The Road to Dune [Hardcover]

My main excuse for buying Road to Dune was the roughly 150 pages of deleted scenes, from Dune and Dune Messiah. The cut chapters were interesting, but they were frequently incosistent with the canon material--the original Dune trilogy, and the prequels by Brian and Kevin. Examples:

-Road to Dune has it that the spice was found by men working for Dr. Kynes' father. But, in Dune: House Atreides, Pardot Kynes leaves for Arrakis AFTER spice has already been found and is being spread by merchants througout the galaxy.

-Road to Dune puts Paul's age at his departure to Arrakis at "almost twelve", even though in the first few sentences of the final publication of Dune is age is set as fifteen.

-IRULAN DIES....this is a very unclear chapter, complete with an odd final note by Frank Herbert.

There are other problems, too, which might be confusing, but that's why these scenes weren't published with the original novel. Still, this portion of the book is worth reading, and sheds a small amount of light on the Duneiverse as well (why Paul was inspired by the desert mouse, why the Guild controls the stars without competition). But, it isn't enough to justify spending 25 dollars.

The short stories, written by Brian and Kevin, are adventuresome and worth a look. The first story is set during Dune, but the three that follow are set in the Legends of Dune era. "Hunting Harkonenns" is set before The Butlerian Jihad; "Whipping Mek" is set before The Machine Crusade; and "Faces of a Martyr" is set before The Battle of Corrin.

But, there's a flaw here too. "Whisper of Caladan Seas" has appeared in two other places, and get this: YOU CAN READ THE LEGENDS OF DUNE SHORT STORIES FOR FREE ON DUNENOVELS.COM. No need to spend money on free material.

The novel "Spice Planet" is like a parody of Dune but serious. This was a design for the novel Dune that was abandoned, and features alternate names, and events both vaguely familiar and totally unlike the final publication. It's not all that great, and is certain to confuse the fans. Still, it is interesting.

There are also several letters and articles in here about Frank Herbert's journey to get Dune published. Ironic, that the Supreme Masterpiece (and bestselling novel) of Science Fiction was published by some company that did auto repair manuals.

All in all, the Road to Dune only has something to offer for those of you that have already explored the Dune Universe and still want more. It's not a bad installment, but there are so many actual novels out there...

The Road to Dune contains some fascinating material, but it fell well below my expectations and hopes. Sadly, only about half the book contains primary source material written by Frank Herbert himself.

The book starts with a moving Foreward by Bill Ransom, who co-authored the excellent Pandora novels with Herbert. Anderson and Brian Herbert then introduce what follows, describing the boxes of draft material, letters, outlines and notes that they had to draw upon. My heart rate doubled and my spirit soared as I read this section, thrilled at the prospect of seeing how the Dune series evolved in Herbert's mind, and of gaining greater insight into his fascinating characters and events.

This promise was not to be fulfilled, however. The first section contains "Spice Planet", a novella written by Brian and Kevin based on Frank Herbert's original concept for Dune. As a ahort advemture story, it's quite enjoyable, and there are moments of real tension. However, any traces of Frank Herbert's original work are all but smothered by his chroniclers' writing style and ham-fisted characterization. Even an incomplete collection of outlines, notes and draft chapters would have been preferable to this disappointment.

The next section contains the true Dune source material: Frank Herbert's letters, and unpublished chapters from Dune and Dune Messiah. This section is fascinating as both a study of Herbert's alternative ideas for Dune, and as a historical account of how Dune came to be published. The unpublished chapters' inconsistencies with the published work only makes them more fascinating. This section is only 150 pages long, but it's the pearl in this oyster. If the whole book had consisted of this kind of content, I would have given it five stars.

The final section contains four short stories by Brian Herbert and Anderson - the first set during the events of Dune, the final three set during the authors' Butlerian Jihad trilogy. These stories have no place in a volume about the genesis of Dune, and are, in any case, available for free on the Internet. Why the authors included them is mystifying to me.

This book was so much less than it could have been. It's clear from their introduction that the authors had enormous amounts of source material to draw from. In different hands, we might have received a study of the evolution of the entire Dune story, much as Christopher Tolkien's "History of Middle-Earth" series was a study of his father's work. Instead, we get this.

This book represents a blending of two approaches to handling the estate of a famous author. The first is the Tolkien Model, which means publishing any scrap of background material and every rough-draft of the classic text. The other model is what H&A have done, which is to continue the franchise with new material and working from old outlines.

I have no problem with this, since canonicity is flexible and, if Herbert had lived, he likely would have finished the series or written prequels (as Lucas has done). The problem is that genius is "often imitated, but never equaled." Of course H&A books are going to be different, because they are different people. Herbert is dead, and since we lack ghola technology, these books (Dune 7 & 8) stay in skeletal outline form and go unwritten, or H&A do what they did.

All complaints about the two prequel series reduce themselves to one complaint: they do not like H&A's style. I like both, since each approach has merit. Indeed, Herbert's later style became plodding, tedious. For example, the tangential exposition on the female Fish Speakers in "God Emperor of Dune" broke my camel's back. It was as unnecessary as Tolkien's exposition on the history of hobbit pipe-weed.

Our first indication that this was not our grandfather's "Dune" was the short story, "A Whispers of Caladan Seas." It was a very good Twilight Zone story, but it was definitely not Dune. It could have happened anywhere and anytime to anyone (Captain James Kirk or Captain James West), and had nothing to do with mélange and messianism. This was a taste of things to come.

As the "Prelude to Dune" series shows, H&A like Duke Leto I. So do I. He is far more energetic than the ponderous Muad'Dib. By not being THE CHOSEN ONE, he had the freedom to actually be a human: fallible and heroic. They transfer this same energy to the rough draft "Dune World."

Parenthetically, "Dune World" is quite an oddity. It is a "rewrite" of the Dune story, but it is based on earlier draft, and is in H&A's style. As I make clear, I like their style for what it is, but "Dune World" is merely a fun book, nothing more. It lacks depth and the existential longing that makes "Dune" a work of genius. In this case, I heartily agree with their Critics.

The key difference is that "Dune World" has ethical characters, while "Dune" has spiritual--even religious--characters. This is a subtle but important point, because ethics is not religion. Religion has an ethical component (i.e. the Sermon on the Mount), but ethics does not necessarily imply the supernatural, as with Confucianism. So what we are reading are merely triumphant stoics, but not mangled messiahs.

I found the excised chapters interesting, and would have liked to have better explanation where they originally fit. This is complicated because Herbert eschewed numbering the chapters--weird. Maybe it is time for a critical/annotated version of "Dune." (Hint! Hint!)

I'm glad that they included the "Legends of Dune" link stories, since they are H&A cannon, and they need to be accessible. However, I was disappointed that Herbert's own essay "Dune Genesis" was not reprinted. If it does not belong with the deleted chapters and alternate endings, and relevant correspondence, then where would it belong?

So, the original Herbert material should appease The Critics, while the new H&A material will keep amphibians like me entertained. Not charmed, not enthralled, not moved, but entertained and edified.

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