Jᴀᴄᴜʀᴜᴛᴜ - Tʜᴇ Cᴀsᴛ Oᴜᴛ

Ive been thinking about Brian Herbert's contribution to the new Dune books lately, and paging through one or two other books by him to try to get a comparison of the language. I know we have spoken about this before, and I have piped into those discussions. Half-jokingly I have agreed with others who say that KJA seems to have written the majority of the new books, and that it seems more and more that is true as the trilogies progress through time (with regard to publishing dates, that is).

Looking at the other books, Dreamer of Dune and Sudanna, Sudanna, I still tend to agree with this assessment. Most of the newer books have a harsher, almost angry edge to them that I dont much see in Brian Herbert's solo writing. For example, I dont see the Brian Herbert who wrote the passages in Dreamer of Dune about the strong maternal instincts of his mother could be teh same person who wrote some of the female characters in the Dune books.

I was thinking it may be a good idea to try to state in writing what evidence we think there is, pro and con, that Herbert had a diminished role in writing the new Dune books. Once we have done this, perhaps it will be possible to take an attempt at weighing the evidence and seeing if any answer stands out more clearly than the other.

Ive stated one con above. For the pro, I think that Omnius' fear of hyperspace may have been Herbert's attempt to write a bit of his own experience into the character. Though I dont know all the facts, it is commonly known that he was involved in a light plane crash years ago and now has a fear of flying.

What else have you all noticed?

KJA's megalo-maniacal desire to jump on to a franchise.

KJA's dictatorial output. There's no way Brian could write half a book a year considering his entire life's work to this point.

IMO:

1. KA is the hired hand, does all the writing, and BH does minor editing.

2. KA developed the story outlines, with review of BH.

3. If there was any FH outline at all, it was sparse on content. Water worms? Norma? Omnibus? Erashole? Missionaria Aggressiva? No "golden path"? No super face dancers?

3. BH has problems not only with fear of flying, but also dealing with all the criticism. Why would you shut yourself off from the internet unless you were afraid of what you would see? I'm surprised he attends any book signings at all. Prozac is cheap these days though, and good brandy can do wonders for the soul.

4. The HLP is happy because everybody is making money, and couldn't care less about a dead author's legacy.

5. Byron has a soft spot in his heart for the orthodox Herbert community, but money talks and BS walks at the end of the day.

6. Did BH hate his father? One can only speculate, but if I was him, I would have had to have thought little of him to put such a miserable effort into writing those "books", and hiring a lead writer who was known only for pumping out sci fi pulp.

JMHO

D'uh. Good one, Omph. I never made that connection between Omnius and BH's fear of (...everything?) flying.

Hmmm. Okay...that works for me on several levels.

Omnius is Brian. He's the one nominally in control...but we find out in the end that it was really Erasmus pulling the strings the whole time. And that Omnius is a nearly brainless bumbler.

Erasmus is Kevin. Full of himself, cross-dressing but woman-hating, nasty.

I LIKE!


Seriously, though, if you take their (=Kevin's) version of how they write things at face value, they both edit and rework ALL of the material. If that is true, it could be fairly difficult to determine how much either wrote.

(On the other hand, if it mostly reads like Kevin, then we can conclude that Brian probably didn't have much hand in it. Too many hands in that sentence!)

One last point: You really should try to drop by a bookstore and have a look through the two books of Brian's Timeweb series that are already out (I've only looked through the first) and not rely on his older books as examples of his style. (Not having read any of the early ones, I can't comment on differences, but I have commented on how abysmal that of Timeweb is.)

I read about 100 pages of Timeweb in U-Books in Seattle a few months ago. I forgot to mention that one because it was so damn forgettable. It was utter garbage. My mouth was hanging open it was so shitty. But it was not angry, like the Dune books are.

Did anybody read BH's book on the merchant forces in WW2?

I read the reviews and they weren't horrible, just kinda mediocre. The subject matter seems interesting, so I'm wondering if it is as lame as his other solo jobs (which I haven't read praise Dur).

I haven't, but another user here, Robspierre has, and IIRC he was impressed. Ill let him tell you, though.

Omphalos wrote:I haven't, but another user here, Robspierre has, and IIRC he was impressed. Ill let him tell you, though.

Haven't read that one, I have read Sudanna Sudanna which I think is Brian's best work but that isn't saying much I would like to read the merchant one though, mainly cause of the subject matter.

Rob

Wonder who that was who read that book then? I know it was one of us.

Anyone who was impressed by one of BH's books is NOT one of us.