Dune

worst prose I ever came across. bland characters.

Fuck off with your hyperbolic nonsense.

I just finished my third go through of this. The first was back in 8th grade in the early 90s, second, shortly after the turn of the century. The first time I read it, it was somewhat of a chore, I was too young to understand a great deal of it, but I enjoyed it. The second time I loved it and understood it. This third time things were much more complex. I really saw the limitations imposed by the serial format it was originally released in, the forced methods of explaining background and technical details, the hurried fashion you are dumped into the story and which also mark the boundaries of the old serial format, the two dimensional qualities of most of the characters, the unrealistic ways in which most of the few characters that grow, grew, and the massive draw on history, culture and religion.

All in all, the ways in which Herbert dealt with the limitations of the serial novel is great and he did it better than most. His knowledge of religion and history is impressive and the ways he drew upon them quite good, especially religion, he makes the case for and against organized religion at the same time and never passes judgement. He makes some worthwhile commentary on society and most of the time manages to do so by suggesting questions instead of preaching. It is a good book and deserves a place in the cannon. He is a tad heavy handed at times, especially with the black and white difference between the Atreides and Harkonnen, he tried to temper this (Paul and Jessica being Harkonnen) but it was not really enough with how much he played up the Atreides greatness and the Harkonnen evilness.

One of the interesting things I have noticed is how the quality changed once his reputation was large enough that he did not have to work within the restrictions of the serial novel and could just write a novel and break it up into shorter sections with no consideration. The limitations placed on him by necessity are what really made him good and separated him from the rest.

just started the third book and i cant help but feel the quality has tanked

i enjoyed the second however a bit more than the first

>just started the third book and i cant help but feel the quality has tanked
That is where he stopped writing the novels with the serial form in mind. The first two did well enough that he was able to just write the novel and break it up without the restrictions imposed by the serial form which limited the first two. While the later books do have a cartoonish quality, they are better from a purely technical standpoint, he is far more subtle about the points he is trying to get across, unfortunately it is at the cost of overall quality. If you can put aside the loss in quality, there is definitely worth in them, but much of their worth can not be seen without the context of the previous books and the ones that follow which can make the whole thing a slog.

When it comes down to it he was a terrible story teller, we were spared this in the first two novels because he was attempting to stuff so much into the original serial form of the first two novels that he had to work his story telling around everything he had to say, by the third he was able to put more focus on his story. He sort of went from being a modernist to a classicist, one was by necessity, the other by choice.

It’s trash filled with made up words that add nothing to the story

Most of the made up words are just borrowed from other languages, some are slightly changed, but few if any are actually made up.

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gib big milkies bene gesserit gf

I see /sffg/ is leaking again jk I unironically ignore any and all serious threads about muh "western canon"

That was a rather ironic.

I already said it wasn't, that was on purpose.

yes, but you made a point of saying you ignore something that you clearly were not ignoring.