Kokipy wrote:

In the movie, the “G” is soft and the emphasis is on the first syllable in Bene. Your linguistic contribution is interesting, Star. I am with Joe on the Greek origins of Atreides, which in fact the book tells us is the unbroken line of the house of Atreus  
I have been rereading the books, inspired by the movie, and I have to say they don’t hold up as well as I had hoped. They are so very very portentous and self important. I am up to God Emperor of Dune, and it actually seems a little better so far than Children of Dune. This is quite a disappointing development, though

I hope you are not reporting the the original Dune itself doesn’t hold up well? The sequels were never so wonderful.

Kokipy wrote:

Yes, sadly, that was my take this time thru. I found the first three heavy going, ponderous, portentous,  murky- oddly enough I liked God Emperor better than the first three, and Heretics of Dune even better, because things are finally, somewhat, explained, and the focus seems to be more on the story than on some mystical philosophy which seems to have been LSD- inspired.  And in Heretics there finally seems to be some kind of “noble purpose” that becomes a motivator, without which none of the various groups have any morality. The individuals have values, but the institutions lack any such thing, it seems.
But Herbert sure loved the Duncan Idaho character- he shows up every time 

Hmmn.  I was planning to re-read at least the first book as a refresher before seeing the movie, but I might have to reconsider that now. It's a very long time since I last read them, but I do recall thinking the first three books were the best of the series.  Ah well  ...
 

Duncan was soooo popular that Herbert wrote him back into the books after Dune came out due to popular demand.  Parts of Messiah and Children were already plotted before Dune was published.  Also I've read "Dune 7 (Sandworms and Hunters of Dune) which wrap up the main story.  Parts were written off Frank H's notes, the rest worked in his son's plotlines.
And a lot of folks were so turned off by Messiah that they never read any further.
 

Last edited by Kroyd (10/28/2021 10:45 pm)

Question: are all of the Brian Herbert Dune books prequels? I just finished Charterhouse and was kind of curious if the story continues, but from what I could tell all the rest of the books are prequels, and I a,  to liking these enough to go there. 

Kokipy wrote:

Question: are all of the Brian Herbert Dune books prequels? I just finished Charterhouse and was kind of curious if the story continues, but from what I could tell all the rest of the books are prequels, and I a,  to liking these enough to go there. 

The House books, such as House Atreides, House Harkonnen, and House Corrino are all prequels.  The Butlerian Jihad is described in the book of the same title, as well as the Machine Crusade.  These are prequels. 
There are a bunch more sequels, which you will see involve Duncan Idaho at least several times.  I stopped reading them after I reached a certain saturation point.  In fact, I might donate my hardbound copies to the local library, and just keep the original "Dune" volume.