SandChigger wrote:This shit basically goes here in this thread:
Simon on Dumb Novels wrote:I think that a lot of the positive stuff BH and KJA bring is unfairly overshadowed by sillier items like worm measurements not matching up. I'm saying that the Dune series is an imperfect work, yet despite this it is still a great story. I'm the sort of person who finds beauty in imperfection and this series is an excellent example of that "beauty of imperfection".
Nekhrun wrote:There is a thread somewhere around here about FH mistakes as well. It's not like we haven't pointed out and discussed those as well.
Simon wrote:No doubt. I just don't see them painted in the negative light that the new books find themselves in so often. When Frank leaves holes I tend to hear "Use your imagination", with the new stuff it's "A lack of respect for the legacy". I guess my point is that it seems less than even handed critique at times.
Because it's not the same thing, stupid.
(Beauty in imperfection? Jesus Eternal Effer of My Soul, it's not enough to be lodged up Kevin and Byron's bums, you have to have your head up your own as well?
)
There's no excuse for an author ever making a mistake, period. That is true, unchanging till the end of time, end of story, don't anyone even fucking think of trying to argue the point.
But...
(1) The Duniverse and characters and concepts of the series were FH's to develop and change as HE saw fit, between books and over time.
(2) It wasn't feasible (probably still isn't) to go back and revise new editions of the older books to keep them in line with later changes.
(2) FH wrote his books in a less technologically blessed period. I for one am therefore more inclined to cut him a bit more slack on mistakes than someone who "writes" while traipsing about outside and has access to our modern word-processing technology.
There's also this from a character thread, on Bronso of Ix:
Simon wrote:Bronso of Ix: In DM he is a brief character, a "faceless" historian. He is used to quickly illustrate that the evolution of Paul's empire came to be based on Fremen zeal for his god head, rather than strict Atreides morality (not to say it isn't there but it is definitely diluted by the mass religious ferver).
With PoD I felt like BH and KJA really added a new shade of horror to that chapter. Everything FH wrote holds true, but you find that Bronso was the son of Rhombur, a great friend of the Atreides prior to Paul's ascent. Darkly demonstrating that no one is safe from Muad'dib's Jihad.
Oh, bullshit, Simon. It's just another example of their incomprehensible need to make everyone of any note in the Duniverse a friend or a relative or a lover or an inner-anal-inhabitant of everyone else in the Duniverse. Oh, gawd, yes, it's SO MUCH MORE FUCKING POIGNANT if we learn that Bronso and Paul knew each other somewhat as boys. Sheesh.
