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.
What browser do you use, Jack? I use Google Chrome. Also, what format do you save your Word documents in? I use the default (.docx).
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.
Jack, what version of Word are you using? I've rarely had problems with Word 2007 and, more recently, Word 2019. For what it's worth, I use CTRL-V to paste my Word content directly into the TNBW text field. If I'm editing an existing chapter, I use CTRL-A, then CTRL-V. I never use the popup window.
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.
$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.
Apparently 13 sequels/prequels to Dune aren't enough for Brian Herbert. He and his co-author are releasing a new trilogy called the Duke of Caladan and a Dune graphic novel series. Kevin Anderson is no slouch either. He wrote some of the bestselling Star Wars novels of all time before teaming up on Dune books. The Dune graphic novels might tempt me to buy if the price is right.
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.
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.
Revised chapter 4 (the start of the investigation) is up for points.
Ray, I heard from a pulmonary specialist on the news, that when you have Covid, you need to do deep breathing exercises. It forces more air into the lungs, which increases blood oxygen levels, and speeds the healing of the lungs.
Brainstorming assistance, please. In my revised detective scenes, I'll have a number of demons. They can function in one of several ways:
a) by possessing an ordinary human (appears in the Bible and in my Exorcism chapter)
b) by appearing in a human (but non-corporeal) form (angels do this in the Bible, although demons can do it too)
c) by animating a recently dead body (written about by theologians in Church history speculating about sex between humans and demons)
d) by growing a new body by sampling dead tissue. I think I made this one up, but can't remember anymore.
Of those four ways, most of my demons will be based on type d (sampling dead tissue). When they abandon their physical bodies, they revert to ghostly apparitions (spirits) and their demonic bodies dissolve. I doubt I'll have use for types b and c. I mention them in the new scene 1.4 for completeness sake.
I do, however, have need for an even more powerful demonic form, namely one who can shapeshift. This would be restricted to Satan alone, the most powerful of all demons. He has a physical body (type d), but he's not limited to just one shape. If he wants, he can convert from one human form to another at will. I'm thinking of explaining this by saying he can edit his body's DNA and thereby change shape. It requires great power, which is why he's the only one who can do it.
Thoughts?
Thanks
Dirk
Time to move on to Dune Messiah. I'm only one chapter into it and can already see the huge differences between Frank Herbert's writing and that of his son. With Dune and Dune Messiah, there is incredible subtlety in the writing that forces me to think what the hell elder Herbert is trying to say. There is virtually none of that in his son's writing.
Yup. Crucifixions and demons may be the answer. My first revised scene will be up tomorrow. I just need to decide if I want the reader to meet Cardinal Vitale and the dark figure before the former turns up dead.
Finished Paul of Dune today, the temporal sequel to Dune. It's two stories in one, back and forth between a story from Paul's youth and the story of the early years of his rule as emperor. Although it is generally very well written, there's too much focus on characters I just didn't care about. Not nearly enough about the original characters and too much about secondary characters introduced by Brian Herbert and his coauthor in the prequels to Dune. Is give it 3/5 stars.
Here's a silly observation. Why does a dark being who can practically destroy a church need to turn into fog to slip under a door? You'd think he could simply turn the lock using his powers and walk in. This comes up because I'm thinking of getting rid of the turning-into-fog part. Necessary as I redefine what demons in human form can and can't do. They can sample dead tissue and assume the dead person's identity (e.g., the chief exorcist of Rome), but if the demon dissolves, it will need to sample other dead tissue to reconstitute itself as someone else. I think this limitation should be true up to and including Satan himself since he too is a demon, albeit the most powerful one. Too bad, since it would be cool for him to change from human form into a suitably horned beast at will.
I'm debating whether to involve lesser demons in the serial killings. Somewhere above I said I didn't want that, but supernatural beings make for better accomplices. Harder to kill, too. They could help bring the Jerusalem wood to each church to construct the human-size crosses.
Hmm. I'm definitely leaning toward crucifixions for the manner of all four deaths. Cardinals are ideal since they each are the titular head of a church in Rome. I could kill them in their own churches. The downside is that Angels & Demons also targeted four cardinals, successfully killing three. The fourth almost died but for the heroics of Tom Hanks's character. The other downside is that now all of the killings will be identical, further complicating my desire to keep the story fresh as it proceeds. There would be no accomplices like the gravedigger to hunt down. The gravedigger led the inspectors to Father Coppola, who conveniently keels over when arrested. It mixes things up somewhat, but involves two scenes of the inspectors reporting to higher ups and two interrogation scenes. If I kept going, I'd need even more of those.
No, the Antichrist is part human. He can't be in two places on Earth at the same time. It's a stretch of Catholic beliefs that the AC is even part demon. He also can't grow 10 cm. The reason for multiple murders is that the AC is trying to seize the Church from within by replacing existing clergy with loyal followers. I also think there's more tension and urgency with multiple murders.
Connor is definitely stuck in the Holy Land while the remaining murders are committed in Rome. The problem I have is the False Prophet has many powers similar to the Antichrist, so it's possible that he's the one who'll attack Connor in the Holy Land while the AC continues his business in Rome. I had hoped not to bring the False Prophet into the story until book two, but I can't think of a way to rule him out as a suspect in the reader's mind.
I narrowed it to four cardinals as part of the last draft. It doesn't have to be cardinals and once included other clergy in key positions as well. That was my original plan. A few of each. One advantage of cardinals is that they're old and may simply have died of old age (or coronavirus). Naturally, if the press gets a picture of cardinals (or other clergy) crucified on a church wall, the cat would be out of the bag. It needs to be clergy in positions of power since the Antichrist is trying to capture the Church from within.
If I keep the body count low, it should help avoid too much public scrutiny. There need to be murders before Connor leaves for the Holy Land and after, so that Connor can be fully ruled out as a suspect. Four total seemed like a reasonable number. He may be ruled out anyway since he's only 175 cm tall while the killer is 185 cm.
Current problems, of which there are many, is that Connor continues to be attacked in the Holy Land, which could theoretically be the work of the False Prophet (or even Satan), as opposed to some mystery about how the Antichrist is able to kill in Rome and the Holy Land at virtually the same time.
It looks great, Bobbie. Congratulations. You've had an interesting career.
Ooh. The Antichrist might also be able to use supernatural powers to create crosses on which to crucify the clergymen. The wood would be traced to the area around the Old City in Jerusalem. Teleporting wood would be over the top, but it could have been imported into Rome from Israel and left somewhere for the AC to use.
Perhaps also make Campagna an alcoholic. After all, it was her getting totally wasted that made it possible for someone to rape her. The rape and kidnapped child would make her turn even more to the bottle.
Interesting. The AC could levitate the cardinals up to the right height and ram giant nails into them supernaturally. So far so good. That's actually something that happens to Connor near the climax of his tour of the Holy Land.
Well, shit. I went back and reread much of this thread for past ideas on how I had considered handling the cardinal killings/suicides to see if I can improve the detective half of this story. Not nearly enough tension at present to keep me interested. Turns out I already pretty much considered half a dozen ways of doing things, which resulted in numerous versions of scene 1.2 (first cardinal meets the Antichrist). The current approach evolved from the other five I punted. Seemed like a good idea at the time.
One new option is to pose all of the dead cardinals crucifixion-style, hanging from high on a wall. Cardinal Vitale would be nailed above the high altar. Maybe they even died from being crucified? Lets face it, these cardinals are not in great health to begin with. Death by crucifixion is probably the only violent form of death that Catholic readers might tolerate. It begs the question, though, how the Antichrist got the cardinals up high on a wall by himself. He's very powerful, but nailing someone against a high wall probably requires more than one killer, and I don't want to introduce more demons if I can avoid it. The focus should be on the AC.
I also still have the option of having them die of sheer terror. That was an option I considered at one point. Not sure how to build on that, though.
Manner of death only buys me maybe 5% more tension. It's the slow pace of the investigation that's killing me. Problem is, if the killings pile up quickly, then all of Rome will know about it and a huge police task force would be set up to investigate the deaths. I don't have enough info on Italian police procedures to do the task force, unless I use the idea of a special dedicated tactical team from the outset (i.e., made up any way I like). Kind of like Men in Black, minus the humor.
