Is this book good or should I not waste my time?

>>9321359
Depends, what's your tolerance for fantasy names and made-up words?

>K-lax, jurdin of the helinor wastes, erente to the shuge of arkansas

Shit like that. Incessantly.

i enjoyed it

just dont expect tolstoy

I am on part 3 of the first book right now. It is amazing I have loved every second of it. Once you dig into it, you wont put it down highly recommend.

>>9321376
Yeah I've noticed a lot of that. Kinda irritating with these fucking names

>>9321376
Agreed, if a book's not set in New York or Paris, what's the fucking point?

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>>9321429
>>9321376
I've got the perfect book for you, anons!

>>9321587
See I'm okay with this because while some king might be named Fulfindor at least he's called King Fulfindor rather than Plu'tesh'ee Fulfindor when Plu'tesh'ee means exactly the same fucking thing as King.

>>9321601
The future-Arab vibe is part of the charm, though.

>>9321429
because, of course, eight thousand years from now they'll all be speaking early 21st english, right mang?

there's a project for anyone with time to waste: rewrite Dune with words you find on urbandictionary.

There needs to be a board dedicated to children's lit so people can post this shit there and not clutter discussions of major works. Tired of this genre bullshit on here.

>>9321376
I only looked up the terminilogy a few times when I read it, Herbert is great at making his made-up words immediately clear through context. It goes full retard in Dune Messiah, though

You won't get any insights about the world or yourself if that's what you're asking, it's just an adventure book.

>>9321958
>>9321964
>I only read mature literature for mature readers such as myself
*dips trilby*

>>9321940
Gene Wolfe had the perfect way of accounting for that while sidestepping dumb nonsense words.

>>9321964
As if that's the sole and objective goal of books. Fucking kys.

>>9321958
Do you mean Dune? It's a bit simplistic to say that because something can be put into a genre like sci-fi or fantasy that it precludes it from being good, no?

>>9321969
Sounds like you'd fit in well on my proposed children's lit board, faggot.

>>9321972
you sound awful insecure about reading for entertainment there. it's fine if literature is not your interest and you just want some escapism.

>>9321973
Any piece of genre fiction is for children. I don't care if it's Philip K Dick or something that is supposedly high art like Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It's kids lit.

>>9321983
That doesn't really answer my question, you just restated what you said a second ago

>>9321983
confirmed for never having read marquez holy shit

>>9321982
No it's not okay. And I'm not insecure. I don't read kid's lit. I'm this poster >>9321983
People just need to know how to compartmentalize you fucking retard faggot.

I know it's just genre fiction but dammit it all /lit/ I love Dune.

It is like a bible to me.

>>9321986
I don't have to read him. I'm an adult. I don't read fantasy. Have fun pretending Tolkien level shit is high literature.

>>9321988
>samefagging this much
>shitposting this much
>I'm not insecure

>>9321994
He was claiming I was insecure because he thought I was defending genre fiction. I was saying that wasn't my issue with it. Develop some reading comprehension.

>>9321992
Don't feel ashamed for enjoying something just because it goes against some perceived general consensus of a supposedly 'cool' underground culture like 4chan (of all places).

>>9321993
I get that you've got a forumla. 'It has a genre, therefore its bad.' I'm asking why you think that

>>9322002
>defending yourself this hard to every person that replies to you
>I'm not insecure

>>9322005
Retreating into fantasy is great when you are a kid. I need something that will reflect my life. I don't care what other people read. As long as they realize they are reading children's books.

>>9322007
"this hard". Making a post on /lit/ takes a lot of effort for you? You're dumber than I thought.

>>9322014
That there are elements in a story that are fictional (not real) doesn't mean it can't deal with aspects of life that are grounded in reality, be they social realities or inner realities, etc. Literature is fiction, none of the events happening are real. Literature is fantasy.

Where'd you go, plebs? Yeah, that's what I thought. Bitch.

>>9322038
Doo hoo hoo!

as a part-time SF fan, i don't reccomend it. it's more Tolkein than Asimov or Gibson. if i'm gonna read fantasy i'd rather just ready fantasy

>>9322038
For instance, replace the whale in Moby Dick with a Dragon and make the boat airborne and you could still have nearly the exact same story, but since the creature is a dragon instead of a whale it qualifies as genre fiction so therefore its automatically without literaturistic merit?

>>9322047
It is already genre fiction in it's current form. It's a boy's adventure story. Seafaring, swashbuckling, mindless entertainment. I told you plebs you don't know what you're talking about.

>>9322052
Okay, now you're just trolling.

>>9322062
It's not a troll. It's a book about two men's friendship and a bunch of guys having adventures on the high seas. The critical consensus is just because people are enamored with the prose (surface level attribute of a book- frivolous to focus on) and the pretentious digressions. I'm dead-serious.

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>>9322077
It's unfortunate, but this is the response you deserve.

>>9322096
I've brought you plebs to your knees with hard truths.

>>9322102
And we're all grateful to you for gracing us with your enlightened intellect.

>>9322117
I know you're being sarcastic. But I consider it worth my efforts if I've reached even one person and if it takes them years to realize I'm right.

>>9322120
Johnny Appleseed over here.

>>9322124
All you've got is school yard sarcasm because you know I'm right and you know I've eviscerated every point you all tried to make.

>>9322128
I'm kind of just enjoying the fact that you keep responding to me to be honest if you already feel like you've "done your job".

>>9322133
It's not a job. I'm just posting here like everyone else. Poor logic. Nice try.

>>9322135
>But I consider it worth my efforts if I've reached even one person and if it takes them years to realize I'm right.

I dunno sounds like you're on a mission unlike the rest of us folk around here killing time. I salute you.

>>9322140
I believe in doing good for my fellow man when possible. It's not structured. If I weren't posting on this thread I'd be doing something else.

>>9322144
Well fellow anon, if you think going around calling this and that 'shit' without too much weight of thought besides "it falls under X category therefore X" is a proper way to get through to people on the internet, then I question your emotional intelligence.

>>9322047
That's certainly true in theory, but the key problem is that, for whatever reason, there just aren't any sci-fi/fantasy books that are as well written as Moby Dick.

>>9322215
Reason being your bias and pretentiousness hipsterness about books that aren't fellated by the academia

I tried to get into scifi with the series. Managed to finish the first two but in the process couldn't stop wondering why it was so highly praised on /lit/

>>9321359
I read a lot of sci-fi, but Dune is a tricky one to recommend to anyone trying to get into the genre. Even on later re-reads I find it slow and at times unessesarily dense.

>>9322712
>>9322721
Anything by Arthur C. Clarke might be a better intro into the genre:

>2001
>Rendezvous With Rama
>Childhood's End
>The Fountains of Paradise

It's not. Read good sci-fi, like Oryx and Crake and On Such a Full Sea.

>>9321376
Don't forget the constant verbalization of characters' thoughts because Frankie can't write for shit.

>>9321359
Its an ok book. nice book to see origins of a dark messiah. defiantly pick it up if people saying jihad makes you giggle

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>>9321601
I feel you bro, some faggots can't even call wine by its name wine. it does not add exoticism, it just sounds like annoying noise

>>9321958
This board is very slow moving, I for one would like more genre shit and actual talk instead of circle wank over the same 100 books

>>9321964
IMHO you will learn something about the world and definitely about yourself

>>9321983
Is this like "anime is for kids" the lit version?

God Emperor>Dune>Messiah>Heretics>Chapterhouse>Children
you cannot refute this

The book is better than the film.

>>9322744
get out.

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>>9322052
Daily reminder that philosophy is only for children/ invalids

if you need other men to unravel the world for you and to tell you what to think, you're just a child

"genre fiction" is just the natural progression of poetry. Whether or not X work is actually good or just a plot is a different case altogether. Romanticizing concepts and putting emotions and metaphors into a tale- and to do it well, takes much more talent than writing nonfiction. Go read Zlatan's autobiography or something you fucking loser.

>>9323381
>hey look at me pretending i'm not standing on the shoulders of giants! how clever i am! who needs philosophy!

>>9323384
Philosophy is admittedly even more "fiction" than something like Lord of the Rings. Its easy to fool people into believing that 99% of the shit "philosophers" tackle is somehow smart because your average person doesnt ever NEED to even entertain some retarded concept about a "perfect form". It is fluff for bored neckbeards who think they understand the universe through glorified flavor text while science is actually breaking down the world atom by atom.

>>9323397
>science is independent of philosophy
just fucking stop posting.
philosophy created the very logic you're trying to use (unsuccessfully) to prove your point, you nitwit. shut the fuck up.

>>9323406
>j-just stop posting

how exactly does philosophy affect something like the large hadron collider?

I read it a couple years ago because I had picked up Hyperion abd enjoyed it. Dune has its moments but the diction is annoyingly opaque and the main character is a pretty big Mary Sue. I do recommend Hyperion though if you're looking for sci fi.

>>9323410
oh, i don't know, perhaps the concepts of physics, or chemistry, for example. i'll try to make it plain and simple for you. we differentiate things by using logic, right? a has properties of a, and b has properties of b, b and a have contradictory properties, so a is not b. that simple thing, that very simple common sense concept is philosophy. no one has to write these concepts down for them to be fundamental logical aspects of our every day lives. you pretending that people can't form their worlds in a better way, their perceptions honed by reading a little fucking philosophy is convincing no one. it in fact deters people from a useful endeavor, and you should fuck off.

>>9323435
>oh, i don't know, perhaps the concepts of physics, or chemistry, for example

so science? There is a difference between philosophy and science, and your autist reading Nietzche or Plato isnt looking for science

>>9323410
Classical logic (Law of the Excluded Middle and such) is a domain of Philosophy. And all Math and Physics rest on it, as far as I know.

>>9323439
>what is natural philosophy

the type of philosophy that plato or nietzsche offer is that of morality and humanity at large, emotions, psychology, purpose, etc. to say these things have no use is downright moronic, as we experience them literally every day in ourselves and others. in no way is philosophy useless, and your bitter intolerance of a rich and useful tradition shows how closed minded you really are.

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>>9323447
>to say these things have no use is downright moronic

the point isnt that these things are useless, my point was a counterpoint to "all fiction is for children": philosophy is conceptual, aka fiction, and on top of it all it is an active guide for how to think and live rather than simple poetry to appreciate for other reasons. Which is more childish? Needing other people to think for you, or enjoying something for its sake?

>>9323453
if philosophy is fiction, then science is fiction as well, as science is a philosophy.

if you think telling lies to people for entertainment isn't childish, compared to the pursuit of moral justice, or the next scientific discovery, or the solution to a mathematical problem, then i would say you need to rethink childishness and what that means.

>>9322052
Agreed. I much prefer the scatological DEEP postmodern works of Jonathan Franzen, or the DEEP works of whiny asian americans and bindis.

>>9323462
>if philosophy is fiction, then science is fiction as well, as science is a philosophy
This is truth

>>9323462
>>9323568
wrong

philosophy is conceptual, the only "fiction" is science is deeming what do we call X thing. The materials are really there when someone analyzes the components of what X type of metal is comprised of

>>9323580
Read some work on epistemology and phenomenology then come back and apologise

>>9323580
and people established that through philosophical discourse. in fact, the pursuit of understanding, the reasoning behind discovery for any purpose is a product of logical systems (philosophy), natural philosophy, and even the fact that the discovery of say, the results of analyzing a metal, has any value, is philosophical at its base.

>>9323580
you cannot fucking escape philosophy.

>>9323322
This anon gets it.

>>9321359
It melds science with fantady and mystism really well
I was skeptical of the hype but I read it in a couple days
can't say anything about the rest of the books heard mixed reviews

its pretty good but unfortunately the rest of the books suck

>>9321376
I think you owe Arkansas an apology.

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>>9321376
Most of the terms are well-grounded in real roots, if you are well-read enough. Though I suppose not a lot of people actually are and probably though that "Ichwan Bedwine" was a fantasy, made-up name.

>>9321601
Which begs the question, what's with futurist authors' boners about apostrophes on names?

>>9325459
Examples?

>>9325476
Ok, that was very, very poorly worded, I've been sitting for too long in the front of a screen.

What's with sci-fi's and sometimes horror's boner* about apostrophes on names?

Halo (all Sangheili names), Warhammer 40,000 (the C'tan), Lovecraft, Starcraft, Dune...

Yes, it's pleb shit and games. But I'm interested as to why this happens, since it looks like a common trope in popular works (not that it always happen), like faux latin. It's either that, or Vietnam rednecks in space (Starship Troopers) with nicknames for the species they encounter.

>>9321359

Why do i see this thread every time click on /lit/ for my weekly check up?

Mods should just add a sticky with one of the rules being 'Do not ask if Dune is worth a read'.

>>9325524
I don't think there's any high intellectual reason that I can give that you can't come up with yourself. Novelty, foreignness, mouthfeel, and the opportunity for it to mean something later (though this last is rarely used, Eddings being the only example that comes to my mind).

>>9321359

It's interesting. Epic in the original sense of the word. It's also amazingly well constructed as far as sci fi worlds go. Everything he introduces about the world seems to fit together, so I never found myself saying "If they have X, why not Y?".

Give it a try. One thing that might annoy you is that in that book, and ever growing more in the following books, is Herbert's cuck feminist mentality. Women are literally the smartest, most capable beings, while men are stupid subhumans.

>>9325749
A real Joss Whedon if you will.

>>9325749
The weird sexual manipulation which goes on throughout the series seems odd to me. You are right with how men are portrayed as idiots who are controlled by women through their senses like animals. I get how it's a theme but it's in every book.

>>9325828
As a man who has always had a healthy respect for his sex drive and never needed to abrogate it in order to succeed in life or feel better about myself, being manipulated by sex isn't fairy tale - it's a real, observable phenomenon. Men are not idiots because they can be influenced any more than anyone else is an idiot because they can be influenced.

>>9325853
It's not just about women controlling men through sex. The Bene Gesserit is pretty much a superhuman all-female cult, with their women having superhuman powers. And they always win. Well, after their one mistake of letting Paul Atreides slip through their control, but other than that, they always succeed in everything they try. They definitely have the author's Plot Shield.

>>9325873
>Bene Gesserit
>all-female
Not really, any more than the Catholic Church is actually an all-male organization because the clergy is restricted to males. The BG power structure is justified with actual in-universe abilities that the women posses that men could not until the KH was achieved.

>they always win
You have a very different reading of the Dune works than I do. The series is essentially an epic tragedy of their failures, with the added benefit that since they were wrong in INTENT as well as failing in execution, their failure opened up a glorious greater future for humanity.

>>9321359
One of my favourite books! Read it!

>>9325642
Yeah, maybe that's all there's to it. Guess it was more of a unintentional rhetoric question, since I didn't intend it to be such but didn't expect an answer either. Guess it just looks cool and they saw in some work and looked foreign, like you said. Though I'd be interested to know which work (or works) was that.

Thanks for the attention, though.

>>9321359
You shouldn't waste your time. While it is a feat of worldbuilding, the characters are cardboard, the plots repetitive, and the overall story very dry. That's not a comment on the ecology of arrakis, it's just a comment on the spice of the story. And that isn't a comment on the drug that gives paul his transcendent consciousness powers, it's just an observation that that story starts strong and gets worse with every chapter. I regret trudging through the first and second Dune books. Most people say you have to get to the fifth to "get" it. I say fuck that. Read something that gets good before the 2000th page.

>>9326708
The characters and plot are not worth, for sure (though you do enjoy that somewhat later, it in anecdotal in purpose). It is definitely more of an idea book than anything else.

>>9321970
This. Book of the New Sun's language strategy was beautiful.

>>9322215
Book of the New Sun.

>>9323322
that's actually very spot on, well done anon

Bergitty Bugau

>>9321376
It's not all made up words, a lot of the terms exist in real life and are applied to a context similar to their actual usages. A lot of the terms related to the Fremen come from Arabic/Islam for example

>>9324153
Not sure where the Bedwine come from but Ichwine is clearly Herbert's Anglicization of 'Ikhwan', the Arabic name for 'Brotherhood'

>>9324153
Wait my bad, I misread your post

>>9327852
Sound it out. The Fremen culture is a conflation mainly of the Taureg and what other real world cultural group? Spot on with Ichwine, though.

People who like to dismiss things out of hand often preclude the possibility that they might learn something through exploration of the unknown.

>>9327910
Good advice! Bedwine = Bedouin?

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>>9327938
Correct.

>>9324153
>if you are well-read enough
>if
Therein lies the problem, doesn't it?

>>9328081
Yeah. It really kind of shows when the three or four main themes from the Dune series off the top of my head aren't even mentioned in the thread. People think Dune is about - what, the environment? Lol. Even without a sense of time and place for when the novels where written anon should be able to do better than that.

>>9321359
It is good.

>>9321964
>it's just an adventure book

Balls. It grapples with some of the biggest ideas facing human civilisation.

>>9321958
>Tired of this genre bullshit on here.
Anything can be categorised into a genre, you pretentious fuckwit.

>>9321958
Not sure what you mean by major works but IMO, genre fiction is better than "realistic" tripe about ordinary people living meaningless lives.

>>9328794
Yeah, but genre-defying works is a thing too. Not defending that guy's dismissal of Dune, just pointing out that there are works like the Dune series that aren't as solidly couched in genre conventions and are more about the ideas that the window dressing.

>>9321359
Meh.
>This characters
>idiot plot
>Plot holes all over the place
>terrible dialog
>Very thinly veiled 'Palestinians good/Jews bad' story
But the world building is good.

>>9329186
*Thin

>>9321359
It's ok

I don't understand why people like it so much

>>9328960
I don't disagree. If you define a genre as a set of literary conventions (or less kindly, cliches), Dune is one of few sci-fi books that pretty much avoids them all.

>>9327847

I was actually kind of disappointed at how much arab shit there was in the Dune series. It felt like a lazy way to make things feel exotic and mysterious to an American audience who wouldn't be familiar with the terms.

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>>9328119

>Yeah. It really kind of shows when the three or four main themes from the Dune series off the top of my head aren't even mentioned in the thread.

What are the themes?

>>9329334
"muh arabs"
"muh genes"
"muh sand"
"muh buddhism"
"muh worms"
"muh clairvoyance"

Read it you scumbag

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>>9329186
Ah, a butthurt kike. This thread makes sense now.

>>9326708
this is a good post

>>9329362
Yours is the kind of ignorance that I sort of perversely enjoy imagining will go to the grave. If you wanted to protect your fragile worldview by disgusting someone out of answering >>9329334, you succeeded.