The Gathering Darkness (the Connor series) - Dirk B. (Page 35 of 57)

Edit: Do continuity hops if you have to. "In this chapter the police have special suits they didn't have before" that way you can measure if it's worth adding to the rewrite later on

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.

Big disconnect between Winds of Dune (which follows Dune Messiah in the timeline) and Children of Dune, which was Frank Herbert's original sequel to Messiah. In Winds of Dune, Jessica breaks with the Bene Gessirit in a way that seemed irreparable. They tried to destroy her using "guilt-casting", which leaves the victim to suffer severe and irreparable mental suffering in the form of feelings of crippling guilt. Yet, in Children of Dune she returns to Dune at the urging of the Sisterhood to investigate Alia's fall to the Baron's inner presence, and to test Paul's children for the same form of abomination. If I remember correctly, her tests of young Leto (force feeding him spice) actually forces him to merge with a powerful ruler from the distant past to avoid his mind being overthrown by the personalities in Other Memory.

> 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

Almost finished with Children of Dune. Not soon enough. The plot is good, but for a very smart man, Frank Herbert couldn't communicate his advanced concepts to be understood no matter how many times I read them. I found myself skimming after too many attempts to understand his  prattle about prescience and time, including his attempt to describe it mathematically. Add philosophy, religion, politics, and genetics, mix them all together, and it's a mess. No wonder I haven't read this book in a long time. As Last Jessica said once, when religion and politics ride in the same cart, the whirlwind follows. I did however discover that Paul never saw the extinction of humans in his partial visions for the Golden Path. I thought in Dune Messiah that that's what he was fighting with his Jihad.

You've churned a high page count in a short time

I moved on to God Emperor of Dune. Still as enjoyable as I remember. Surprisingly, Frank Herbert used a lot of summaries of history for those not familiar with the first three books. Most notably, a report within the Bene Gessirit that provides an "update" on every aspect of the Dune universe and how it changed over 3500 years. A number of writers on this site would have told him to get rid of it and work it into the story as it goes along. Personally, I like the report. Kind of like my Galactipedia articles.

Actually, I lie

I would tell him to get rid of it in a debut novel. Anyone who's worked their way to a book 3 (book 5 in your case) will sit through the world building -- even deserves the world building

As if my writing wasn't going slowly enough, I appear to have caught Covid in spite of having practically shut myself off from the world. There are practically no cases of this stupid disease in Calgary when compared to the total population count, and I still got it. If the early studies are correct, that having this disease doesn't confer long immunity, we are in for one hell of a decade. A recent camp outing of hundreds of kids under somewhat careless conditions ended up giving the disease to almost half of them in just a few days. How does one reopen schools with a virus like that? Say goodbye to eat-in restaurants, bars, cruises, air travel, gyms, cramped stores, etc.

If the disease hasn't progressed to the point where you're thinking of going to the hospital, find a doctor who'll put you on hydroxychloroquine plus either azothromycin or doxycycline, plus zinc.  It won't work if you're too far along, but (in spite of the bad press) there's good evidence it works in the early stages.

Frank Herbert can be tedious at times. I have no doubt he often wrote to force his readers to think, which is part of the challenge, but I just finished another chapter of God Emperor of Dune that's as muddy as most of Dune Messiah. What remains interesting is that he wrote such a long book (God Emperor) filled mostly with conversation and little action, yet is generally entertaining.

Those promotions for the inspectors seemed like a nice touch as I was writing it, but I just realized I now have to write Senior Inspector Campagna, where it used to be just Inspector Campagna. That's going to get tiresome. Also, technically, there is no Senior Inspector in the Vatican, but I don't care.