Parallels between FH Dune novels & antics of the Hacks Twain

[Sardaukar Capt]

Are the following parallels to much to be coincidence?

1) Heretics of Dune - I believe this is set in the approximate time frame (and of course years after the GE's death) of Hadi Benotto finding Leto II's journals at Dar-es-Balat in the opening of GEoD.

2) Hack antics: Years after his father's death, Bri-Bri suddenly unearths the Dune 7 discs in a sealed vault (safe deposit box) and suddenly discovers a hoard of other notes of Frank's in his attic. Bri-Bri sure was channeling Hadi Benotto on that one. And much like the Rakian priesthood, thekja has suppressed any direct evidence of these findings of theirs.

First, "Heretic" = Bri-Bri. Second, not saying that the journals of Leto II in FH books are false, but that we know the feeble twosome have no imagination of their own, so I can seem them concocting a story about the discs and notes that shares such a similar theme with something in one of Frank's books.

Or has McDune so rotted my brain that I'm channeling Mel Gibson in Conspiracy

[D Pope]

The whole 'outline in a safe deposit box' is a load of marketing crap. Brian might have found some notes that no one thought was important enough to donate to Fullerton, and that's that. Given how important the story about the outline is, you'd think that they'd get their story straight. From one interview to the next, neither one could keep even the basic ideas consistent! When I say basic, I mean did they get a call from a lawyer or did Brian find a key or two while looking for notes? They can't even say with any consistency whether there were any keys, sometimes the story says there were no keys and the lock(s) had to be drilled. If they were telling the truth, would there be any difficulty in remembering just how many boxes there were?

It's a fabrication to legitimize production line literature.

Are the following parallels to much to be coincidence?

Comparing hack-shines to Dune books... You're reaching mate, not sure for what but that's a stretch that'll be difficult to sell around here.
Very creative, looking for parallels there, may be a bit like saying that "The Little Prince" foretold the Holocaust.

[Sardaukar Capt]

Oh the parallels are all in fun. I don't think Bri-Bri or thekja are that clever. Although if it was unconscious on Bri-Bri's part that would be damn poetic lol

I still haven't figured out, one why FH would put discs for a book he was supposedly working on at the time in a safety deposit box and they wouldn't be around the computer where he was working on the story everyday. Second why said box was evidently paid up for the next freaking decade till it was "discovered" at a surprisingly convenient time for the Hacks because if it wasn't paid up for that long, the bank would have long ago contacted the family or lawyer to retrieve the contents or they would have disposed of them by giving it over to state.

I had another parallel in mind earlier today with some idiotic thing they said or did and a plot thread in one of their books but it escapes me now.

[D Pope]

"why FH would put discs...in a safety deposit box"
"it was "discovered" at a surprisingly convenient time"
"the bank would have long ago contacted the family or lawyer to retrieve the contents "

Brian says that because he's worked in the insurance industry he knows that shit
happens and told his father to put his notes and manuscript in a safe deposit box.

Rotate it, vary the lighting, twist it, pull on it, put it under magnification,
there's no way of looking at this that doesn't say liar!

Herbert: Years after my father passed away we got a call from the attorney who handled his estate, saying that they'd found two safe-deposit keys.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/fe ... 28-5924624

...that's when Brian, by digging through all the stuff we had on Dune, came upon the key to the safe deposit where he found the [Dune 7] outline.
http://www.crescentblues.com/2_5issue/anderson.shtml

Two weeks after that phone call Brian found himself, along with an estate attorney and the bank manager, covering their ears as
two safety deposit boxes were drilled open for lack of any keys.
http://www.sffworld.com/authors/m/merri ... ives1.html

So what do you think? Did Brian find a "full and complete outline" in a magically appearing safe deposit?

and in them were the notes to Dune 7 -- it was a 30-page outline. So I went up in my attic and found another 1,000 pages of working notes.
http://www.filmcritic.com/features/2009 ... -interview

BH: Yeah, it's just a three-page, er, maybe two-and-a-half page outline, but it's er ... it's... it's concise, we've, um ... we've ... we've added a lot, a lot to it, I mean, it was, it was more of a ... an inspiration for us in kind of a general concept, than a detailed scene-by-scene outline, so Kevin and I have, have fleshed out the characters and the scenes and, ... um, and I think, er, oh a few weeks later, I started rummaging around in my storage and I ... and I found additional general er, Dune ... Dune notes of my father's that have really helped us too. So, it was kind of amazing to have these things appear right after Kevin and I met.

SB: So, you all had started making plans and then, essentially you found, a roadmap?
[KJA and BH talk over each other, then ...]
BH: Well, I wouldn't say we found a roadmap, I'd say we found ... clues.
SB: Okay.
BH: It's been more clues than ... than precise roadmaps.

SB: I was curious, because you had written about this in The Road to Dune, about having found this. I was always curious how detailed an outline it was, and how much room it gave you for improvisation, shall we say?
[KJA takes a breath, but BH answers ahead of him]
BH: No, it wasn't that detailed, it was more general.
SB: Got it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpKl32A-xJ8

edit; Zip up to about 4:15 for this quote. I still laugh at how Brian steps all over 14evin to drop this landmine.

...

[D Pope]

screw it, here it is!

[lotek]

@D Pope : if you right click on a youtube video and select the 2nd option the link you get will start the video play at the point where you click, for example http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... xJ8#t=308s (apologies if you knew that ^^)

[D Pope]

Thanks Mate!
No, i'm almost, but not quite, completely computer illiterate.

The coolest video editor i've worked with was the "Video Toaster" for Amiga.
And, in case you don't know, Amiga is what happened to Commodor. Oh, the
90s were a magic time. I took a job at a video arcade just to learn about Virtual
Reality. I believed that was where computers were headed, still can't understand
why I was wrong.

[Ampoliros]

Here's what the one note said.

"Dear Brian,
As you know in Dune Messiah I start to unravel the heroic destiny of Paul Muad'dib and destroy the charismatic leader in the eyes of the reader. This was very much on purpose. If you ever choose to write in the Dune Universe, I have only one command. You must pick the most philistine hack of a writer alive. Someone with no morals or scruples and especially no talent. Ruthless in production, empty in quality. I want you to pass up any offers from my friends or other authors who respect me or the art of writing and find a used car salesman or even better a politician. One of those name-dropper people, the kind who weasel their way into the inner circle of things, so they can rely on the unspoken rule of not dissing another artists work out of respect for the craft. A loathsome person, who considers his fans whores or better, drug addicts who will buy anything with a name on it. The kind of guy who brags about using a gift a fan gave them to clean BBQ sauce off their fat ass. I want them to trash Dune, turn it into a pulp side show full of idiotic shit that makes no sense. Like Paul running away to the circus as a kid. No scratch that, it might be too obvious what we're doing. I don't know, maybe make Marty and Daniel out to be transvestite robots from the past when all my notes and even Chapterhouse outright declare they are Face Dancers. If some unknown guy calls you, go to a local bookstore and walk right past the Fiction section to the movie-tie in section and look to see how many of those they have written. Someone with a lot of "&"'s on the cover.

Love, Dad.

PS. Don't write this shit yourself. I love you with all my heart and I'm proud of you, but damn you suck as a writer. At least preserve the family name by getting a fall guy.

[Hunchback Jack]

So they *did* complete Dune 7 as Frank intended! How could I have ever doubted them?

Seriously, though, if they can't even get it straight whether the supposed Dune 7 outline was "two or maybe three" pages or thirty, I have little faith in its existence.

HBJ

[lotek]

They can't even keep a straight lie, how're they supposed to tell a whole bloody story ?
At this point it doesn't matter much, if there really was an outline they surely didn't follow it, and their "books' suck donkeys' balls. Period.

[JustSomeGuy]

As you know in Dune Messiah I start to unravel the heroic destiny of Paul Muad'dib and destroy the charismatic leader in the eyes of the reader

I know you wrote this in jest, but I do not agree. Dune Messiah pretty much cements Paul's heroic destiny, and lifts him up to suprahuman status. Something like that.

[D Pope]

I applaud you guys and our side in general, but I weep for the world.
How many mcDune are they up to ? Ten or twelve? It's taken that many
for the world to see what's up with these hosers? Moves a man to cuss and cry.


fuck.


Is there any ray of hope on the battlegrounds? Amazon, dung-novels, & the like?
Has the enemy left the field at least partially? What would be great would be one
of the elite just bowing out with 'yeah, ok, I can't defend that.'

Wanna hear about the greatest backfire of all time?
They're fucking right! Their version of a childrens guide to Muad'Dib did interest a new generation in Dune! Vast numbers of tween nerds sucking down mcDune and trying to be the first to get a grip on the real thing when a miricle happens, they're not twelve any more! They notice that they keep coming back to Dune and have a hard time staying interested in The Filler of Dune. Something in the universe shifts, just a little, no one says so but every living being feels it, an Orthodox Herbertarian breaks out of the shell of his own preeqdom and is born into the light.
There is only one Herbert who writes Dune and SandRider is his prophet!

[D Pope]

As you know in Dune Messiah I start to unravel the heroic destiny of Paul Muad'dib and destroy the charismatic leader in the eyes of the reader

I know you wrote this in jest, but I do not agree. Dune Messiah pretty much cements Paul's heroic destiny, and lifts him up to suprahuman status. Something like that.

How do you figure?

edit; never mind mate, have a nice life.

[JustSomeGuy]

"We will not run," Paul said. "We'll move with dignity. We'll do what must
be done."

Need I say more? Heroic.
Also, in Dune, Paul came to be know as "Muad'Dib"- he made it happen! I'm sure there were many who doubted, though. In Dune Messiah, he was blind and yet could see! What could you say to that! I mean, something like that is almost beyond belief. Supranatural.
Tell me what you think, please.

[JustSomeGuy]

Sorry for the delay. I meant to give you an "adequate" response. Have a nice life, too, I guess. Whatever.

[Sardaukar Capt]

As you know in Dune Messiah I start to unravel the heroic destiny of Paul Muad'dib and destroy the charismatic leader in the eyes of the reader

I know you wrote this in jest, but I do not agree. Dune Messiah pretty much cements Paul's heroic destiny, and lifts him up to suprahuman status. Something like that.

Frank Herbert wrote the perfect messiah/superhero in Dune and then pretty much destroyed him in Dune Messiah and Children of Dune. It was his theory that superheroes were always disastrous for mankind because of the power structure that grew up around them. Paul never wanted the Jihad but even as the messiah/superman he was unable to stop it being carried out in his name and the billions of lives it ended up costing. The "machine" created in his name ended up being to big for him to control. And his rise as the messiah/superhero ended up being to the detriment to the Fremen and Arrakis in the end.

[JustSomeGuy]

Frank Herbert wrote the perfect messiah/superhero in Dune and then pretty much destroyed him in Dune Messiah and Children of Dune. It was his theory that superheroes were always disastrous for mankind because of the power structure that grew up around them. Paul never wanted the Jihad but even as the messiah/superman he was unable to stop it being carried out in his name and the billions of lives it ended up costing. The "machine" created in his name ended up being to big for him to control. And his rise as the messiah/superhero ended up being to the detriment to the Fremen and Arrakis in the end.

And yet, I do not feel that Paul was diminished. Paul Atreides: Heroic, Charismatic. That's just me, though. I'm an asshole.

[Sardaukar Capt]

Frank Herbert wrote the perfect messiah/superhero in Dune and then pretty much destroyed him in Dune Messiah and Children of Dune. It was his theory that superheroes were always disastrous for mankind because of the power structure that grew up around them. Paul never wanted the Jihad but even as the messiah/superman he was unable to stop it being carried out in his name and the billions of lives it ended up costing. The "machine" created in his name ended up being to big for him to control. And his rise as the messiah/superhero ended up being to the detriment to the Fremen and Arrakis in the end.

And yet, I do not feel that Paul was diminished. Paul Atreides: Heroic, Charismatic. That's just me, though. I'm an asshole.

I wasn't saying you were, of course

I feel he was those things to. I just think in the larger story that events overtook him and he ended up being the flawed and failed superhero as Herbert intended. I think Paul thought he could control the future by seeing it but he learned a hard lesson that he couldn't.

[JustSomeGuy]

I feel he was those things to. I just think in the larger story that events overtook him and he ended up being the flawed and failed superhero as Herbert intended

Yeah, I agree. Somewhat.

I think Paul thought he could control the future by seeing it but he learned a hard lesson that he couldn't.

I'm not sure that Paul ever thought he could control the future. I'm pretty sure he thought he could shape it, but it was all so... well, we all know the way it turned out. A tragic victory, if anything. Also, fuck the prequels.

[Freakzilla]

Paul was always trapped by the oracle from the moment he made the choice between surrendering to the Harkonnens and enlisting the help of the Fremen. From then on it was a matter of, "how much shorter can I make the jihad?"