The Winds of Dune: When they blow, they also suck!

[Redstar]

Don't they also have "cones of silence", as used by the Count in Dune?

Yep. From Dune:

"There's a cone of silence between two of the pillars over here on our left," the Baron said. "We can talk there without fear of being overheard." He led the way with his waddling gait into the sound-deadening field, feeling the noises of the keep become dull and distant.

CONE OF SILENCE: the field of a distorter that limits the carrying power of the voice or any other vibrator by damping the vibrations with an image-vibration 180 degrees out of phase.

They're only mentioned in Dune, though. I guess Irulan never thought to install one. Or maybe Paul outlawed them.

Actually using a device that Frank gave us makes far more sense then stretching a scene a bit longer with action tags, especially when those actions imply a Bene Gesserit doesn't know how to be secretive.

[SandChigger]

Well, Jessica IS a bit dim in this one.

When Alia and Duncan come bouncing in holding hands and Alia is blurbbling on about a joyous event to cheer up the Empire after all the funerals and blah blah blah, it takes several paragraphs before she gets what's going on. (I can't be bothered to look for it now, read this morning, IIRC she actually asks Alia WTF she's on about. )

It's REALLY well-written.

[Freakzilla]

Well, Jessica IS a bit dim in this one.

When Alia and Duncan come bouncing in holding hands and Alia is blurbbling on about a joyous event to cheer up the Empire after all the funerals and blah blah blah, it takes several paragraphs before she gets what's going on. (I can't be bothered to look for it now, read this morning, IIRC she actually asks Alia WTF she's on about. )

It's REALLY well-written.

I don't think Keith gets the BG at all.

[Freakzilla]

Don't they also have "cones of silence", as used by the Count in Dune?

Yep. From Dune:

"There's a cone of silence between two of the pillars over here on our left," the Baron said. "We can talk there without fear of being overheard." He led the way with his waddling gait into the sound-deadening field, feeling the noises of the keep become dull and distant.

CONE OF SILENCE: the field of a distorter that limits the carrying power of the voice or any other vibrator by damping the vibrations with an image-vibration 180 degrees out of phase.

They're only mentioned in Dune, though. I guess Irulan never thought to install one. Or maybe Paul outlawed them.

Actually using a device that Frank gave us makes far more sense then stretching a scene a bit longer with action tags, especially when those actions imply a Bene Gesserit doesn't know how to be secretive.

Even if Jessica somehow forgot her BG training... She's an Atreides beneath that. Frank had all the
Atreides and their lieutenants speaking in Battle Language (Chakobsa) or using hand signs.

A wink is as good as a nod to a blind bat.

[SandChigger]

I don't think Keith gets the BG at all.

The BG, the Fremen, the Atreides, the Guild, the Corrinos, hell, the Imperium, the Duniverse.

Keith don't get shit about Dune, period.

[TheDukester]

I don't think Keith gets the BG at all.

He thinks they're the same as Jedi.

It's one of the reasons he's so easily able to dust off rejected Star Wars manuscripts and turn them into "Dune" books.

[Ampoliros]

i dont know if it's healthy for me to read any more of their crap

[Redstar]

Actually using a device that Frank gave us makes far more sense then stretching a scene a bit longer with action tags, especially when those actions imply a Bene Gesserit doesn't know how to be secretive.

Even if Jessica somehow forgot her BG training... She's an Atreides beneath that. Frank had all the
Atreides and their lieutenants speaking in Battle Language (Chakobsa) or using hand signs.

A wink is as good as a nod to a blind bat.

True enough. It seems it doesn't really matter what direction he goes in writing anything, since it's always the excuse for the same style of bad writing. Doesn't matter if he made Jessica a teenager trying to spread gossip or used a cone of silence, which may make a bit more sense, but when used by KaJe is going to suck the same way no matter what.

[SandChigger]

SHADDAM'S CLO...er, GHOLA ARMY!

Evidently Shaddam has secretly been building up a ghola army on Salusa Secundus for several years. KJA actually gets the reanimated corpse part right (Wow!), with many of them showing evidence of healed "mortal wounds". Shaddam had to turn to the Tleilaxu because (1) Muad'Dib has cut off the steady supply of prisoners and (2) has started terraforming activities which are gradually making the planet less hostile ... both factors cutting down on the pool of superior potential Saudarkar recruits.

Dune really does equal Star Wars in KJA's mind. Further proof:

When Jessica visits Tessia Vernius in her captivity on Wallach IX, the Mother School is being hit by strange weather: invisible mini tornadoes composed of "residual psychic energy" tearing about and causing destruction and general havoc.

Because, like, you know, the Bene Gesserit are just female Jedi and use their own version of the Force.

[Shadout]

i dont know if it's healthy for me to read any more of their crap

I'm happy I stopped after Dune 7. Reading this thread makes me want to cry.
Better to live in ignorance. Just like KJA taught me.

[DuneFishUK]

What!... what?... what!?

Don't get me wrong - PoD was shite and had loads of errors.. But for the first section at least it held reasonably true to the canon - there were problems, but tbh in the KJA scheme of things they were pretty minor (eg: the Pyramid thing). PoD was surprisingly close to the originals on that level - in that it added fuck-all: it was an entirely pointless book, choosing to largely just re-hash FH loose-ends and gaps from Dune and DM. Badly and pointlessly... but IIRC most of POS maintained at least a toe-hold in FH.

This... not so much

Bloody... what?!

[Mandy]

Psychic energy tornadoes!

[TheDukester]

... invisible mini tornadoes composed of "residual psychic energy" tearing about and causing destruction and general havoc.

Absolutely appalling.

[SandChigger]

NO! Dude, they're KEWL!

Add phew phew phew to pew pew pew and boom boom boom!

Last thing I read before the lights went out (my mind revolted and I lost consciousness ): Jessica bundles Irulan and Gurney into a 'thopter for a trip to Tabr and then has him set it down on the surface for another "Mama Jess tells all" flashback session. This is where she reveals that the BG offered her the Mother Superior-ship and also ordered her to kill Paul.

FUN TIMES!

[Freakzilla]

NO! Dude, they're KEWL!

Add phew phew phew This is where she reveals that the BG offered her the Mother Superior-ship and also ordered her to kill Paul.

FUN TIMES!

You've GOT to be kidding.

[SandChigger]

Dude ... I'm a PROFESSIONAL, would I kid about something like this?!

(OK, the Bronso singing "What I Did For Love" Priscilla stuff in the other thread was a joke, but here I'm completely serious. Like a frikking heart attack. Or a multicolored mini psychic tornado! )

When the BG summon Jessica to Wallach IX, Reverend Mother Superior Harishka (Margitay?) offers to step down and hand over her position to Jessica if Jessica will try to control Paul and stop him from sterilizing more planets. (This flashback is two years after the end of PoD, and Paul has just sterilized four planets.) Since they don't believe even she can control him, though, they suggest that she will have to kill him to save humanity.

They also suggest that he has actually become an Abomination and is being controlled by some evil past tyrant from his OM. Jessica tells them she'll have to think it over. Mohiam corners her after some Night Vigil ceremony Jessica has stuck around for and when she refuses to do what they demand, Stokiah the guilt-caster pops out of the shrubberies and tries to put the whammy of shame on her. Fortunately, however, Jessica has learned the secret of evading guilt from Tessia Vernius and focuses on happy things (unicorns and cute cherubs, maybe?) and her abiding love for her dead Duke Leto (treacherously killed by higher powers). This is where I vomited a little more in my mouth. Anyway, Jessica manages to turn the whammy attack around on them and leaves the attacking Sisters reeling and moaning as she runs away....

Later, on the Heighliner for home, she learns of the slaughter of Buddislamic monks on Lankiveil and Paul's threat to sterilize 11 more planets, and she decides that the BG were right and she has to kill him. When she gets back to Caladan, she gets a letter from Bronso on Ix, offering reconciliation and inviting her to come talk to him. When she gets there she finds out it was really Paul who wanted to meet with her and we get the "Mother, don't do what you're thinking of doing, help me!" bullshit scene I mentioned before.

The passages where she's convincing herself she needs to kill him are particularly vile.

[Freakzilla]

I don't think I want to know any more.

[dunaddict]

Dude ... I'm a PROFESSIONAL, would I kid about something like this?!

With the following passages you've (almost ) convinced me this stuff must be real:

They suggest that she will have to kill him to save humanity. [...] Stokiah the guilt-caster pops out of the shrubberies and tries to put the whammy of shame on her. Fortunately, however, Jessica has learned the secret of evading guilt from Tessia Vernius.[...] Jessica manages to turn the whammy attack around on them and leaves the attacking Sisters reeling and moaning as she runs away....

Later, she decides that the BG were right and she has to kill him.

Why? Because this is a classic example of a BH/KJA pointless plot: Write a chapter and then, later on, with a single line make that whole chapter totally redundant and unnecessary.

PS:
If you HAVE made all of this up, you've clearly mastered the 'art' of BH/KJA storytelling. Unfortunately it takes a truly sick and twisted person to achieve that feat! My condolences, you can look forward to many years of therapy if you want to regain your sanity.

[Tleszer]

As of 7:43 PM EST, I'm the only one who has responded to Byron's post of the Winds of Dune Tour Schedule. I think I'm going to try to make the one on August 9. Now, I just need an Orthodox Herbertarian t-shirt to wear and a picture commemorating the event... (Chig, I don't think wearing your shirt will work this time )

[SandChigger]

We need a shirt design, then!

(I'm interested to see if Hyron edits your sig-line over there! )

Cleveland, OH: Joseph-Beth Booksellers: Saturday, August 15th

Damn.

But BoBo is supposed to be there, too. (At least that was the STORY the last time I heard.) That opens up some possibilities....

[SandChigger]

With the following passages you've (almost ) convinced me this stuff must be real...

I suppose that it is always possible that the whole thing is an elaborate hoax on their part, that they created a bogus version and had it printed up, got one of the KJASF pooper troopers to contact me and pretend to be disenchanted and disgruntled with that group and offer to send me their ARC in revenge, hoping to dupe me into believing I had the real thing and would spoil it and then look stupid later. Yeah, I'm sure that's well within the realm of possibility.

But how really probable is it, considering how lazy these people are in general?

[SandChigger]

PAUL-MUAD'DIB ON MESSIAHS

"I have had many vision that guide my course, some after great consumption of melange, others through dreams. I took my name from the desert mouse, the muad'dib, the shape of the shadow on the second moon—and in many visions I have seen the moon, and shadows, growing dark ... maybe eclipsed." His voice trailed off, then he shook his head. "But that does not mean that all light is lost from that moon, or that my life has no purpose. Though caught inextricably in my own destiny, I will teach a lesson for all time, showing by example the danger of falling into the myth of the charismatic leader, the mistaken belief that following a heroic figure will always lead humankind to utopia. Such a myth is mass insanity, and must be destroyed. The legacy I leave is that my personal, very human, flaws are amplfied by the number of people who carry my banner into battle."

Right. So what about that shit at the end of Sandworms?

Oh, OK. It's bad ("mass insanity") for people for fall into a belief in the myth of a charismatic leader, but if that leader REALLY IS the Ultimate Kwisatz Haderach and REALLY WILL be creating a utopia for both Human & Machine, then that's OK, right?

[SandChigger]

By the way, this whole idea of the Bene Gesserit sending Jessica to kill Paul shows (again) either just how poorly KJA really understands how the Duniverse works or how little he tries to think things through in general.

Except for those rainbow-colored (I forgot that detail before) residual-psychic-energy mini-tornados flailing about during Jessica's visit to Wallach IX, I didn't notice any particular mention of the BG having any Navigators or other prescients about during the meeting where they ask/order Jessica to kill Paul. So what's to keep Paul from seeing it and knowing what was planned? (This IS still Wallach IX, where the "Gang of Four" meeting takes place at the beginning of Messiah. If it was necessary to have a Nav on hand then, later, why not for this earlier meeting as well? Stupid.)

Although Jessica leaves the BG planet having decided not to try to kill him, later on the Heighliner she changes her mind and decides to go through with it. Are we supposed to imagine that her presence on a Guild ship means she is covered by that ship's Navigator? But that doesn't work, either, because that Navigator isn't in cahoots with her, a part of her assassination plans.

Why wouldn't Paul see her coming lightyears away? And why doesn't this occur to either Jessica or the BG?

[Nekhrun]

We need a shirt design, then!

(I'm interested to see if Hyron edits your sig-line over there! )

Cleveland, OH: Joseph-Beth Booksellers: Saturday, August 15th

Damn.

But BoBo is supposed to be there, too. (At least that was the STORY the last time I heard.) That opens up some possibilities....

You have an Other Guy costume?

[SandChigger]

What do you really need for one?

A dirty blonde-brown curly-do wig and an ability to warp your face into a befuddled dumbfuck expression?