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When you add the new chapter from inside the wizard, you can reuse the same chapter number, but you need to increment the version number.

Okay. Four Dune novels is enough for now. Back to writing...

> Did I thank you for all your reviews?
Of course you did. Your folks done did raise you right. I saw your monster posts of War & Peace. Still looking for time to review chapter 2 to do it justice. What's your deadline?

Thanks
Dirk

Welcome, Julian. Mysteries & Thrillers is relatively inactive as forums go. The best forum to say hello and introduce yourself and your work is in Premium. Next to that, Medieval/Fantasy Magic is a diverse mix of writers, including me (writing a supernatural thriller). Others there write fantasy and sci-fi in spite of the legacy group name. Each long term member of the group usually has a long-running brainstorming thread in that group's forum, where we exchange ideas. Mine remains the most active, called The Lord of the Earth. Ignore most of the first ten pages; it was mostly me going insane trying to find an unused title for my series. I also post comments there about books I'm reading (working my way through the Dune universe) and critiquing plot holes in Gilligan's Island episodes. :-)

If you don't think you'll have a need for a brainstorming thread, you can still post your mystery/thriller stories in this group (it's one way for people to find it), but be sure to cross-post to Premium, as that's where most of the users are. For writing or site questions of virtually any type, you can try your brainstorming thread, or post it to the Premium forum. The latter will probably result in the fastest and most complete responses.

Again, welcome!
Dirk

I'm (mostly) enjoying Children of Dune so far. Haven't read it in years. I wouldn't be surprised if there are college courses on how to interpret the Dune books.

Currently, the shootout between cops and demons is unrealistic. Even the best available body armor can't stop a shotgun blast from causing serious injury. In my current draft, they just get up and continue the search. So I either add more cops or better armor. I tried adding more cops, but it became overly complicated, so I figured give them some new body armor that protects against shotgun blasts.

This is the new explanation for demons in physical form. I think readers will buy this until the theory is proven conclusively at the villa.

De Rosa doesn't dwell on the internal motives of the plainclothes cop. Campagna notices him sitting across the street watching the second villa (their target). She was the one who requested he be there at the end of chapter 6, scene 1, while she was on the phone.

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.

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.

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 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.