[Dragaera] Reading series

[Margaret Young]

WARNING, DUNE SPOILERS BELOW

While I tend to agree Jeff I noticed this winter break that within the
Frank (or perhaps "real") Dune books there is, after the first two, a
slipperyness between (warning, warning, spoilers) the Duncans — where
the Duncan of God Emperor seems to remember (or at least be marked by
the experiences of) Hayt. And Stilgar seems to forget in Children that
he had interacted with Duke Leto. Duncan did not (against, beware
spoilers) live that long after the Atreides arrived on Dune and yet
later seems all too versed in Fremen culture. 

All of this is said with affection — I have read the Dune books many
times and spend hours every week working with a student who, I think,
would like to create a complex mapping of the Dune universe. 

One of the advantages Brust has is a very tight relationship with a
fairly large number of people who a fanatical about the type of mapping
and close reading that I don't think Herbert had the advantage of
experiencing.

Margaret

>>> Jeffrey Kiok <blackbird0 at yahoo.com> 1/19/2009 4:26 PM >>>
Being a rabid Dune fan myself, I feel a bit compelled to interject.

While I agree, Maraget, that Brust has much better continuity than the 

Herberts, I do think, in fairness to Frank Herbert, it should be  
pointed out that there are two Herberts you're talking about, and I  
think many a Dune fan rates the one far higher than the other.

I think (thought) that Frank Herbert's sixth book ended the series  
masterfully, and that his son essentially created a new storyline  
(destroying the old one) in order to create the seventh and eighth  
book in the series.

-Jeff
On Jan 19, 2009, at 3:47 PM, Margaret Young wrote:

> I spent a good part of my winter break re-reading two series
>
> The Vladiad (for my own purposes)
> The Dune Series (for a project a student of mine is working on)
>
> One of the things that really stands out on rereading Brust is how
> tight his continuity is compared to the various Herberts. Brust has, 

> of
> course, played wonderfully with various levels of unrealiable
narrator
> (unrealiable for more than one reason). We do obviously find cracks
in
> our relentless rereading but some of Herbert's (even in Frank's
books)
> are quite noticeable. And frustrating.
>
> One of Brust's nice touches is to go back and either clarify or use
an
> apparent discontinuity whereas the Herberts just .... well they
just.
>
> It is always a problem when a series of books are written over an
> extended period of time — the writing of them becomes much more
> similar to the problems involved in keeping continutity in a  
> television
> series than what one associates with writing.
>
> Anyway, one of the joys of Brust to me is that his work continues to 

> be
> a joy. Indeed I find myself reading at least as carefully the fifth
or
> sixth time through as I did the first.
>
> Which in my mind is one of the things which distinguishes one level
of
> writing from another.
>
> Margaret
>
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