[Dragaera] Reading series

[Jon Lincicum]

David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
> On Mon, January 19, 2009 15:26, Jeffrey Kiok wrote:
>   
>> 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.
>>     
>
> Being a rabid Dune fan myself, I have a REALLY simple solution: there is
> no Dune "series".  There are no Dune books (in the plural).  There is only
> ONE Dune book.  Which is one of the finest SF novels ever written.
>
> And I say that as somebody who made it all the way to the third or fourth
> book before giving up part-way through in cumulative disgust.
>
> I very strongly suspect that the stories about Dune being very heavily
> revised with input from John W. Campbell are true, and that that explains
> it.
>   
That does explain a great deal. (I also subscribe heavily to the 
one-book Dune theory. I got to only the third book in the series before 
abandoning them.)

I knew that Campbell did wonders for Heinlein in the early years. I 
wasn't aware he'd done the same for Herbert as well.

Majikjon