Liam 
People often ask me, how do I feel about working in the Bene Gesserit pain box factory, designing devices whose only purpose is to synthesise excruciating pain? Well I say I get to work on a product with best-in-field UX and an extraordinary recognition factor
Deborah Pickett@liamvhogan Pain boxes are truly the meme that never stops giving.
@futzle a meme is successful when it sparks the shock of recognition, a reaction we have to a commonly shared experience or value or belief, and look I don’t know what to tell you here
@liamvhogan I tell people to read Dune, not because it's a good story (it isn't) but because of the sheer number of memes that they'll now comprehend.
Same with Shakespeare, also the Bible.
@futzle it’s extremely weird 1970s bullshit, what more argument do you really need
JayOK now I want 3 examples that you DO consider a good story
@jaystephens @liamvhogan I'll let you know when I've found three.
@jaystephens @liamvhogan But seriously, if you rate a story by the mindshare it generates, in the original-definition-of-"meme" sense, Dune is incredibly successful. I just wish it could do it without the gender essentialism, the bad astronomy, the drug-fuelled mysticism, or the co-opting of Middle Eastern culture.
@futzle @jaystephens don’t forget the insane, lurid homophobia of the later novels
@liamvhogan @jaystephens Ah, I hadn't got that far, I think I ground to a halt somewhere early in #4 or maybe even late in #3.
@futzle @liamvhogan I made it partway through #4, but I do however think #1 is an excellent, excellent story, despite the fact that I share almost no moral/ethical framework nor Weltanschauung with Herbert.
@futzle @jaystephens Frank Herbert is the only author who could take the premise ‘Space Jews battle Lesbian Witches From Another Galaxy’, which you’ll agree sounds incredible, and make it pretty bad actually
Mr. Completely@liamvhogan @futzle @jaystephens the Dune series straddles Middle and Late Period Herbert and Late Herbert is one of the saddest and creepiest SF career landing places of all, right down there with Late/Incest Pedo Heinlein and Larry Niven After The Pournelle Brain Worms. Late Herbert's eugenics-oriented homophobia is pathetic and grotesque, and the books get lost far up their own asses. I think it's best to consider the first book and Messiah a completed arc (they are) and write the rest off
mostlywater@mrcompletely @liamvhogan @futzle @jaystephens I also don't think it's well written. It must hold my personal record for reading several pages and realizing I haven't understood any of it. Dune is an RPG source book masquerading as a novel.
@mostlywater @liamvhogan @futzle @jaystephens disagree, but that's a very fair matter of taste. To me it's slightly above average SF prose for the era written in a very mannered and specific style. Like most Herbert its core concerns - the things the author was most interested in - are really esoteric and hard to connect with (long term ideas about human evolution). Most that do connect with it are either drawn to specific characters, or, more often, the lore - as you suggest - which is baroque
@mostlywater @liamvhogan @futzle @jaystephens I've heard similar objections to it often enough it's certainly not you, and a lot of people feel the same way about Neuromancer for instance - another one that reads perfectly clear to me, though again it's not my fav prose style at all.
trenchworms
Elizabeth Dalton@futzle @jaystephens @liamvhogan It’s funny, when I read Dune as a teen, I interpreted it as “scrappy rebel underdogs beat nasty corrupt empire (to be fair, the original Star Wars had just hit theaters). Only in re-reading it later did I realize that it is a tragedy. Yes, there are very dated elements, but the essential story of the disaster inherent in a monopoly/scarcity economy (with an assist from powerful religious groups who assume they know what’s best for everyone) is still there. I have some of the same mixed feelings about many of the books I loved then (Tolkein’s inherently evil orcs, Heinlein’s uncritical libertarianism, etc.) I still enjoy reading them for the good in them, but with a more critical eye.