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ShortQuests -- individual adventure modules! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed to plug in to your game.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="el-remmen" data-source="post: 9886938" data-attributes="member: 11">I just reread Dune for the first time in about 23 years. I read it at least five times between 1987 (when I first read it for a HS English class and watched Lynch's film version - which I still love) and 2003 (when seeing some of the SyFy mini-series version and not liking it drove me back to the book). This time, it was trying the recent movies and finding Timothy Chalomet unconvincing as Paul, and Aquaman as a poorly cast Halleck, and being turned off as a result, that drove me to re-read it. Their first scene together was about as far as I got - which I admit is not far. But I dump out of movies fast. Life is too short. I guess the intervening years of going to grad school for literary studies and being married to a poet and novelist has shaped my tastes and driven me towards thinking a lot more about craft and structure, and I found those aspects most disappointing this time around. The pacing is unsatisfying on the novel level (though some individual chapters were very well-paced). When it took until page 600-something to have some very lovely writing when Paul's consciousness is unstuck in time due to exposure to the spice. All I could think, however, was how the book needed more of this throughout, punctuated by the well-rendered moments of conflict and tension.I still enjoyed re-reading it though. But nowadays I often wonder if this might be the last time I read this book that've engaged with so much. I mean, who knows what happens in the next 23 years?Back in the day the opinions of others regarding the sequels is that they got "too weird" and my attempts at reading some of them in the 90s seemed to corroborate that, though my memory is fuzzy. But maybe I should try them again because my main complaint about Dune upon this reading is that it is not weird enough. It should have been weirder.I just had the thought that what I want is Dune written by Octavia Butler. But then I realized, that her work already does explore many of the same themes.Thank you and I hope you enjoyed this episode of "el-remmen actually read a book (and not just to his 3-year old)."</blockquote>

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