Solai:
Ladies, Gentlemen, GalaxyRanger, I have finished the book.
Wow. Seriously. Wow. Like many others once upon a time I tried to pick it up, poked at it with stick and left it. You guys inspired me to try once again. After struggling through the beginning “universe dump” I really began to enjoy it. By the end I felt immersed. It has been a long time since I have read a book that could so completely transport me to another place everytime I opened the book.
At first, it was funny, everytime Duncan Idaho would show up Thot’s avatar would leap to mind. At first this was distracting, and then it was endearing, and then Duncan fell down and went boom. Ah well.
I am very impressed at the complexity that Mr. Herbert has created here…mixture of science, sociology, fantasy and economics. The characters are fully developed and fully realized. I realized about halfway through that one incredible technique he uses is to minimially describe anything…he hints, paints a picture in broad strokes and then lets you fill it in with your imagination.
My only complaint came when I realized I had about 40 pages left and thought, “Wait…how is he going to resolve all this?” When I got to the end I was a little let down…it was like seeing the “To be continued” at the end of a BSG episode. He gave some resolution but clearly was opening the door for the next novels.
It is a small complaint. I look forward to reading the next books!
That’s gotta be the best reaction I’ve read yet.
You hit the nail on the head as to why this is one of my favorite book series. It’s hard for me to pick exactly one, but this is definitely up there for me. Where this one has such incredible details from the political, character, etc Asimov does something similar in the Foundation universe (different tools) as does Pournelle with his Codominium universe (especially the Mote in Gods Eye with Niven) and what Heinlein does in Stranger in a Strange Land. All incredibly great books.
