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May 2, 2002

Dune: House Atreides

When I was twelve, my father had me memorize the "Litany of Fear" from Dune. I used it one night as a meditation while trying to conquer my fear of heights while riding a swing in a pitch-black carnival outside Los Angeles.

I will not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

I was with my friend Hope at the time, and we had gone to see the haunted house. We, um, were less than impressed, and came out of there with some lessons on what NOT to do if running a professional haunted house demonstration. (Please repair the "Aliens" costume so the nose isn't waving back and forth in the breeze like a black sock. Do not have "dead people" about to become zombies close enough to tickle. Do not let people like me and my friends into your haunted house...erm.)

The swing went around in a circle, and changed its speed, angle (height), and intensity, kind of like good sex. (Erm.) It was dark out, dark for LA, certainly, a city where light hangs in the air like a solid thing even after sunset. I saw that if I fell, for any reason, I could probably roll and absorb some of the impact in the dirt. Instead, I found myself repeating the Litany, and grinning.

I had read Dune and then at some point, I ended up reading Heretics of Dune and The Dune Encyclopedia (out of print, apparently. Check your local science-fiction convention.) A couple of weeks ago, my dad picked up Dune Messiah and Children of Dune so I read those as well... mixed bag, of course.

So let's talk about Dune: House Atreides since it's comfortably available (and cheap) in paperback. The authors are Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, and if you read the notes, Mr. Herbert apparently found some of his father's notes and with the help of Mr. Anderson, they came up with a prequel to the events in Dune.

Overall reaction? I liked it, but it's very, very different than the other works.

After reading "Messiah" and "Children of" back-to-back one morning, my brain was kind of put into a certain "mode," taking on a bit of the style of the series in print and speech...just for a little while, luckily, but I could feel its influence. They were "back of the head" books, where a lot of the suggestive influence and the implications of what's going on are figured out by your subconscious, rather than in the conscious part of your mind. You don't sit there and think, "OK, so this happens, and this happens, so this happens, next." You allow the story to sink, and watch the flavours mix together until they bubble and suddenly, you've got a meal.

"House Atreides," on the other hand, is far more active in the conscious. It's a treat, kind of like "Smallville" in that you already know what's going to happen, so you get to watch how things unfold more leisurely. If there's a surprise, if when they filled in the blanks they filled them with potential failures, you can remain confident and rest knowing that eventually things happen the way you know they happened. There's more action, more clear involvement in the "now," whereas the other books happen in very subtle pieces of "meanwhile," and having a larger, sensual (of the senses) view than a more strictly scene-by-scene view.

One of the disadvantages in writing the prequel it seemed that the authors felt they had to have some gratuitous references to things mentioned in the first series. Places, items, the lot...which in some ways adds depth in reading the further novels, but to another writer (especially one used to writing works in other peoples' worlds) it's somewhat annoyingly transparent.

Could you read it as the "beginning" of the series? Well, certainly. I can't stop you: I don't have those kinds of minions. Will you enjoy it as much? I don't know. I kind of get the feeling that there's a bit of a nudge-nudge-wink-wink that was part of my enjoyment of the book that you'd miss in a clean read. While it rests fairly well on its own, it doesn't stand "clean." You might get the idea that there was an end-of-story marker, but really, there's still too much up in the air to leave everything there.

As for the story, it's about betrayal, murder, spice, politics, religion, genetics, sex, jealousy, treachery, achievement, and not at all about love. What more should I say?

Posted by Meera at May 2, 2002 8:02 PM

Comments

You know, you make me almost want to try to reread the first book again. Never got past page 29. But I'm a bit older now, and my tastes have changed. It might work.

I have seen the movie and have the SciFi Channel miniseries on tape somewhere.

Posted by: Julia at May 8, 2002 10:12 PM