Ahira's Hangar

Just got done reading The Road to Dune, which traces the history of Frank Herbert's original novel and has deleted scenes from Dune and Dune Messiah and an alternate ending to Dune Messiah. It was sort of like a book form of a director's cut dvd.

There is some other stuff, too - mostly a short novel written by Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson based on the original Dune story line - with some interesting similarities and some huge differences from what was eventually written by Frank Herbert.

There are also some short stories written by Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson set in the Dune universe - and were actually quite a bit better than their novel length stories.

If anyone here would like to know more, or has read it and would like to discuss it, I would be happy to talk.

I haven't read it, but I'd love to know more. And don't worry about spoilers. *

(*Note to self---ask Vain to add spoiler capability.)

(*Must make this year dedicated to finding all the new Dune books.)

--A

What would you like to know more about first?

And yes- I would love to have spoiler tags here.

What were the differences in the original story line?

--A

The whole religious/messiah element is not there. The spice is there and called melange, but it is the latest fad/addiction is high society of a very socially corrupt empire. No Space Guild or Bene Gesserit dependent upon it. Of the great themes that will appear in the eventual Dune, only the environmentalism is there - with the spice, giant worms, etc.

The Atreides are called the Linkams (I will have to check my spelling of that later). The opponent noble house os the Hoskonners (I have to check the spelling of that name, too). The hero is the Duke Leto figure, called Jesse. He has a beloved concubine named Dorothy Mapes and they have a son, who is a little boy, but shows no sort of special powers or destiny. Jesse and Dorothy are not married because she was born a commoner and it is against the law for them to marry.

Some of the retainers are a mentat in charge of security, a doctor who betrays them (same last name- Yueh! but different first name), and a minstrel named Gurney.

House Linkam is granted the Dune planet for only two years as a trial by the Emperor. If they can mine more melange than their rivals in that time period, they can keep the planet!

Needless to say, their rivals have pretty much turned the planet into a giant booby trap in efforts to win the trial and kill off the incoming family.

Jesse finds a way to win the two year challenge. The trecherous Emperor grants his family the Dune planet and has the rivals executed. He gives special permission for Jesse and Dorothy to marry.

Just sounds so wrong.

And the short stories?

--A

Well, the short stories were by the son Herbert and Kevin Anderson.

One of them told about a group of Atreides soldiers who became entombed (still alive) in the Shield Wall when the Sardauker took Arrakeen. The other short stories were set in the time of the Butlerian Jihad. They made me curious enough that I will probably drag those novels upwards in my TBR pile. If nothing else, Serena Butler sounds like she might be a very interesting character.

The one that got me was the alternate endings to Dune Messiah - they would have really changed Children of Dune as well as Dune Messiah itself.

They sound good, especially that first one you mentioned.

So don't keep me in suspense...what was the alternate ending?

--A

The plotters (including Irulan) get torn limb from limb by an enraged mob (though herbert did have a handwritten note about possibly sving the Princess). In the meantime, Paul goes out alone and loses himself in the desert and dies alone in the sands on the second day of his wandering. Very bleak but moving ending.

Sounds like he hadn't planned more at first.

--A

Dune itself was originally written as a trilogy - the version we have now was pretty much considered unpublishable because of its length. More than twenty publishing companies turned it down - in the rejection letters some of them even say that they might be making a huge mistake because of the quality of the work.

It was finally published in one edition by a company best known for auto repair guides!

The people at the magazine that had published Dune before it became a book turned down Dune Messiah - they hated that Paul was an antihero rather than a hero.

I've always been a bit amibvalent about Pual and the wayhe is portrayed. As I've mentioned before, he didn't actually turn out all that well inthe mould of his father. Obviously there are reasons, but he seems to swing between hero and anti-hero a lot of the time.

--A

From reading Road to Dune it sounds like that is exactly the impression you are supposed to have. On the one hand, Paul is a hero. On the other hand, horrible things are done to billions of people in his name. Supposedly somewhere in Dune is a tossaway line about how the Fremen could be in serious trouble if the ever find a hero to follow.

I will see if I can find that for you tomorrow, but for now it is bedtime.

Ah, it's not what was done in his name that disturbs me, he had precious little control over that afterall. It's what he did. Most notable inmy mind is when Gurney admonishes him that his father wuld have been concerned about the men, not the equipment.

And Leto's rage at the waste of lives rather than the loss of spice has always been a moving moment in the book for me.

--A

Oh yes - that is perhaps my favorite moment in all of the Dune books. Leto really rocked there.

When I get home, I will look up that other bit for you.