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Sep. 18th, 2006
Oi,
Sep. 18th, 2006 02:23 am![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
policepenguin
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Sep. 18th, 2006 09:13 amLA LA LA DUNE ENCYCLOPEDIA ARRIVED LA.
This puts me in a better mood than I would have ordinarily thought. Partly this is because I need the section on Holtzmann tech (okay, Holzman, but Herbert himself spells it a few different ways) and the Ixian no-rooms for stuff at Milliways. However, it is also a mood elevator because I made a terrible mistake this past weekend: I went to Wikipedia and read the summaries of the last two Dune books Frank Herbert published when he was alive* (Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune). Now, I read both those books years ago. I think I may have been in high school at the time. I remember struggling to keep track of the approximately ONE HOJILLION CHARACTERS he threw at the reader, and I remember doing a lot of eye-rolling at the 'Honored Matres' vs. the Bene Gesserit and their Reverend Mothers. I did not, however, remember the gory details of just how screwed up the Matres were, or the distinctly horrible revelations Herbert made regarding the Bene Tleilaxu (honestly, the computers in The Matrix had better ways of reproducing humans than what Herbert said about the axlotl tanks- and DO NOT GET ME STARTED about the religion thing). I reread both the summaries multiple times to be absolutely sure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing, and came to one conclusion: Frank Herbert had woman issues the way Bruce Wayne has mommy and daddy issues.
Hell, I've read The White Plague, and a little digging on Wiki turned up some downright disturbing references to another Frank Herbert book called Hellstrom's Hive. Ol' Frank seems to have had woman issues the way Oedipus had mommy and daddy issues.
Anyway, the first thing I did when I got the DE was flip to the entry on axlotl tanks. I got a nice sane writeup on 'little better than an artificial womb' and how the real secret was in the solutions used and the DNA work done. The Encyclopedia was written when Herbert was alive, and it was authorized by His Nibs; I will, therefore, gladly fall back on it for references to anything Duniverse, and try really really hard to forget that Books 5 and 6 ever existed.
*According to Wiki, the current Brian Herbert book- Hunters of Dune- is based on a manuscript Frank Herbert wrote but left in a safe deposit box somewhere. Hunters of Dune and one more book, Sandworms of Dune, are supposed to be the two halves of Frank's manuscript. However, since Brian ain't the original author and every reference I have found to stuff he's written in his father's universe has indicated he neither understands how any of it actually WORKS nor is capable of producing any kind of quality- apparently the Bene Gesserit Voice can be used en masse to hypnotize someone into not noticing that he's completely surrounded, in Brian's work, which is SO not how it works at all!- that I feel no obligation to accept anything with Brian's name on it as Duniverse canon. I'll take Dr. MacNelly's authorized work any day of the week over that.
This puts me in a better mood than I would have ordinarily thought. Partly this is because I need the section on Holtzmann tech (okay, Holzman, but Herbert himself spells it a few different ways) and the Ixian no-rooms for stuff at Milliways. However, it is also a mood elevator because I made a terrible mistake this past weekend: I went to Wikipedia and read the summaries of the last two Dune books Frank Herbert published when he was alive* (Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune). Now, I read both those books years ago. I think I may have been in high school at the time. I remember struggling to keep track of the approximately ONE HOJILLION CHARACTERS he threw at the reader, and I remember doing a lot of eye-rolling at the 'Honored Matres' vs. the Bene Gesserit and their Reverend Mothers. I did not, however, remember the gory details of just how screwed up the Matres were, or the distinctly horrible revelations Herbert made regarding the Bene Tleilaxu (honestly, the computers in The Matrix had better ways of reproducing humans than what Herbert said about the axlotl tanks- and DO NOT GET ME STARTED about the religion thing). I reread both the summaries multiple times to be absolutely sure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing, and came to one conclusion: Frank Herbert had woman issues the way Bruce Wayne has mommy and daddy issues.
Hell, I've read The White Plague, and a little digging on Wiki turned up some downright disturbing references to another Frank Herbert book called Hellstrom's Hive. Ol' Frank seems to have had woman issues the way Oedipus had mommy and daddy issues.
Anyway, the first thing I did when I got the DE was flip to the entry on axlotl tanks. I got a nice sane writeup on 'little better than an artificial womb' and how the real secret was in the solutions used and the DNA work done. The Encyclopedia was written when Herbert was alive, and it was authorized by His Nibs; I will, therefore, gladly fall back on it for references to anything Duniverse, and try really really hard to forget that Books 5 and 6 ever existed.
*According to Wiki, the current Brian Herbert book- Hunters of Dune- is based on a manuscript Frank Herbert wrote but left in a safe deposit box somewhere. Hunters of Dune and one more book, Sandworms of Dune, are supposed to be the two halves of Frank's manuscript. However, since Brian ain't the original author and every reference I have found to stuff he's written in his father's universe has indicated he neither understands how any of it actually WORKS nor is capable of producing any kind of quality- apparently the Bene Gesserit Voice can be used en masse to hypnotize someone into not noticing that he's completely surrounded, in Brian's work, which is SO not how it works at all!- that I feel no obligation to accept anything with Brian's name on it as Duniverse canon. I'll take Dr. MacNelly's authorized work any day of the week over that.
Whiney time now.
Sep. 18th, 2006 12:11 pmOkay. I've whined about this before. I know I'm getting on people's nerves, or at least I suspect I am, but I'd kind of like to let it out again.
"Oh! What a great character! You play the character well! I'll have to tag the character!" means absolutely jack diddly. Because it generally doesn't produce any actual tags, see. I can understand "I'd tag if I wasn't being eaten alive by my own plot" and "I'd tag if I wasn't being eaten alive by RL". RL takes precedence, and I did make that mistake once of scheduling things so that Foliage Census, Island of Gratuitous Mayhem, and the World Without Magic stuff came to a head at approximately the same time. I know of the brain-eatey.
But if I have to whine and cry and generally act like a childish brat who doesn't think she's getting enough attention in order to get tags for a supposedly beloved character, I have a hard time working up the enthusiasm to give him any freaking entry posts at all, never mind working up the plots that I'd been desperately hoping to run.
(This is the point where the more sensible parts of my brain chime in with 'idiot, if you started the plottage, you'd get the tags without whining'. Only I'm currently deep in doubt about even THAT.)
I want to run the plots and make people happy and interested, and I'll do it in a heartbeat- but I'd kind of like just a little bit of attention outside of the big plotfoo.
Without, um, having to whine about wanting attention. Oy, my head.
(Edit: the fact that the minimalist posters are getting more tags than any of my characters, even after I've whined, does absolutely nothing at all for my sense of being any good whatsoever at this.)
"Oh! What a great character! You play the character well! I'll have to tag the character!" means absolutely jack diddly. Because it generally doesn't produce any actual tags, see. I can understand "I'd tag if I wasn't being eaten alive by my own plot" and "I'd tag if I wasn't being eaten alive by RL". RL takes precedence, and I did make that mistake once of scheduling things so that Foliage Census, Island of Gratuitous Mayhem, and the World Without Magic stuff came to a head at approximately the same time. I know of the brain-eatey.
But if I have to whine and cry and generally act like a childish brat who doesn't think she's getting enough attention in order to get tags for a supposedly beloved character, I have a hard time working up the enthusiasm to give him any freaking entry posts at all, never mind working up the plots that I'd been desperately hoping to run.
(This is the point where the more sensible parts of my brain chime in with 'idiot, if you started the plottage, you'd get the tags without whining'. Only I'm currently deep in doubt about even THAT.)
I want to run the plots and make people happy and interested, and I'll do it in a heartbeat- but I'd kind of like just a little bit of attention outside of the big plotfoo.
Without, um, having to whine about wanting attention. Oy, my head.
(Edit: the fact that the minimalist posters are getting more tags than any of my characters, even after I've whined, does absolutely nothing at all for my sense of being any good whatsoever at this.)