xcalibur wrote:if I understand this correctly, all this "OC Bible" did was take public domain scripture, compile it together, then put a Dune name on top. and for 20 bucks? Even if this compilation reflects how the OC Bible would've been composed (which I doubt), it's still blatant hucksterism.
As for this, I find the book interesting again, not because it truly reflects what the OCB would truly look like. Hello Marylou, to accomplish that, you would have to have a team of translators from a cross-section of the world's religions take seven years to create such a document, would you not? And they would have to create a separate volume of Commentaries, correct?
It is interesting simply because it reflects an attempt to "ecumenicalise" (if I may coin a word) religion. I know a lot of people DESPISE the very concept of such things. My own Church (the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, one of the more conservative Confessional Churches) would be horrified by the very thought of the thing. It would probably keep the President of the Synod up at night. I mean, we have a hard enough time finding even other Lutherans we can mix with, let alone non-Christians!
XCALIBUR, to be honest, they did NOT put a Dune name on top of anything. They called it the Orange Catholic Bible. There is a picture of sand on the cover. In fact, unless you know what you are about, you might not know that it is related to Dune at all. It is simply entitled, "The Orange Catholic Bible" Then it says beneath that, "In the Future the OCB will Unfold Reality". Then it lists as the author(s) something called "International Council on Interplanetary Religion".
Nowhere in the text does the thing say that it is connected to Dune or Frank Herbert. It does use quotes from the Orange Catholic Bible as they are found in the Frank Herbert canon. But if you had never read Frank Herbert, or never heard of him, you would assume the book had been published with the intent of being a model for what a Scripture could conceivably look like in the future.
Why does it not refer to Dune directly? Well, my guess is, they didn't want to get their asses sued. The designation "Orange Catholic Bible" is probably free to use. After all, if questioned about it, the situation in Northern Ireland makes the reference clear enough. Even the quotes from the Orange Catholic Bible in Dune itself could probably be excused simply because Dune was written a fair time ago. I myself got all six Dune novels, and the first two of what you call the Atrocities, off the Internet Archive for free. There must be SOME legal situation that allows that to occur. But I suspect that if the author(s) had actually USED the name Dune, they could have been sued by Brian and Friends.
as for the DE, it's hit or miss. Some of it is decent, some of it is ridiculous. I once thought of it as "semi-canon", but after a pointed discussion on here, I had to concede that it is not canon in any way. still, to my knowledge the DE is the only spinoff material worth reading. btw, you would probably not be surprised to know that Brian & Kevin "borrowed" from the DE.
Why does that NOT surprise me? They sound like men with very little imagination. Although I shall read the two books that they wrote that I do have (House Atreides and House Harkonnen) AFTER I am done with Frank's work, I suspect you are probably right.
ALL that having been said, I bought the OCB partly out of fond memory of childhood. Remember what I said about going to the Library and forcing the poor Librarian to search throughout the entire County Library System for a book (the OCB) that did not then exist! And this back before computers, when you had to use the Card Catalogue and the Microfiche! Bloody nightmare I put her through. But, like I said, I have AS. I did then, and still do, weird shit, albeit not anywhere near as weird now as back then. Poor patient Librarian. I put that woman through more Hell every time I went to the Library, being such a voracious reader. I mean, what DO you do with a nine year old who reads Shakespeare for fun?
So, call the OCB that is out now what you will. And maybe to the rest of you it would be a waste of money. And so be it. But to me it was worth it, partly just for Old Time's Sake. I think I can be allowed that, at least, without criticism.