedies should had all died as harkonens were superior in sneak attacks, thus they were stronger. Changing the course of human history was really bad move, humanity become weaker with messiah, they were too dependent on 1 guy.... Shouldering 1 guy with the fate of humanity is too big for human to handle, so his son become a god, or at least partly a god, a being that is beyond imagination.... Also that being is also an alien, as worms are not native creatures... We kind of know that aliens exist, and yet they never seen, even in the future of Latos, but he is preparing nukes for them if they come... And Latos is not certain about the future, he always have to navigate from different timelines... Machines are 2nd biggest threat to humanity, 3rd biggest threat are human themselves... Why Latos is so keen to save humanity trough course of time? What is the meaning of humanity in universe, what it is true purpose, to fill the void with human warmth and population? Or is there no purpose for humanity just to extend infinitely and evolve? And interesting that Latos did not foresee another beings like him, though his purpose was to eliminate Sisterhood doing - creating beings like him in first place... Though as long as sistershood exists, they can recreate... So undoing sisterhoods doing should had ended with sisterhood annihilation... But then again humanity would not had survived this long.... So he kind of conflicts with himself...

Yea .. it’s was a bit much

Yeah. It was just an excuse to bring back all the original characters and it felt so cheap and unimaginative.

Totally. They failed miserably.

Here! Have some nostalgia! *throws dead characters at people*

And this is why we should never pass the torch to our children like letting them follow the footsteps of our authors/artists to print money from their works. They should carve their own paths.

So excited to see it in a couple weeks

I agree on the movie as a whole. But the attack on Arrakeen was my major disapppointment. The ships too big, way too much rockets and fire power, the Sardaukar not disguised as Harkonnen soldiers and too little physical battle. In my view / memory. Opinions?

Stfu know it all

@@marcelsmit7685 I think the Sardaukar were disguised as Harkonnen soldiers? It's just that Duncan Idaho recognized them because of the way they fought. That's how I understood it.

@@matthewtaylordeoppressolib7141 good argument! 👏

The encyclopedia was canon? So did the sand worms evolve on dune like in the encyclopedia or were they brought there like Frank's novels say?

Frank’s novels reference the Butlerian Jihad, also the battle of corrin and that works were seeded on Arrakis.

the encyclopedia itself contradicts the original novels

Also, frank's novels contradicts frank's novels, there are a lot of inconsistencies througout the books

@@smitty1647 Encyclopedia is an in-universe book with a lot mistakes, some of which are intentional. The Butlerian Jihad in that book is so brilliant and much better than any of that Cymek shit.

Agree, I went twice!

How did you guys get into a screening?

Went twice! So nice of them to show the movie early in The Netherlands

Im so so so excited oml. I've become the biggest nerd in my freindgroup but I can't wait. I hate going out in theaters for movies that aren't worth it but god I'd go to the biggest most crowded most dirty theatre if I had to for this movie. I cant wait

@@christophercarrigg3775 The film is already screening in the international market - a month before the US release.

Amazing perspective, i always had a similar one. Also, on the topic of Daniel and Marty, it always fascinated me that they could clearly perceive Duncan INSIDE the no-ship. Meaning that it seems Leto's grand plan was starting to backfire as now there were greater levels of prescience than Leto ever knew. With Miles being able to locate no-ships, and Duncan's ascension in his abilities, now we see two beings (possible upgraded face dancers, a different form of "thinking machines") surpassing Leto's plan. Almost as if evolution itself was counteracting the Golden Path

I’ve always believed that Brian has been MOSTLY telling the truth about his father’s notes, but kept them a secret (unlike, say, Christopher Tolkien, who shared them freely), because he saw an opportunity to milk them far beyond what his dad intended and further his own career. Unlike humble Christopher, Brian has never come to grips with being better at editing and collaborating then at writing his own material. I think he always had enough material, IF he had been humble like Christopher, to finish the second to last book and then write an extensive appendix, and that’s IT. There’s definitely recognizable bits of his father in them both, but less and less as you go through them. The critical gap is definitely in the transition, perhaps a retcon, to turn the ostensible face dancer leaders into the Machine Lords. THAT was jarring. It suggests that there was a critical gap of detail in the notes regarding the “Final Boss”; just WHAT was their relationship with the exiled machines? What was in it for them? I’m betting that Frank was still wrestling with how to structure this when he died, which in turn left Brain drifting without a paddle on this critical point. We would have forgiven him if he’d just be honest about it. I’ve decided to acknowledge THOSE two as legitimate Canon, and his “Jihad” and “Crusade” books as Appendixes that might have a few legit drops in them, here and there. The rest is CRAP. Forget about them.

Or it could be just a marketing trick.

My position is, if they say they found his notes, and followed them in planning out their own books, fine. I’m not going to question that, because I don’t need to. The plain and simple fact is that notes are just notes. Having read the plot details of their series, I seriously doubt that the author of the classic Dune novels would have actually gone forward with that storyline, and his epilogue to the series convinced me that, at the time he wrote it, he had no intention of moving forward with a seventh Dune book. But some shelved notes for a possible follow-up? As a writer, I can believe that. I write stuff all the time that I have no serious intention of sharing.

Kevin J. Anderson said in the interview with Preston Jacobs that the notes were messy and incopled and it was supper hard to orient just in drafts of published books.

I refuse to even read them. Seems like a son just humping his father's legacy. No thanks.

I wonder if they were written on golden tablets that could only be read by special golden sunglasses that only they had access to

"Ghola-mania" as someone put it.

“Gholas. He’s welcome to them.” - Daniel (who might just be Frank)

To be fair, Chapterhouse did vaguely hint that Scytale was going to create a whole bunch of gholas in Dune 7.

@@thegoodwin Gholapalooza

Honestly, with respect to your last sentence: the truth is probably both. The Herbert Frankensteinian abominations are both opportunistic tools to accumulate wealth AND *attempts* to honor Frank Herbert and finish out his Dune saga. BH's tragic flaw is hubris: he is not even close to the genius writer his father was (he's middling at best). Herbert's estate probably should have pulled a Wheel of Time and outsourced the sequel to a talented science fiction writer (this did work with Robert Jordan / Brandon Sanderson) but with BH possibly a significant part of that decision, the keys went to him and we have this flaming bag of poo. And the Encyclopedia should be canon too. ....Or at least, we might as well think of it as canon, because anything BH has written which contradicts it is of inferior quality.

@@dante6985 But does BH actually write any of this? I honestly have no idea. My take is that his name is on the books to 'legitimize' the title, Dune. Anderson is the author; BH is the name drop advertisement campaign. A couple other examples of this 'fraud' perpetrated on readers is 'Tom Clancy' novels written long after his death. You're not getting a Clancy novel, you're getting someone else's work...marketed with Clancy's name...to make $$$. Clive Cussler is another example.

I've read them to see how far they had gone. It is a shallow of what Frank Herbert wrote.

Yes, the expanded universe's writing style and tone are jarringly different than the original, but they aren't that bad.

Agreed👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

Hear! Hear!

It's the Spice Withdrawal, my friend. It's been rationed.

All praise Quinn, the Great Narrator (or Orator) of Dune!!

He"s not narrating the books, he's giving you a TL;DR version. Which is cool, but not the same as reading the book. Don't let the cliffs notes be your only experience of these books.. read them.

They got together and figured they needed a clever excuse to piddle all over Frank's work. "I know - let's say it's what he wanted!"

"Endosymbiosis"

@@whattheactualfk9190 yes, for the most part. However, considering Leto II is the first instance of such an attempted endosymbiosis, I suspect that both of their genomes are totally intact and therefore if you clone an entire organism from a single cell, which one is cloned depends on which nuclei you're using. But Leto II as God Emperor doesn't entirely fit into the endosymbiosis model because the God Emperor chimera is made from two complex multicellular organisms whereas endosymbiosis in the real world is between a multicellular organism and a single cell organism (broadly speaking).

@@maxmercer1931 If one organism was taken over at the genetic level by another or even merged stopping normal protein production and phenotypic expression etc, it would have resulted in (cell) death for said organism or both organisms by definition, so that wouldn't have happened. It was still Leto albeit with new worm 'instincts' that sometimes could dominate. So you're entirely correct..... Still, 'sci fi'. And Herbert was really quite vague as to how this was all possible and would work as it is fairly 'out there' and fantastical (rather than hard sci fi) as a story development anyway...

@@maxmercer1931 Yes, but when Leto is killed by falling into River Idaho abd disintegrates into a multitude of sandtrout, each fo these would carry a mixture of his genes and those of the worm. But I think the entity formed of Leto and the worm still comprised two different entities, with Leto depending more on the worm than vice versa. But didn't it also say that as soon as this process started with Leto II, he also stopped maturing and physically remained a 9-year-old boy forever? At any rate, I am always puzzled by all the fanart depicting Leto as the worm and giving him the face of a mature and even an old man - he should still have the face of a prepubescent boy, as he never entered puberty.

Who knows, cellular memory including memory stretching back for generations was total nonsense but a huge part of the Dune Universe. Leto II mused that his brain was no longer a vulnerability but mutated to spread throughout his body. His mutated human body remained on the riverbank after the sandtrout were released for DNA collection. One can assume the human DNA with some sort of cellular memory consistent with canon persisted. Leto could not reproduce, that doesn't mean his cellular DNA was destroyed.

Having re-read them yeah... you do not miss anything.

Same, I don't think there's much to be gained from reading them, I'm hoping that the Sisterhood TV series ends up in development hell.

They were pretty enjoyable overall with some bad and some good. The sorceresses were stupid and pointless, Erasmus is the best character in the series with the possible exception of Leto, and humanity rejecting computers then becoming computers was begging for someone to see through the pointlessness

I ignore them and consider them not canon.

I think after the fh books the story was finished in my mind, like a cliffhanger but without actually continuing it

the sad but very simple reality is that KJA started typing before even bothering to reread (or skim) the 6 official novels in the series. It was a world famous cliffhanger we talked about all the time on newsgroups and web sites, long before the lie about "the notes" happened. What we can understand from this is that neither Brian nor Kevin even remembered that Chapterhouse ended with such a famous cliffhanger. That's so telling it's funny. Also, they admitted finding Frank's boxes of character and faction dossiers (the real notes) after having written the House trilogy. They put the cart ahead of the horse and painted themselves into a corner through sheer laziness. Nothing else explains that abomination.

@@chouseification I honestly didnt enjoy the last two books that much and Im not even sure I would have liked Herbert's real ending judging by the way those books kind of flailed around with extraneous material. That said, the reprise of all of the major characters as clone babies sounds like the worst of 90s TV writing and not at all something I ever want to read.

@@patreekotime4578 yeah it was major cringe, and the funny part is that KJA probably thought he was doing fan service by having the old crowd show up. Nope, not at all. :D

@@chouseification fan service is lazy writing. The idea that some of these characters would show up as ghoulas in the future is certainly alluded to in Chapterhouse, but even there it made me cringe because I felt like Herbert was writing himself into a bad corner by changing all of the rules of cloning at the last minute. Like I said, I probably would not have enjoyed Herberts ending anyway. For my money, a good character is one that moves the story. When you have characters who can be erased and the story doesnt change, then those are just fluff. And the last two books had VERY FEW characters that actually moved the story and way too much fluff.

Frank Herbert wasn't always consistent with his own material; I think he was more interested in making each book interesting by itself as long as it fit the overarching themes of the series, than he was in letting himself be constrained by canon. That being said, Frank's inconsistencies I think were a lot subtler than Brian and Kevin's. Disappointing, but it also wouldn't surprise me if their thinking really did run along the lines of "Well, Dad made lasguns purple in one book and red in another, so why can't Daniel and Marty be AIs instead of Face Dancers?" Yeah, I didn't like it when Clarke did that to 3001, either. It's the author's IP to do with as he sees fit, but as a reader I'd like to know how tightly I should be hanging on to old material when I pick up a new book.

9:01 for reference.

I actually did not care for Hunters or Sandworms of Dune. Mostly because of the inconsistencies, and Leto II’s Ghola just being wasted like that… Bothered me. That and the Deus Ex Machina repeat conclusion. Personally I think the same idea as you. That particular Ghola would have found a quiet place and stayed out of the way.

But it wasn't a cliff hanger ending. The man died. He meant to finish it.

No, it's the ultimate kwisatz haderach, who has shed his physical existence to become pure spirit...

I mean... Kevin J. Andersons other work is absolutely fucking brilliant tho. One of my top sci fi writers. But I agree that Hunters and Sandworms felt more like fan fic from somebody who didn't really understand the original work that well

Frank Herbert's son is just MILKING the DUNE franchise (there is ONLY 1 Frank herbert)

They have too many stupid retcons. Why? Why shattering the fan base and integrity of Dune lore? Why annoying hard-core serious Dune fans? I never understand. They could gain more of money and fame by just being very strict and loyal to FH's every single decision in the saga. Just add your own comment, new characters and events. But be strict to main point and main features of a character's timeline. Why not doing this? You cannot retcon such kind of book saga as if it is a DC or Marvel storyline. Am I wrong? Well, where are these famous notes of FH then? They should have published them as appendix. To be honest, I really truly wanted to love BH&KJA books. I was exited when I first heard them. "Expanded Duniverse, Jihad and House Trilogy? Sequels? Wow, I am gonna read them all!" I thought. Then I read Houses, learned the plot summaries of Jihad Trilogy and Sequels. And I am just frustrated. Huge disappointment. And this is not because of their writing style, use of language and narration way. I never expected a perfect science fiction literature work, that would be mean and unfair. I just wanted consistency, loyalty, integrity and respect. I never found. Expanded universe books seem like a mixture of subpar version of Game of Thrones and Terminator. But Dune is not a Terminator story, never has been. What FH tried to tell as we deduce the hints inside the original novels: People invent machines and AI and so eventually became slaves of their of pride and greed. So they use machines as tools to subjugate other people with too much admiration, boundage and proud for their own inventions. Then other people start an uprising to people who slave them with AI (thinking machines). Other people won. Mind-body schools (space navigators, Bene Gesserits) established and consumption of huge amounts of melange started. Melange took the place of thinking machines as supplement to increase human performance in life. Slavery and plan within plans never ended. Because the real problem was always within humanity, not in puppet machines or melange. Leto II the God Emperor saw this and that is why he started the process called Golden Path. He saw that feudal society led by Universal Empire was not the solution for humanity. So he wanted to save humanity from humanity itself. He wanted humanity to be evolved by scattering. Thus, "The Greatest Enemy" at the end of the time, at the time of anticipated Kralizec is not machine invaders. It is warring human groups themselves. It is stagnation caused by humans itself. Yes, in Terminator like story people become slaves of their own inventions too. But there is an important difference between Terminator like story and FH's own idea: According to FH, people became slaves of machines by not losing reins. But in Terminator people lost reins. The first one is more deep and tragic actually.

I think no matter how smart Anderson is a writer it's impossible to capture the same ideas and concepts as Herbert. It just can't ever be the same

I agree, it is hard to beat the master. But we mere mortals do enjoy expanding the universe. The universe and characters are sooo entertaining.

@@robertfrost1683 I admit that they are very entertaining (especially House Trilogy). They are also fast-paced to read. Some people say they are boring and with no inspiration. No, they do not have to be inspirational and original with new ideas. In addition, I do not think that BH&KJA are totally untalented and bad writers. They just give too much unnecessary details in some parts, and repeat the same thing in a couple of pages constantly (in House Trilogy, for example). However, retcons are unforgivable in my opinion. My only problem is the existence of silly and unnecessary retcons which shatter the integrity of Duniverse unnecessarily.

Ya what a dead end that was . I got so excited after that encounter with baby Leto. But it was metal as fuck imagining him riding worms through synchrony wrecking shit lol

Yeah I think that conversation and answer would have been good. Too bad they flushed that story arc (and the character) down the toilet.

More so, because Duncan carries a uniqueness to always question whilst being loyal and “testing the limits”. In CH, Bolonda chooses not to kill Duncan because of his “talent” he is able to school the sisters due to awakening his serial memories amongst new talents (seeing the net). However, it took many lives for Duncan to come to such a point. Leto states that his genes are a benchmark in which the new humans are measured by, “he is the old” and also unknown based on what the Tleilax have added ( I have a feelings he represents the “convergence between machine & humans” as he was “not born via a birth canal” ) Considering that Duncan (original) had died prior to Leto’s birth, I would not put his gholas resurrections to Leto liking him, he had Ghani, Harq al ada, and many others to choose from.

@Paul Ridgeway but Leto also positioned him to made over and over again after Paul and himself. It’s is also hinted that Duncan holds an “ideal”. His ability to always question and drive the new, it took many iterations but I think Leto was always aware of this potential. Just like he could implant the message in the caves to the BGs in Heretics of Dune, I think it is more than a simple liking otherwise He Norrie or others would of got remade.

Maybe they do exist, but all that's written on them is "write more dune books"

Yeah, those are my thoughts, I wonder if those exists at all. My impression is that Brian tried to make a franchise similar to Star Wars. Commercially they could make more money, now that the Brian's book have been on the market for a while, by releasing a new edition of the Dune Encyclopedia WITH Frank's notes as an addendum. I sure would buy that.

Jamás creí decir esto... pero suena muy bien. Aun que.. sería raro

I agree with everything you said

The books his son wrote are ok. Not as good as Frank's but who can compare with original dune? One of the prequels his son wrote was about the humankind uprising against machines. Fairly well done. I think there's a few references to it in originals

Have you tried reading any of Frank Herbert's other books? None of them really measure up to Dune in my opinion, but they are still worthwhile. Several of them are very similar to Dune in theme and setting.

@@tobyvision I've read the one about zombies on the moon station or Mars station. That was good

That’s because a Tleilaxu scientist whilst creating the first spice substitute made the best face-dancers. They were capable of copying and pasting human memories to perfection. Then they decided to explore the universe or galaxy alone before finding Omnius (he wasn’t fully destroyed as remember an Omnius copy had used probes to colonise unknown parts of the universe or galaxy, and no one knew about it). Omnius incorporated these face dancers and used them to convert human memories into data. He could then use this data to understand humans, so that he’ll be able to defeat them, and now he’s more human. It’s also mentioned the all the AI in the Dune universe had already been programmed to feel emotions, which were deactivated for aeons. Erasmus had discovered some of this when he had a father-son bond to an adopted human. Therefore, it isn’t surprising that in the last 2 books that Omnius is now more human-like.

I'm gonna nitpick. I thought the prequels about Leto were... ok. Better than the other books they made. The idea you are referring to is that Leto had a previous lover before he met Jessica. She also bore him a bastard son and she also was kinda jealous that he refused to marry her or at least make her his official concubine so her kid could be his heir. This previous lover betrayed Leto in her jealousy and her betrayal killed his first son as an infant (she did not plan for the kid to die.) ...I actually thought that worked. It explained why characters like Thufir were so suspicious of Jessica. Because Jessica reminded them of this previous lover who DID betray the Duke. I had no problem with that idea. It was only in the later books that I thought the "new" Dune books got irredeemably bad.

@@Will-tn8kq I actually didn't remember the context at all, I hadn't read them since they came out, I just remember thinking it was absurd. The other thing that sticks out in my memory was wasn't there a House Major who was literally just a bunch of circus clowns? In a different book though I think, but they kind of run together for me now since I haven't read or thought much about them for about 20 years. And to be fair, I seem to remember even kinda liking/not hating the ones set during the Butlerian Jihad. They were still pulpy trash, but separated enough from the originals that I could just enjoy the ride.

@@TheRukisama yes, I generally feel the same way. The Dune prequels were pulpy fan-fic that lacked the depth and especially the philosophy of the first ones. I am just nit-picking. The prequel books about Leto the first felt the least bad to me.

God emperor is and always will be my favorite

That and I don’t think it was really necessary to have him in the story.

Damn, thanks for the spoiler on Duncan. xD

Their writer quality is the least of it for me. It's the distorcion of his themes and ideas that is the most criminal. I mean Frank spent the first 3 books showing us why following charismatic leaders was dangerous only to have universe be ruled by a cybor Duncan and Murbella?! Which isn't even possible for them to do because of the Scattering! Also you start Hunters of Dune, completely forgetting the Ixian navigation machines already exist and eliminated the Guild's monol=poly on Space travel?!! It's madness!

@@pedroribeiro7922 Oh sure but by quality I didn't just mean the technical side of writing but the themes themselves as well.

I've always wondered the same thing. Its almost as if Paul and Chani are making it like the one that did die, never existed?

@@dave88861 For nobility/royalty the numbering doesn't occur until you assume the title normally. The numbering is for the title, not the person. Numbering in given name sense is a pretty american thing as far as I know.

@@Andreas-pt8le so simply put ... there could've been 100 "Letos" ... but none of them would be called "Leto II." until he became the duke/emperor ?

@@gamefan987 exactly