The Gathering Darkness (the Connor series) - Dirk B. (Page 34 of 57)

Why would you consider it to be distancing from the supernatural premise? I crucified Vitale instead of burying him and threw in a demon for good measure. There'll be more of them since I've eliminated human accomplices. Fewer criminal background checks and interrogations that way.

I'm cleaning up scene 1.2 right now. It begins the supernatural setup for the murders (e.g. the dark figure almost destroys the church).

As for the cat, the previous version opened with her pulling off Via Tiburtina to park in front of the church. I added the early bit to set her up as an alcoholic. You and Seabrass both suggested dumping more s--t on my MCs.

Forget my earlier comment about the dark figure not needing to turn into fog. I forgot he's putting on a show for the security cameras, plus there's the fog that attacks Connor in the chapel.

$40 for the hardcover version of Dune rereleased to coincide with the movie. Yikes! The last time I paid serious money for hardcover fiction was the ending to the nine book cycle in Star Wars that killed off Jacen Solo. Pretty much the same character arc as Kylo Ren. Good kid turns to the dark side and is redeemed at death. I was kind of hoping they wouldn't kill Jacen since it would have been much more interesting to follow his path back into society after having killed millions. If they had done that, I might have kept reading SW books. As is, I stopped after that book.

I was searching for more info on the new Dune trilogy and stumbled on versions of the Dune saga in French, Spanish, and German. Milking that franchise had got to be a full-time job. They should hire Kathleen Kennedy, whose contract at Lucasfilm is due to expire in a few years. What producer would green light the final trilogy of the Skywalker Saga without enough of an outline to steer the damn story? Granted the Emperor's return was great, but it was an asspull of epic proportions.

Dune Messiah is a mess of a book. I went looking for explanations online and found reviews from people who also couldn't understand what the hell Frank Herbert was trying to say. I'm 70% of the way through and I still don't know why Paul keeps thinking disengage, disengage, disengage. I understand that he wants to save Chani but can't, but I don't know how that relates to the Jihad (it seems to be mostly over), nor how allowing himself to be blinded by the stoneburner prevents much worse violence.

Finished Dune Messiah. Most of my aforementioned questions remained unanswered. Since Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson have a clearer writing style, I decided to order Winds of Dune next, which is the temporal sequel to Messiah. I'm hoping they will clarify some of the incomprehensible gibberish in Messiah or, at least, prepare me for a dive into Children of Dune.

Frank Herbert made an interesting choice about Chani's death. Paul knew she was in labor and would die but didn't go to be with her. They tweaked that in the Children of Dune miniseries by having him come to say goodbye to her.

I'm looking forward to the new movie.

Dune Messiah remains my least-liked book, while the prequel series are new favorites. House Atreides, is, I think, the best of the lot. Duncan Idaho as a child worked out perfectly. I cross-checked in Dune (a book I read again at least once every couple of years) to see if they got all the casual notes that Herbert mentioned. They did.

I’ve met both Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson. They’re both friendly guys, with a love of the writing craft. Herbert is, I think more meticulous, while Anderson is more inspirational. I can understand that, as my co-author, Jim, and I have the same kind of writing relationship.

I didn’t like Machine Crusade, and because of that, I’ve not seen their treatment of the legendary Butlerian Jihad. That all felt forced, and a forced novel is always a mistake. I’ve let storylines wither rather than push them.

Following is a link to a website that summarizes and analyzes the Dune novels, including Dune Messiah. It answered some of my questions, but it's clear that Frank Herbert had no intention of answering all of the questions raised by his characters thoughts and conversations. And his ideas on prescience are twisted pretzels.

https://www.tor.com/series/rereading-fr … erts-dune/

Moving on to Winds of Dune.

I must admit, I'm enjoying Winds of Dune, which follows Dune Messiah in the timeline, except for flashbacks to Paul's youth and the middle years of the Jihad. I thought the flashbacks to Paul's youth were going to be crap, like in Paul of Dune, but they actually fit the bigger story very well so far. A lot more of the original characters in Winds of Dune, including Lady Jessica. The book was originally going to be called Jessica of Dune.

I also finally found an answer online as to why Paul started/allowed the Jihad. Once he passed a certain point in the original Dune story, teaching the oppressed Fremen how to defeat the Harkonnens and the Saurdukar, there was no stopping them. Paul had become their long-awaited Messiah. Even if he died, it would have continued in his name. He used it to fulfill his "terrible purpose", which was to reinvigorate the stagnant gene pool that had developed over thousands of years of relative peace in the Empire. The best way humans know how to do that is through fanatical bloody warfare. His son, Leto, the God Emperor of Dune, built on this, leading to the Golden Path, which scattered mankind across the universe and bred them so they couldn't be seen by enemies using prescience, assuring mankind's survival.

I have little of use for you... partly as I noted because the details aren't consistent (I realize this is deliberate) and also because I can't fathom the structure.

For example, I tagged that I'm confounded by DeRosa's dwelling on the internal motives of the plainsclothes cop, but I might read something 3 chapters from now that explains the purpose of it. Anything you can do to write to the end will help me give you reviews meaningful to the plot you're building. Otherwise, I'll ask you questions that bury you in rewrites for the next quarter century

Interesting timing. I just reached a point in Winds of Dune where Paul explains to his mother about his visions and the reasons for the Jihad. He tells her that he became trapped by his visions the moment he became Maud'dib in the desert after their flight from the Harkonnens. Had he died before then, the events never would have happened, but then there would have been no saving humanity with Leto's Golden Path in the distant future.

I'm debating creating a fictitious new level 5 body armor that allows the police officers shot in chapter six to shake off the shotgun blasts to their bodies. They do that now, but it's unrealistic since even level 4 armor would result in a hospital stay if hit by a shotgun.

The other option is to add five more tactical officers to the villa search, holding them in reserve outside the villa in case more officers are needed inside, such as when the first two officers get shot.