Interesting review of KJA's work

[SandChigger]

Hmmm...

Nah, it just doesn't have that necessary conspiracy theory umph!

[Hunchback Jack]

Can't argue with you, there.

HBJ

[merkin muffley]

Are there some father/son issues there? No doubt. Does he wish that he could get out from his father's shadow and stand on his own as a writer? No doubt. But I don't think those things equate with a desire to sabotage his father's work.

Yeah, I don't really think it's a conspiracy either, I just wanted to use those Smilies. Also, we've had a lot of Jungian analysis, so it's good to throw some Freud in there.

Whatever it is, the end product is crap, the main motivation is money, and their approach to the Dune universe is thoughtless at best. There's also a lot of arrogance involved (see lame Irulan justification). As that is probably the best they can do, it's not so much an evil scheme as it is incompetence, as I see it. Kevin J. Anderson is one of the worst people they could've picked to carry on Dune.

[Thodol]

I do not want to visit the intentions of a man I do not know. But he obviously does not give a flaming fuck about his fathers art. He could have sold out in any number of ways that did not involve straight up taking a shit on the original books.

So there is definitely something going on. I am not hip on who actually owns the material. Is it all Brian? Maybe he made a deal? Maybe he is a pussy fucker and cant stand up to jedi fuckhead. Jedi hack has an aura of used cars salesman. Brian does not appear to be an assertive fellow, nor fundamentally retarded. He seems to show uneasiness when he is put in a position of straight out lying. And Darth Hack has no qualms or shame in his game.

What disturbs me more is that cyber ghost of chickens pasts future is actually allowed to be a pretentious twat? Subjective opinion aside, he is a fucking horrible writer. And beyond even that seems very limited in the imagination department. Technically and artistically he is complete trash. Its so bad that its not even really the realm of opinion...its a FACT. Either you are retarded -pathologically stunted- or are lying if you disagree.

Do other authors call him on his shit? Stephen King is Shakespeare comparatively, and is a far nicer person. Yet everyone and their mother talks shit about him...

But the jackass whose claim to fame is fan fiction for established franchises gets a pass?

[TheDukester]

Yikes.

Little aggressive there on the swearing.

[Nekhrun]

Yikes.

Little aggressive there on the swearing.

Give him time. He just found his outrage.

[A Thing of Eternity]

I do not want to visit the intentions of a man I do not know. But he obviously does not give a flaming fuck about his fathers art. He could have sold out in any number of ways that did not involve straight up taking a shit on the original books.

So there is definitely something going on. I am not hip on who actually owns the material. Is it all Brian? Maybe he made a deal? Maybe he is a pussy fucker and cant stand up to jedi fuckhead. Jedi hack has an aura of used cars salesman. Brian does not appear to be an assertive fellow, nor fundamentally retarded. He seems to show uneasiness when he is put in a position of straight out lying. And Darth Hack has no qualms or shame in his game.

What disturbs me more is that cyber ghost of chickens pasts future is actually allowed to be a pretentious twat? Subjective opinion aside, he is a fucking horrible writer. And beyond even that seems very limited in the imagination department. Technically and artistically he is complete trash. Its so bad that its not even really the realm of opinion...its a FACT. Either you are retarded -pathologically stunted- or are lying if you disagree.

Do other authors call him on his shit? Stephen King is Shakespeare comparatively, and is a far nicer person. Yet everyone and their mother talks shit about him...

But the jackass whose claim to fame is fan fiction for established franchises gets a pass?

The rights to Dune are owned by a group of Herbert's close relatives called the HLP. Do some seaerching around here and you'll find out that the absolute garbage of the new books actually isn't only thing they've done. They've threatened to sue people making fan films to protect their own film ambitions, they've banned anyone who argued against them from the official site. The list goes on, I'm to tired to recall theiir many other transgressions...

[TheDukester]

They've blocked any and all attempts to make any sort of game out of the Dune IP. Boardgame, collectible (or even non-collectible) card game, role-playing game, party game, PC game, console game ... whatever. They unilaterally refuse to hear any proposals.

It's so bad that Fantasy Flight Games, the largest publisher of strategy games in the U.S., simply gave up on trying to re-make the classic Avalon Hill Dune game. Instead, they are going to use the game's mechanics — which can't be copyrighted — to shift the setting of the game to their own Twilight Imperium universe. So, FFG gets a good, solid game (but it won't sell as well as it could have) and the HLP gets nothing. Not a cent. Brilliant, aren't they?

I wouldn't be at all surprised if the concept of "games" goes against either Spanky McDune's quasi-CoS beliefs or Bobo's ... whatever the hell it is that Bobo believes in. I suspect Anderhack, though. There were lots of Dune-flavored games until the late '90s. And what happened in the late '90s? Keith did his mind-control thing on Bobo, that's what.

Assholes. The lot of them.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Or, they're just lazy fools that don't want anything to do with Dune other than collecting a paycheque, and as such don't even bother to consider anything that would involve any work whatsoever (even though it would really just be no work for them, their lawyers and accountants could easily sort that shit out, or they could make KJA do it, he'll do anything for a buck and to get his name on yet another anything).

[Omphalos]

They've blocked any and all attempts to make any sort of game out of the Dune IP. Boardgame, collectible (or even non-collectible) card game, role-playing game, party game, PC game, console game ... whatever. They unilaterally refuse to hear any proposals.

It's so bad that Fantasy Flight Games, the largest publisher of strategy games in the U.S., simply gave up on trying to re-make the classic Avalon Hill Dune game. Instead, they are going to use the game's mechanics — which can't be copyrighted — to shift the setting of the game to their own Twilight Imperium universe. So, FFG gets a good, solid game (but it won't sell as well as it could have) and the HLP gets nothing. Not a cent. Brilliant, aren't they?

I wouldn't be at all surprised if the concept of "games" goes against either Spanky McDune's quasi-CoS beliefs or Bobo's ... whatever the hell it is that Bobo believes in. I suspect Anderhack, though. There were lots of Dune-flavored games until the late '90s. And what happened in the late '90s? Keith did his mind-control thing on Bobo, that's what.

Assholes. The lot of them.

They're still gonna make a mint on those Burger King cups when the movie eventually gets made.

[Nekhrun]

Don't forget that they had the Dune area in Second Life removed. They show nothing but contempt for Dune fans at every turn.

[merkin muffley]

I would really have liked to have seen the Mediteatro production of Dune that HLP killed.

[Thodol]

They've blocked any and all attempts to make any sort of game out of the Dune IP. Boardgame, collectible (or even non-collectible) card game, role-playing game, party game, PC game, console game ..

So they have no qualms with full frontal of the canonical novels. But are against any branch of the IP that could reasonably be exploited without destroying the soul of Dune? Dune the PC game was and still IS recognized as one of the pioneering RTS games. I simple do not understand...

[SandRider]

Yikes.

Little aggressive there on the swearing.

must've been the word "twat", huh ?

I'd like to state now that the post in this guy's intro thread was done before I read this,
and was a product of hive-mind - Thodol is not my sockpuppet ; unless he is, in
which case, I'd be here posting a denial ...

[lotek]

"You're a literary legend, Brian."

"Please pay attention to the cabin crew while they go through the security procedures."

and yeah of course Bribri is not set to destroy his father's legacy, but if he's got a grudge still going, I reckon that could be enough to convince himself that making money out of Dune is fine. "He was such a bad father, if the only thing he can do to make up for it is this then so be it."

Then it all comes down to can we accept someone would be able to consciously ignore the atrocious writing, story telling...

[DuneFishUK]

They've blocked any and all attempts to make any sort of game out of the Dune IP. Boardgame, collectible (or even non-collectible) card game, role-playing game, party game, PC game, console game ... whatever. They unilaterally refuse to hear any proposals.

It's so bad that Fantasy Flight Games, the largest publisher of strategy games in the U.S., simply gave up on trying to re-make the classic Avalon Hill Dune game. Instead, they are going to use the game's mechanics — which can't be copyrighted — to shift the setting of the game to their own Twilight Imperium universe. So, FFG gets a good, solid game (but it won't sell as well as it could have) and the HLP gets nothing. Not a cent. Brilliant, aren't they?

I wouldn't be at all surprised if the concept of "games" goes against either Spanky McDune's quasi-CoS beliefs or Bobo's ... whatever the hell it is that Bobo believes in. I suspect Anderhack, though. There were lots of Dune-flavored games until the late '90s. And what happened in the late '90s? Keith did his mind-control thing on Bobo, that's what.

Assholes. The lot of them.

Bloody hell.. eh? I've not heard that one before....

That seems bizarre that they would pass something like that up. Was it as simple as "go away" or were the HLP being unreasonable again - requiring that Spongebobo and Spanky get editor/producer credits or something?



Oh, and

[TheDukester]

Was it as simple as "go away" or were the HLP being unreasonable again - requiring that Spongebobo and Spanky get editor/producer credits or something?

It's mostly the second part, combined with a good dose of cluelessness and laziness. As has become apparent since 2000 or so, the HLP has made it clear what makes them happy: an annual McDune book from Spanky (decent-sized checks for everyone) and a roll of the dice on the movie (the big payday they're all dreaming of). Everything else — games, comics, clothing, calendars, whathaveyou — has been met with a brick wall of indifference.

But Spanky is definitely a part of it. As an example, he and Bobo both have "editor" credits in the Dune RPG from Last Unicorn Games, which appeared just about the time that The Hack joined the HLP. Now, it's an open secret that neither one of them did a single bit of editing on that project; it was, at best, a vanity credit. The game soon died, due to a few factors that I won't belabor here, and I don't think the HLP minded a bit.

Here's where it gets interesting. Hindsight has shown us that Keith, using the HLP as his puppet, wants nothing more than to control all of Dune. He wants it all: the writing, the social media presence, the book tours, etc. He wants all things Dune to go through Keith and he wants to "stay on message" as the PR people say. So the last thing he wants is a Dune RPG out there with maybe some really cool stuff in it ... or a PC game that gets rave reviews ... or a new boardgame that just blows people away. None of those things would have come from Keith! Think about it: this is the guy who essentially killed the Dune Encyclopedia. It wasn't what he wanted to write, so he had to discredit it. Same thing with games: he's frightened of being upstaged, so he wants nothing to do with them.

So, circling around to your question, it's likely a combination of both things. First, they throw up the brick wall, like they did when Fantasy Flight approached them about a new Dune game. For any companies that try to smash through that, the HLP likely insists that not only do Spanky and Bobo get mandatory writer/editor credits for doing no work, but that the rights fees will be astronomic. They don't really want to be involved with games, so I'm sure they just make up a figure, double it, and add a zero to the end.

[SandChigger]

(decent-sized checks for everyone)

How do you think they divide that?

Would it be KJA X %, HLP Y %?

Or KJA X %, BH Y %, HLP Z %?

There are 11 members in the HLP, BH + 10 other parasites. Would the HLP share be divided 11 (or 10) ways, or would there be a distinction between senior and junior members?

This all being the sort of "HLP-internal business" that ByrByr never would discuss!

[Hunchback Jack]

Well, I don't know anything about this obviously, but it's possible that the HLP, as owners of Dune, get *all* the income from the new books, and they pay KJA and BH for services rendered (i.e. all/some of the initial advance for each book, and some portion of the royalties). Family members each own some percentage of the HLP assets, and they might draw a salary from it, based on participation (e.g. Byron as moderator), seniority, etc.

HBJ

[SandChigger]

That makes sense, too, I reckon.

Of course, if they've secretly made KJA a member of the HLP...

[lotek]

yeah I'd go for the fact that Spankeith McDune is set out to become the Dune man, going for the DE and all the Irulan business is just so revealing indeed...
The gall of that guy... trying to replace Frank? fair enough but do it with your talent not your fucking black adder antics!

arsehole...

hey it seems I am back on the hate train!

And btw

very good, very good indeed!

[DuneFishUK]

From a model soldiers forum I sometimes frequent:

This is why you should look into Dune as a 6mm game. Lots of different sides and variation.

And Ornithopters!

We have looked into this several times, and yes, the Herbert Estate is the issue...

Even tried an 'end-around' by going via the Sci-Fi Channel, but no joy.

(Emphasis mine)

[TheDukester]

Sad, isn't it? And Mongoose would be a good publisher for a Dune game, too, whether it was RPG, tactical miniatures, or whatever.

Oh, how I loathe the HLP.

[Freakzilla]

...tactical miniatures...

I discovered these while riding my skateboard through Lenox Mall in Atlanta (no, the police didn't like that much).



There was a store called Sword of the Phoenix (since closed ) that had everything you could imagine as far as gaming.

The window displays had rotating shelfs ( ) that had buttons to go back and forth of hundreds of very skillfully painted miniatures. I never got into playing the hex games but I used to love painting the miniatures.

[Ampoliros]

Review I found of the Dune RPG:

On the credits page we see proper billing given to the designers, the developers of the ICON system, and of course the editors- Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. When I first noticed this, I said to myself, "well, that explains it," but of course it does no such thing. If you're not familiar with licensed RPGs, just bear in mind that the creators of the property in question generally do not edit the games based on them. George Lucas does not claim developing credit on any incarnation of the STAR WARS RPG, nor is Joss Whedon listed as the editor for the BUFFY game. There are two major reasons for this. The first is that people like this are very busy; the second is that they are not game designers, and most likely have no clue how to put an RPG book together. They know nothing of balanced mechanics and rules terminology. So for Herbert and Anderson to take this credit (in addition to a credit as Creative Consultants) raises questions. Is it mere title-hogging, or a misunderstanding of how game books are put together, or does it suggest they were looking over the designers' shoulders even more intrusively than the average licensor, perhaps then explaining why WotC declined to renew the agreement? Did they, out of all the license holders in all the world, actually know how to edit a rulebook? Or was it just a typo? We may never know.