Why do SO MANY Dune Fans Dislike the Brian Herbert Sequels?

Ever since Frank Herbert's passing, his son, Brian Herbert, and sci-fi author Kevin J. Anderson have taken up the mantle of expanding the beloved Dune universe. However, many die-hard fans of the franchise seem to dislike every installment after Book 6. Today, we will explore one of the primary reasons why I, and many like me, dislike the Dune books NOT written by their original author. #dune #sciencefiction #scifi
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[@axebeard6085]

I have been a hardcore fan of the Duniverse since 1986. I also dislike the dislike of the BH/KJA novels. However, rejecting them unnecessary. Many long-time fans seem to be ignorant about one of the themes Frank Herbert wrote about: never trust the official narrative. Frank Herbert prefaced each chapter with a quotation. The quotations are from in-universe source material, and many are "official narratives" that seem to be distortions of the narrative text. In the 4th novel (God Emperor of Dune), Frank Herbert uses plot points to make durn certain we understand that official narratives can not be trusted. Also, if burning historians on a pile of their own books for lying pretentiously isn't a great big neon sign, then I don't know what is. We also have the forward to the Dune Encyclopedia written by Frank Herbert. He made it very clear that the encyclopedia was meant to be an IN-UNIVERSE encyclopedia that contains information of various levels of reliability. I don't know if Frank Herbert intended to give us a way to accept Duniverse stories by other authors. Multiple authors writing stories set in the same universe is not new, but AFAIK, those were mainly short story/novella universes (like Conan and the Chthulu mythos.) Regardless, we have a way to play a mental meta game of "who wrote it?" with the expanded Duniverse. An easy example of this is the 1984 Dune film. In it, the "weirding way" is replaced by the "weirding modules". In real life, this was just a film convenience. However, if we see the film as an in-universe filmbook, then we have to ask ourselves why the replacement happened. The weirding way is a secret Bene Gesserit fighting technique. It would be in the best interest of the Bene Gesserit to hide the existence of these skills. Therefore, they likely created a filmbook that disguises the weirding way behind a piece of weaponry. In the case of the Butlerian Jihad, what in-universe group would benefit from changing the narrative from a philosophical rejection of machines to a "robots are bad" one? It could have been written by enemies of Ix and Richese, who both have machine cultures. However, I think this unlikely, as it would be competing with the true narrative being promulgated elsewhere in the universe. Considering the lack of complexity in the stories, I doubt the Bene Gesserit would have been directly involved in the text's creation. I think the most likely in-universe author of the Butlerian Jihad would be the Corrino empire. Changing the narrative from "humans without machines fighting humans with machines" to "humans fighting robots" would provide the Corrinos with history that shows them in a better light. Also, the Corrinos would certainly have the power to change the official narrative once the Butlerian Jihad was over. Do I think the BH/KJA novels were a greedy cash-grab? Absolutely. Do I think the BH/KJA novels are written with the same literary depth and complexity as a Hardy Boys novel? Absolutely. Do I think BH/KJA (and the whole Herbert estate) have only a surface level of understanding of the Duniverse? Absolutely. Do I think BH/KJA made unnecessary changes without understanding the theme of "never trust the official history? Absolutely. However, that does not make the BH/KJA novels worthless. It just makes them works that require a little extra thought to enjoy. And I don't think Frank Herbert would be disappointed if we all thought a little bit more.

[@JoeRoverWrites]

The original idea of people “overcoming” the machines by deciding they want to favor human improvement does sound better than just evil robots. Also, I appreciate the humor in the images, like the coffee machine while talking about needing machines to help you get through the day.

[@duncanburgess9935]

I've only read a few of the Brian Herbert / Kevin Anderson installments, not including The Butlerian Jihad. I felt that they completely failed to respect and often grossly contradict the themes and philosophies of Frank Herbert's series. I'd conclude that they wanted to cash in on Dune's popularity, but disliked, disagreed with, and / or didn't understand his messages.

[@jayceneal5273]

*erases the first 3 letters of your name* You: MYYYY NAMES!!!!!! NOT!!!!!! RICK!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@willackerman9557]

I think the Brian Herbert Dune books SUCK!

[@elphiegleason3899]

I’m not buying any of them till he can prove he is using FH’s notes

[@crackills1]

Great video! Really enjoyed it.

[@humanoidfull]

Don't forget about The Dune Encyclopedia! I believe that's part of the real canon and that it tells the real story of the Buttlerian Jihad. It was wrote with better intentions than the Bryan Herbert fan fictions.

[@iamthesayyadina]

The Dune Encyclopedia was written by a fan. Frank wrote the Forward out of kindness.

[@iamthesayyadina]

I’ve read Dune 9x so far (I’m old AF) and love most of Brian & Kevin’s EU books. I’m not a huge fan of Frank’s last three. There’s a lot of homophobia and other things in them reflecting Frank’s personal world which got pretty messed up when his son Bruce came out because he couldn’t handle it and disowned him.

[@Akaeus]

BH is KH's son and he rightfully inhereited his fathers legacy - end of story. Regardless of the established details - outside of the novels - the changes BH and KA made are derived from creating narratives out of unfinished notes made by KH himself. KH, for all his nuance and thought-provoking ideas, he was a boring novelist narratively and didnt develop his characters well either unless they served as a vehicle for his ideas. His son and Kevin are novelists by trade. They are less focused on high minded ideals and moreso focused on plot and characters. The fact that they are written at a lower reading level just allows them to be accessible to a wider and younger audience. They are fine and people are too rigid to accept that his son is the best person to handle his fathers work.

[@itsdantaylor]

I find it funny how quite a few book series get to the point where "We only really like/remember the first 1-3 entries" I consider Dune, a part of these along with Chronicles of Narnia, or the Wrinkle in Time books. Not many remember Chronicles of Narnia past Prince Caspian and I wasn't even AWARE Wrinkle in Time had a sequel, let alone a few,

[@griffendesai2039]

I think the dune sequels are better than the narnia ones at the very least.

[@ewarrior9776]

I think the last 2 Frank Herbert's books are garbage. They were too cluttered with new characters, had too many plots and meandered instead of coming to any conclusions. It was also clear that Frank Herbert had some extremely wired ideas about women that ran amock after his wife/editor died. I think the people don't like the Brian Herbert books because they are heavy on narrative and light on world building and philosophy. If the Brian Herbert books weren't associate with Dune, they would have much bigger fan base.

[@SaladH8er]

عاش المقاتلون

[@spyderdogg6248]

Been a fan on Dune since 78. I also enjoy the sequels

[@GARYHODGKINSON]

I only read two of the prequels, House Atreides, and Harkonnen, and that was me done. In the original it was always made explicitly clear that the Baron was fat because of his hedonistic lifestyle, but BH makes it so he as infected with a disease. Dumb, just dumb.

[@BurnEnough]

Good stuff!

[@Strider-bl5sq]

Stop reading them after God Emperor