Talk:Children of Dune/Archive 1

Archive 1

Sci-Fi Channel CoD Miniseries

I'd like to point out that "SciFi Channel" created a Children of Dune movie, a three part Mini Series. It's available for sale. I didn't see it mentioned on the page. --kanzure

Done. And I added a bit about how it was 'well-received'- nobody better delete that for being NPOV- the miniseries reveived several awards and has positive reviews both critically and from the audience. See [1] for an example. -- Maru Dubshinki 03:32 PM Saturday, 12 March 2005

Synopsis

I think the synopsis is a bit too long to be an effective synopsis. Suggestions? --Zippanova 05:08, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

I feel the same way about pretty much all the synopses- they are crufty and messy. But unfortunately I'm preoccupied with re-writing Dune's synopse. If you want to volunteer, that'd be great. I'd like to see a new draft. --maru 15:06, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Another problem with the synosis: it seems to shift randomly between present tense and past tense -- even within a single sentence. Very disconcerting to read. Poor style.

Spoiler Alteration

I made a change. At the end, there were several pieces of spoiler info from God-Emperor of Dune, which is the inappropriate place for it. I also added Leto's takeover of the breeding program at the end of the novel.

--L.A.F. 18:04, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Context section

The "context" portion of the article has no citations/references and don't seem impartial (at this point, it seems like personal interpretation), IMO. It sounds like a book report.

Example: "This was fully in keeping with Herbert’s philosophy: he was deeply suspicious of the "super-hero", even as he created one of science fiction’s most memorable messiahs."

Could this use the original research/unverified claims tag?

--firefoot77 06:08, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Plot summary

At about 3000 words, the plot summary section of this article [2] is enormous, unencyclopedic, unreadable and almost certainly an infringement of copyright.

The very long plot summary is a historical attribute of this article--by 2003 the article already had some 2400 words [3] on the plot--so there isn't a suitable shorter version to revert to. So I'm taking the drastic step of removing the entire thing. Let's start again, this time adhering to our now well-developed, then (in 2003) non-existent, Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction) (also known as WP:WAF). --Tony Sidaway 17:17, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I've looked at the "Context" section. Although it contained some essayish bits and was correctly tagged as containing original research, it's quite good. I've hacked out the worst of the original research and thing it now stands quite well. --Tony Sidaway 17:27, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

You've gone too far, there is absolutely no hint of the plot in the summary now. Kegon (talk) 05:10, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

WP:DICK

I think anybody would agree that the telling the reader what Herbert "chose" to do and using the phrase "Dune is a heroic melody etc. etc." needs a source; that is certainly not over-referencing and I could rightfully have deleted it if I was, as is suggested in this edit summary, being a dick. I do spend a lot of time finding references for other people's entries, but I think it's primarily the responsibility of those who add or defend material to back it up. Especially when it's not exactly a phrase essential to understanding the book. And by the way, the "heroic melody" part is still pushing it. — TAnthony^Talk 03:37, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

That point is a basic fact of interpretation of Dune and DM; if you don't understand it, you haven't a clue what's going on - all you know is the plot. You lack any insight.

And even were you ignorant of all Herbert's interviews and essays and ancillary material, you still could've found a reference in 20 seconds with a Google query (no need to do something as terribly difficult as root around in O'Reilly or Touponce's books), although perhaps 20 seconds is a lot of time in this Internet age. --Gwern (contribs) 14:02 22 October 2008 (GMT)

Are you serious? Whether I or any reader is familiar with Herbert's most basic themes or the mass of material written about them is completely irrelevant. Asserting any point that requires interpretation or analysis is inappropriate without some source, and we both know it. I'm sorry if the sight of a {{fact}} tags offends you, but they exist so that issues can be noted and dealt with later. And what caught my eye was more the unencyclopedic use of a metaphor (melody and its inversion) than the concept itself. — TAnthony^Talk 03:18, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

It's one thing to reference offensive or controversial material, another to hold other editors to the most niggling and rigid interpretation of every law. It's ordinary etiquette to try to find a reference for something, and as I pointed out, it was easy in this case. Yet you didn't. This says you don't value results - but only the rules. --Gwern (contribs) 17:11 10 October 2010 (GMT)

That was a world-class bitch-fit, there. Yikes...By the way, who gives a shit about what Spider Robinson thinks of the book, at least to the extent of creating a one sentence section of its own?--172.190.85.94 (talk) 04:38, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Awards

Should it be mentioned that this was a Hugo Nominee?72.211.209.197 (talk) 08:34, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

This is already noted in the second sentence of the lead paragraph.— TAnthony^Talk 15:42, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

"Secher Nbiw" in section Leto's Journey

I've just fixed some weird quote usage and capitalization, but there's a problem with this:

This future is the one he has deemed "Secher Nbiw", (in the Arabic-based Fremen tongue) the Golden Path.

While it is never explicitly stated as such, it's fairly obvious that Herbert intended "Secher Nbiw" as Ancient Egyptian. It is presented as something from one of Leto and Ghanima's shared ancient languages (from Other Memory), not from the Arabic-based Fremen vernacular. Other than the clean-up mentioned, I'm leaving the passage as is pending dredging up some quotes. --SandChigger (talk) 18:57, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

NYT Best Seller

Children of Dune (1976) may have been the first science fiction novel on the New York Times Best Seller list --or something broader, as far as I know, eg the first work of speculative fiction, or there may be a qualification such as hardcover or paperback best seller.

Once we called The White Dragon (1978) by Anne McCaffrey the first SF novel to reach the NYT list --following her son's claim, iirc. Now we credit her conservatively with "one of the first science-fiction books to appear". Why? When Frank Herbert (posthumously) and McCaffrey were inducted by the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame in 2006, Herbert's presenter Kevin J. Anderson said that Dune "is now the best-selling science fiction novel of all time. Frank's CHILDREN OF DUNE -- edited by David Hartwell -- was the first SF novel ever to hit the New York Times bestseller list."[4]

By the way, in Herbert's biography we give a SCI FI Channel 2003 source for the all-time bestseller status of Dune.[5]

See Talk: Frank Herbert re the 2006 HOF inductions. --P64 (talk) 15:54, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Children of Dune. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive http://www.webcitation.org/5yVVCTw3d?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thehugoawards.org%2Fhugo-history%2F1977-hugo-awards%2F to http://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-history/1977-hugo-awards/

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at {{Sourcecheck}}).

Y An editor has reviewed this edit and fixed any errors that were found.

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool. — TAnthony^Talk 17:01, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 04:10, 22 November 2016 (UTC)