I've always shied away from reading sci-fi. Even movies like Lord Of The Rings get me nervous - what with not only a cast of characters to learn, but different worlds and species as well. I took a chance though on Dune by Frank Herbert.
At first my concerns were well founded. There are 18 CDs in the book. It opens with an introduction of the cast - not single author - who will be acting out the book. Then the clincher - this is just Book 1 they tell me. Gulp. How many books are we talking about?
Things got scarier from there as quotes from an alien religious text is read and the story begins.
As I feared, new species, worlds, and concepts were being introduce by the minute.
I'm now on disk 6. I have to say that I absolutely love the book. I love it for the reasons I like most books: the characters are ones I like and can learn from and the storyline is quite interesting. There's enough action to keep my attention too.
The book clearly has a soap opera quality to it. Try this experiment one day when you are home sick - watch an episode of Days Of Our Lives. Within 3 minutes they will drop enough clues that you'll be totally up to speed. By the end of an episode, you'll be a pro.
Same with Dune. While the book invents new science, history, religion, politics, warcraft and entertainment for an alternate set of worlds and creatures it does so in a way that you can indeed follow along with.
I'm glad I took a chance on this one - it's already paid off.
--Ben
Definitely a great book but hard to get through when actually reading. But on CD it was great. I actually listened to this book a little over year ago. It was great, eventually I need to get the sequels and listen to those as well. I should probably go and join the Arlington Library now that we live here.
ReplyDeleteDid you notice how the actor who read the Duke's part kept changing from disk to disk? Man that's annoying. I wouldn't normally care, but I happen to like one of the actors better than the others.
ReplyDeleteHeck yeah you better get an Arlington Library card. That's more important than cable, phone and possibly internet service. :-).
Thanks for the encouragement!