[HN Gopher] The Mystery of the Dune Font
___________________________________________________________________
 
The Mystery of the Dune Font
 
Author : edent
Score  : 279 points
Date   : 2023-01-27 09:01 UTC (13 hours ago)
 
web link (fontsinuse.com)
w3m dump (fontsinuse.com)
 
| prepend wrote:
| > Strangely enough, the name of this typeface is barely known
| even among die-hard fans.
| 
| This doesn't seem strange to me at all. I'm a fan of many books
| and I don't know the name of any of the typefaces. I think it's
| funny that this author links fandom for fonts to fandom for Dune
| and thinks people interested in Dune are also interested in
| typefaces.
| 
| I like this article and was curious about the distinctive "dune
| font." But not enough to Google it in the past 40 years.
 
  | narag wrote:
  | Maybe he meant _typography_ die-hard fans.
 
    | prepend wrote:
    | Perhaps. The context made me think it was Dune fans.
    | 
    | I would think most typography fans wouldn't even be aware of
    | Dune.
 
      | narag wrote:
      | To be honest, the same sentence caught my eye. I can
      | imagine there are some fans of both Dune and Typography.
      | But it's more probable that it's due to some effect I've
      | been observing for a while. Not sure if it has a name, all
      | these pieces of Internet wisdom have a name, like "Gell-Man
      | Amnesia", "Godwin's Law"... maybe I could call it narag's
      | effect?
      | 
      | I mean that any YouTube channel or Instagram account, that
      | has some niche topic as focus, tend to greatly exagerate
      | what is considered a normal engagement with such topic.
      | 
      | As an example, most persons own one watch and one perfume,
      | if any. If you want to buy a new wristwatch or perfume and
      | do your little research, you'll find reviewers that own
      | hundreds of perfumes or dozens of watches, some of them
      | ridiculously expensive. Why? You can create a channel that
      | helps the viewers to choose their one and only cheap
      | purchase, but good luck monetizing that. You need recurring
      | visitors, to improve your watching times. Brand deals also
      | require you are able to send whales to the vendors.
      | 
      | The noble art of Typography and a blog seem a little too
      | sober of a setup to fit that description, but who knows,
      | I'm sure there are pros very passionate about typesetting.
      | 
      | https://www.quotes.net/mquote/907087
 
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| That Dune Calendar from 1978 would work for this year too. Wonder
| if there's high quality scans available?
| 
| Edit: Reasonable scan here:
| 
| https://www.reddit.com/r/dune/comments/bh17j5/the_dune_calen...
 
  | mustacheemperor wrote:
  | Wow, the artwork is just beautiful. I wish this could get a re-
  | release now that the new movies are introducing Dune to a new
  | audience.
 
| ChickenNugger wrote:
| [dead]
 
| pklausler wrote:
| I always enjoy seeing the "Dune" font in unexpected places, such
| as the logo of the Washington Square Mall in the western burbs of
| Portland (OR), and wonder whether there's a Herbert fan somewhere
| with a sense of accomplishment for having used it.
 
| enriquto wrote:
| None of these covers shows "the" Dune font, for me. The first
| edition of Dune had a very stylized calligraphy that looked like
| arabic. I remember it vividly since my dad had this book in the
| living room, among others; and when I was learning to read, this
| was the only cover that I couldn't read at all. (It was a
| translation, but with the same cover.)
| 
| These letters are shown on the wikipedia page about the novel:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_%28novel%29
| 
| EDIT: The covers of some modern french translations are also
| incredible. Just the four letters D U N E, which are exactly the
| same shape but rotated 90 degrees. It's an incredibly simple and
| effective design.
 
  | ernesth wrote:
  | > EDIT: The covers of some modern french translations are also
  | incredible. Just the four letters D U N E, which are exactly
  | the same shape but rotated 90 degrees. It's an incredibly
  | simple and effective design.
  | 
  | Indeed, the _Robert Laffont_ 2020 edition looks great:
  | https://www.noosfere.org/livres/EditionsLivre.asp?numitem=13...
 
    | smithza wrote:
    | I was wondering where I got that copy. My old one had its
    | binding failed and I purchased this Robert Laffont special
    | edition (an email promo maybe?). Thanks for pointing it out
    | for me.
 
    | wazoox wrote:
    | Yes the metal cover with forms changing with the light are
    | great, look almost like holograms, extremely SciFi! The
    | static pictures can't make them justice.
 
  | n1b0m wrote:
  | That makes sense given Herbert borrowed heavily from Middle
  | Eastern, Islamic mythology
 
  | Semaphor wrote:
  | > Just the four letters D U N E, which are exactly the same
  | shape but rotated 90 degrees. It's an incredibly simple and
  | effective design.
  | 
  | For those interested: https://m.media-
  | amazon.com/images/P/B08HPFCMLS.01._SCLZZZZZZ...
 
    | MalcolmDwyer wrote:
    | Some Unicode variants:
    | 
    | to te ti ta
    | 
    | to te ti ttha
    | 
    | [?] [?] [?] [?]
    | 
    | Edit to add one more...
    | 
    | [?] [?] [?] [?]
 
      | edaemon wrote:
      | I imagine most people are aware but the second variant you
      | have there is essentially what was used for the most recent
      | movie:
      | http://www.impawards.com/2021/posters/dune_ver16_xlg.jpg
 
        | djur wrote:
        | There were a lot of "DUNC" jokes about the poster, like
        | that the main character was named "Dunc". (Real Dune
        | heads may have some "well, actually" thoughts about
        | that.)
 
        | yellowapple wrote:
        | I reckon Dune fans find all sorts of deeper meaning in
        | the hit B-52s song "Private Idaho".
 
    | radiowave wrote:
    | Ah, as if raked into the sand. Brilliant.
 
    | Zecc wrote:
    | See also: Sun Microsystems' logo
    | 
    | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sun-Logo.svg
 
      | danparsonson wrote:
      | Gosh I've seen that so many times before and yet never
      | really _looked_ at it until now.
 
      | Cockbrand wrote:
      | When I went to my first computer fair as a teenager, I saw
      | the Sun Microsystems booth and was blown away by the
      | fantastic logo. As I had never seen a Unix machine before,
      | I didn't know what to do with the computers on display,
      | though.
 
        | noisy_boy wrote:
        | The very first Unix I was exposed to was from Sun; I
        | remember seeing the logo on their servers and thinking
        | that those were the most beautiful computers I had seen
        | (which isn't much because I had hardly seen any servers
        | before that). I still remember that one of those came
        | with a key (forgot whether to turn it on or lock the
        | power button panel?)
 
        | dylan604 wrote:
        | Didn't Sun computers run Irix? Is Irix Unix?
 
        | detaro wrote:
        | IRIX was SGI, not Sun (and anyways yes, it's a Unix).
 
        | dylan604 wrote:
        | Thanks for clarifying. I always thought these other named
        | systems were Unix-like but not Unix but without going all
        | recursive like GNU with the naming
 
        | TickleSteve wrote:
        | The history of UNIX is complex...
        | 
        | (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Unix)
 
        | an1sotropy wrote:
        | Suns ran Solaris, of course.
 
        | jjtheblunt wrote:
        | SunOS was BSD-ish originally, then around 1994 they
        | shifted to a more SVR4 variant and rebranded to Solaris.
        | I think Solaris 2.x was SVR4 and Solaris 1.x was BSD
        | retronaming of what was SunOS named earlier.
        | 
        | It's been a while so I may not have the numbers quite
        | right.
        | 
        | Anyway, there was some overlap in nomenclature, so a
        | version bump of the SunOS naming (and Solaris numbering)
        | implied a shift from BSD-ish to SVR4-ish, as I recall.
        | 
        | (And I worked for Sun for a while after that, and used
        | Suns a ton around the shift)
 
  | derbOac wrote:
  | Thanks for pointing that out, as I had almost forgotten about
  | that first edition.
  | 
  | I was trying to remember where I had heard of Chilton, the
  | publisher of the first edition, and realized it was automotive
  | manuals!
  | 
  | The story of that first edition is interesting and somewhat
  | sad, although maybe edifying and not alone in publishing and
  | other forms of narrative arts.
 
    | serallak wrote:
    | I remember reading that, because the editor was as you said
    | better know for its technical manuals, a friend of Herbert
    | joked that maybe they thought to publish an Ornithopter
    | maintenance guide.
 
  | BadOakOx wrote:
  | > Just the four letters D U N E, which are exactly the same
  | shape but rotated 90 degrees.
  | 
  | This is what they went with for the movie posters too:
  | https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8e/Dune_%282021_...
  | ...although, they cheated a bit with the E.
  | 
  | EDIT: Here is a better resolution:
  | https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/2sxSn0jjjQoIIZfZjC6j5GZk...
  | :)
 
    | wkat4242 wrote:
    | It reminds me a bit of a visit to the optician :)
 
    | thisOtterBeGood wrote:
    | DUNC :D:D
    | 
    | They went for the right decision there, I wouldn't call it
    | cheating. It's a nice to incorporate the
    | importance/uniqueness of that planet in the dune world. They
    | could've just went for a horizontal line/pipe and noone
    | wouldve cared.
 
  | sandworm101 wrote:
  | I liked the original cover because it is the only one with a
  | truly alien landscape. Once the movies started being discussed,
  | Dune became and an earth desert with earth-like sandstone
  | rocks. Look at the rocks in the original cover. They were
  | different enough to clearly not be from earth geology.
 
  | dunefox wrote:
  | That's not arabic, rather just cursive.
 
    | xwdv wrote:
    | Many children have grown up these days without learning
    | cursive in school, thus every time they see squiggly fonts
    | they think Arabic first.
 
      | caskstrength wrote:
      | > Many children have grown up these days without learning
      | cursive in school, thus every time they see squiggly fonts
      | they think Arabic first.
      | 
      | Wait, are you saying that children in US schools write in
      | block letters these days? That must be slow!
 
      | dymk wrote:
      | Given the Arakkis language is based on Arabic, I would not
      | be surprised that the typographic design of Dune fonts is
      | supposed to evoke a feeling of Arabic
 
      | ZeroGravitas wrote:
      | My grandmother noticed graffiti tags, which are very ornate
      | generally, and concluded that they were written in arabic.
 
    | esrauch wrote:
    | I'm old enough to have mainly used cursive in school and I
    | definitely had the thought that it seemed like a vaguely
    | arabic-inspired cursive when I saw it the flourishes on the
    | D.
 
      | landhar wrote:
      | The flourishes in the D of that cover are exactly how I was
      | taught to write the uppercase D in cursive at school. I
      | remember (as a kid) thinking it was odd that to write a `D`
      | one had to start by writing an `I`, but never questioned
      | it.
      | 
      | But from looking at examples of cursive on google images,
      | it seems like that form is no longer as prominent.
 
        | bbarnett wrote:
        | _The flourishes in the D of that cover are exactly how I
        | was taught to write the uppercase D in cursive at
        | school._
        | 
        | We've now established that you went to school in Arab,
        | and this is why you wrote D in Arabic, for at no point
        | did you counter this logic.
        | 
        | (I am using chatgpt reasoning here)
 
    | SamBam wrote:
    | But quite clearly designed to draw a connection to the
    | Bedouin-inspired Fremen, and general North African-like
    | setting.
 
    | peepee1982 wrote:
    | I disagree.
    | 
    | The wide gamut in line thickness and the orientation of it is
    | typical for Arabic fonts, but not for cursive ones.
    | 
    | Personally, this kind of line reminds me of a arab dagger
    | even.
 
      | drivers99 wrote:
      | The variations in line thickness are exactly what you'd get
      | with a calligraphy pen (and pens before ball points like
      | fountain pens, quills) and are a function of the consistent
      | direction of the pen and the smoothly varying direction the
      | line is being written. So you will see it in all old
      | pen/quill writing styles.
 
| [deleted]
 
| dvh wrote:
| I have nothing to add to the font aspect but here's fellow HNer's
| advice how to approach these books:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20859569
 
  | jonah-archive wrote:
  | re the advice in that post -- I completely agree but I would
  | say that if you enjoy God Emperor (I do, deeply), between that
  | and Heretics go read _The Dune Encyclopedia_, which is a hard-
  | to-find paperback but an easy-to-find PDF written as an in-
  | universe encyclopedia set after God Emperor. Yes, some things
  | in it are contradicted by the remaining two books, but it adds
  | such a powerful structure to the extant universe in a
  | remarkably satisfying way.
 
    | mathieuh wrote:
    | I've read the Frank Herbert Dune books back-to-back several
    | times and love them all, but I've never tried his son's
    | additions to the series because I've read a few people saying
    | they're not worth the time. Do you agree?
 
      | jonah-archive wrote:
      | IMHO the Dune Encyclopedia (written in collaboration with
      | Frank Herbert) does a much better job elucidating aspects
      | of the Dune Universe in an interesting way than Brian's
      | books do -- there's a narrative thread that weaves through
      | the last three of Frank's books that is really, really
      | present and which Brian's books set aside for an
      | alternative -- and to my view, much less satisfying --
      | interpretation of late-stage events in the series.
 
      | Aeolun wrote:
      | It's not that they're not worth the time, but they're
      | clearly written by someone else, and try to attach onto a
      | cohesive whole in a way that doesn't quite feel right.
 
      | cmrdporcupine wrote:
      | They're quite bad, and I doubt very much they are based on
      | Frank Herbert's "found notes" in any way. If they are,
      | Brian Herbert should publish those notes, like Christopher
      | Tolkien did.
      | 
      | Lower quality writing, and not thoughtful, and the story
      | arc they take things in seems much cruder than what Frank
      | Herbert would have had in mind.
 
        | shagie wrote:
        | The trick in following from notes is that you need to
        | _become_ the author.
        | 
        | Consider Variable Star by Spider Robinson which is based
        | on 7 surviving pages of 8 pages of notes written in 1955
        | by Robert A. Heinlein.
        | 
        | http://www.spiderrobinson.com/reilly.html
        | 
        | > So I went home, and received a copy of Robert's outline
        | and notes, and loved them, and wrote two sample chapters
        | and a proposal and a title (Robert had put down seven
        | possible titles, but even he didn't like any of them
        | much), and they were all approved by Art Dula, and in the
        | fullness of time the book, to be known as "ROBERT A.
        | HEINLEIN'S VARIABLE STAR by Spider Robinson," sold to Tor
        | for the proverbial six figures.
        | 
        | > Since then, little dividends of joy keep coming in,
        | like the receding ripples of pleasure that accompany a
        | truly great orgasm--and sometimes, if you're lucky,
        | signal that it's about to become a multiple. For example,
        | Art Dula moved me to tears by sending me, out of the
        | blue, Robert's desk dictionary, heavily used and
        | carefully repaired--Robert Heinlein's personal box of
        | words. He filled out the package with a pound of
        | authentic Jamaica Blue Mountain. Similarly, sweet Amy
        | sent me a set of her grandfather's cufflinks to wear as I
        | type VARIABLE STAR, and Jeanne a few pieces of her
        | grandmother's jewelry to wear for me when I stumble from
        | the typewriter. I feel supported and encouraged by the
        | whole Heinlein family and legacy. That makes me the
        | luckiest writer alive. And one of the luckiest readers.
        | 
        | When writing it, he had the same "these are the words
        | that you are to use while writing as Heinlein."
        | 
        | One of the reviews
        | http://www.spiderrobinson.com/variablefans.html
        | 
        | > This novel should be the example held forth when
        | writers collaborate. Spider has perfectly captured the
        | pacing, feel and stature of a Robert Heinlein story while
        | retaining his own identity. It doesn't feel like someone
        | trying to "write like Heinlein", but like someone who's
        | read every book the man's written so many times it's
        | second nature.
        | 
        | https://bookshop.org/p/books/variable-star-robert-a-
        | heinlein...
        | 
        | > "Completing a book from notes by a dead author is
        | almost always a mistake. But Robert A. Heinlein
        | apparently isn't really dead. He was obviously standing
        | at the side of Spider Robinson as he wrote this book,
        | guiding his hand. Variable Star will delight the fans of
        | the greatest science fiction writer who ever lived, and
        | at the same time, stays true to Spider's passionate
        | themes of optimism, kindness, and humanity's future among
        | the stars." --John Varley, Hugo and Nebula Award-winning
        | author of The Persistence of Vision and Steel Beach
        | 
        | This is the way to do continuations - not fan fiction
        | but, for lack of a better word, channeling the spirit of
        | the original author so that you can become them and use
        | the same style rather than imposing your own style on top
        | of their world.
 
        | cmrdporcupine wrote:
        | I think Christopher Tolkien pretty much did this. And
        | what was great was the way he edited (with his father's
        | blessing), did a small amount of continuation, as well as
        | published the original notes, so we could all see the
        | authorial process.
        | 
        | However in Tolkien's case, there was an explicit father
        | son work relationship that was grounded in their mutual
        | love and family life, and the fact that both had similar
        | education, etc.
        | 
        | My understanding is Brian Herbert was estranged from his
        | father and they had a bad relationship.
        | 
        | And Brian Herbert brought in an outside writer (Kevin J
        | Anderson) to do a lot (most?) of the actual writing.
        | 
        | The world of Dune fans would have been better served if
        | Herbert had simply published his father's notes, maybe
        | with some annotations or reflections.
        | 
        | Given the above, and as hasn't provided those notes and
        | documents he apparently found, and as the plot veers
        | quite a bit in tone from what Frank Herbert seemed to me
        | to have in mind, I actually have a hard time believing
        | the notes he is apparently working from actually exist.
        | 
        | Further, the published works he has created are really
        | not good.
 
      | dunefox wrote:
      | It's just Dune fan fiction...
 
        | giantrobot wrote:
        | It's just a model!
 
      | latch wrote:
      | I'm not the parent, but I've also read all the original 6
      | books a great number of times, as well as about 7 or 8 of
      | the B. Herbert/K. Anderson Dune books, and I'd say they
      | aren't worth it.
      | 
      | They largely explain things that, as far as I'm concerned,
      | didn't need explaining. As you probably know, they wrote a
      | 2 book conclusion to the series. These 2 books largely tie
      | the Frank Herbert Dune universe with the B. Herbert/K.
      | Anderson Dune universe. And that seemed quite forced to me
      | and, cynically, felt like an attempt to force you to read
      | their Dune prequel trilogy (because otherwise, you'll be
      | WTF is Erasmus?) I feel like Frank Herbert, being an
      | immensely better writer, would have been able to conclude
      | the series without forcing a prequel trilogy onto readers.
      | 
      | It wasn't until I read some of the more immediate books
      | (universe time-wise) from the duo that I came to appreciate
      | how effortless Frank Herbert's writing is. Gurney Halleck
      | is loyal, he just is. And that loyalty is clearly based on
      | respect for the Duke, being on the side of "good", and a
      | hate for the Harkonnen. We don't need a justification for
      | Halleck's devotion. It's pure and effortless character
      | development. The duo doesn't have that seem ease of
      | writing, so instead we get the back story, torture and rape
      | (lazy themes) that tainted the character/original work.
 
        | indymike wrote:
        | > These 2 books largely tie the Frank Herbert Dune
        | universe with the B. Herbert/K. Anderson Dune universe.
        | And that seemed quite forced to me and, cynically, felt
        | like an attempt to force you to read their Dune prequel
        | trilogy
        | 
        | I really like the Frank Herbert books. They are on my
        | favorites shelf. The sequel/prequel books were just ok,
        | and felt like they were trying to fill in details that
        | were left to the reader by Frank Herbert. By filling in
        | the details, I'm sure the thought was we are completing
        | the story... but that story was already told.
 
        | jonah-archive wrote:
        | I totally agree with this. One of the strengths of the
        | original Dune series is how willing Frank Herbert is to
        | leave things unsaid -- it's a complex universe that has
        | lost a lot of knowledge, just like ours! It covers
        | timespans that admit archaeology! The idea that there's
        | an accessible succinct narrative arc that ties the story
        | up in a neat little bow is antithetical to the strengths
        | of the original series, in my opinion.
 
        | bena wrote:
        | That may the difference between good world-building and
        | what people think good world-building is.
        | 
        | People think that if the author doesn't know everything
        | about the world, it's not "fleshed out". But if you look
        | to some of the best fiction out there, the world is more
        | suggested than built.
        | 
        | I think a good example of this is George Lucas. He went
        | from good to bad by doing the thing people perceived as
        | good. In the original Star Wars trilogy, things just are.
        | The Clone Wars were a line. A throwaway to explain why
        | Leia was seeking out Obi-Wan never having even seen the
        | man. Han and all of his pre-trilogy relationships are
        | given surface level explanations. You never go deep. What
        | happens between A New Hope and Empire is suggested,
        | alluded to, but never explained. And why should they be
        | explained? All the characters _know_ these things. There
        | 's no need to exposit these things again. You're given
        | the impression that there exists a much larger world than
        | the small window you've seen.
        | 
        | Then, in the prequel trilogy, everything is presented as
        | backstory to some other element. Stormtroopers are the
        | successors of the Clone Troopers who are cloned from
        | Jango Fett who had a clone made of himself he named Boba.
        | Of course, Jango is also a bounty hunter. Anakin is from
        | Tatooine. Chewbacca rolled with Yoda back in the day. We
        | know, biologically, exactly what allows people to access
        | the Force. And on and on. Everything is given an
        | explanation. And that, ironically, makes the world feel a
        | lot smaller.
 
        | devaler wrote:
        | This a really strong, and very good breakdown of the
        | problems with the prequels. They essentially take the
        | complex, developed characters of Frank Herbert and turn
        | them into into trite caricatures of themselves.
 
        | andrewla wrote:
        | I loved Dune, and while I don't think all the original
        | sequels were as strong, I enjoyed them all and have
        | reread them several times over the years.
        | 
        | I slogged my way through the first couple of his son's
        | work, but I read the first page of Butlerian Jihad and,
        | for the first time in my life, threw the book against the
        | wall and tossed it in the garbage.
        | Inside his pyramid-shaped vessel, the cymek general
        | Agamemnon led the attack. Logical thinking machines
        | did not care about glory or revenge. But Agamemnon
        | certainly did. Fully alert inside his preservation
        | cannister, his human brain watched the plans unfold.
        | 
        | If you're a fan of Dune and made it all the way through
        | this paragraph without feeling ill, then you're a
        | stronger person than I.
 
        | themadturk wrote:
        | I so wanted the Bulterian Jihad story to be good, or at
        | least decent, because it was always the most intriguing
        | part of the prehistory to me. Oh well.
 
        | int_19h wrote:
        | There are strong indicators that "Jihad" was used not in
        | a sense of armed struggle there, but more akin to a
        | social revolution; "thinking machines" were declared a
        | problem not because they were a physical threat a la
        | Saberhagen's Berserkers, but because their influence on
        | society was deemed overly negative.
        | 
        | Given that, a book that would cover the Jihad would
        | probably be another philosophical treatise in the vein of
        | God-Emperor of Dune.
 
        | kevin_thibedeau wrote:
        | Sounds like the hackneyed portrayal of Harkonnen as a
        | super villain who has to refer to himself in the third
        | person while exposition dumping his plan to a nephew who
        | already knows who he is.
 
        | toast0 wrote:
        | It's interesting (and perhaps accurate) that you critique
        | the use of lazy themes in backstory, but praise the
        | effortlessness of leaving the backstory out. (I've not
        | read the new stuff myself)
 
      | gerikson wrote:
      | I tried reading the first and couldn't get through it.
 
  | runevault wrote:
  | I'm someone who stopped after God Emperor because I was under
  | the impression the next books were an arc and it stops in a
  | weird place if you end where Herbert did because of his
  | passing.
  | 
  | It was interesting because I struggled with Dune, made it to
  | the time skip, and stopped. Then the recent movie came out, I
  | decided to read the rest, enjoyed it far more, and kept going.
  | Blasted through Messiah through God Emperor pretty quickly with
  | I think only one pause to get another book in that had just
  | come out.
  | 
  | God Emperor is certainly not for everyone but I enjoyed it a
  | great deal.
 
    | [deleted]
 
  | dmitriid wrote:
  | My personal take (having read the entire series including the
  | tacked-on ending by the son) is:
  | 
  | The first Dune is the result of research and thinking. Great
  | care went into it. Every subsequent book is more and more of
  | "oh, here's a sequel". I can't remember anything after _God
  | Emperor_ which in itself was a slog bordering of abysmally bad.
  | 
  | So:
  | 
  | - _Dune_. Yes. It 's slow, long, but ultimately very good
  | 
  | - _Dune Messiah_. Maybe
  | 
  | - _Children of Dune_. Can already be skipped
  | 
  | - Skip the rest of the series, they are not worth it. At all
  | 
  | YMMV :)
 
    | simonh wrote:
    | I really like Dune Messiah. Most of it was written before the
    | original book was published, and supposedly it was going to
    | be part of it but had to be cut or the book would be too
    | long. It's certainly part of Herbert's original creative
    | vision for the story. However I know a lot of people read it
    | and find the apparent inversion of the story arc
    | uncomfortable to the point of dislike, but for me it's an
    | essential piece of the puzzle to understand what Paul is
    | actually going through in the first book, and the extreme
    | lengths he's prepared to go through and sacrifices he's
    | prepared to make to shift the trajectory of events.
    | 
    | The problem is that just like the other characters the in
    | novel, Paul's family, adherents and friends, a lot of readers
    | just want an uncomplicated hero story for him.
 
    | cmrdporcupine wrote:
    | God Emperor is a slog, but it's IMHO brilliant in its own
    | way. And along with the two books after it, it creates a
    | whole new philosophical universe than the first three, which
    | were a story about Paul. It's best to kind of treat it almost
    | as two different series with God Emperor the bridge.
    | 
    | God Emperor and beyond are far more cerebral and
    | philosophical, expressing some more far more abstract ideas
    | Herbert had about man vs machine, liberty/freedom vs tyranny,
    | etc. etc.
    | 
    | Unfortunately the second series was not completed. Herbert
    | clearly had a direction he was going after Chapterhouse, but
    | he wasn't able to follow through.
 
    | jon-wood wrote:
    | For me the sequels never hit the same highs as Dune, but
    | they're still better than most sci-fi novels that have been
    | written, and I love how they gradually lean ever further into
    | just being really weird. God Emperor is probably the pinnacle
    | of that. I don't remember much of Heretics or Chapterhouse, I
    | should probably go back and re-read them at some point.
 
      | cmrdporcupine wrote:
      | You might find it interesting re-reading God Emperor and
      | its sequels in the context of today's LLM/ChatGTP etc
      | context.
      | 
      | Herbert's focus on human vs not-human, machine-thinking vs
      | human-thinking, is very relevant.
 
  | jasonkester wrote:
  | Ah, shame. I was hoping to find my own comment on the subject
  | linked:
  | 
  | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15961291
  | 
  | Basically the same advice, but in a more condensed form.
 
| GNOMES wrote:
| Is there a name for the art style depicted on these covers?
| They're beautifully done
 
  | sandworm101 wrote:
  | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Deco
  | 
  | The covers are a 1960s minimalist deco design. Abrupt geometric
  | shapes, the sort of stuff that is easily printed/viewed using
  | the tech of the time. The colors are solid and few, which make
  | printing easy. The colors are also not absolutely necessary.
  | The shapes come through equally well in black and white media.
  | And if you want to look good on the low-res TV of the time, you
  | go with big solid shapes. No doubt these factors contributed to
  | the redesign of the original cover.
  | 
  | Contrast the posters and covers of todays media. They like to
  | hide lots of little detail, perhaps to promote the use of
  | higher/brighter media formats. That's why FIFA got rid of the
  | old soccer balls.
 
    | TheRealPomax wrote:
    | Sorry, are we looking at the same covers? There is no 1960s
    | minimalism in the original covers, they are fairly detailed
    | 1970's scifi surrealism.
 
    | GNOMES wrote:
    | I normally see Art Deco in reference to buildings, furniture,
    | and cars. Guess I never actually looked at Art Deco
    | paintings/images before.
 
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