With the release of Winds of Dune, the newest installment from the writing team of Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson just over a week ago, there has been a noticeable uptick in the rhetoric coming from both fans and detractors alike.
Winds of Dune, (originally titled as Jessica of Dune) is the latest of the new “inquil” books planned over the course of the next few years. In Winds of Dune we are taken to the time just after the close of Dune Messiah, when Alia (Paul’s sister) is trying to assert her authority as Regent of the Empire, while dealing with stopping Paul’s one time friend, Bronso of Ix, who has embarked on a campaign to bring down the legends and mysticism that started to take hold in Dune Messiah.
The story is seen through the eyes of Jessica (Paul and Alia’s mother). Jessica returns to Dune after receiving word of her son’s supposed death to walk a fine line between giving her daughter support while secretly helping Bronso. We also see the return of Gurney Halleck (the famous Artreides troubadour warrior), Stilgar (leader of the Fremen), and the ghola of the original Duncan Idaho (who now serves Alia as a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mentat and is her lover). In this installment we again see flashbacks to Paul as a young boy, and the authors reveal more of the events that help him to become the Kwasitz Haldarach we saw in the original works.
Since Amazon set up a Winds of Dune community almost a year ago, it has become center stage in the ever growing dispute between the Orthodox Herbertonians, and fans of the new Dune books. Ronald Craig (aka Sandchigger), along with a number of other members of the most vocal detractors from the Jacurutu forum have been busy setting up numerous discussion threads (around sixteen as of today) in the Winds of Dune and Kevin J. Anderson forums and have aggressively attacked reviewers who post reviews that are favorable to the new book. In a review by Prester Dilly there are almost a mind boggling 84 comments that have been posted so far, by about 13 people. Out of these thirteen at least 8 of them are members of the Jacurutu site.
At the core of the dispute is their dissatisfaction over how Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson have approached the Dune universe. What started as complaints about “inconsistencies” with the original books, which are viewed as being “cannon”, and complaints about weak writing have degenerated into nasty comments, name calling, and what amounts to cyber stalking.
Ronald Craig has gone so far as to set up his own blog, Hairy Ticks of Dune, whose sole purpose seems to be to make fun of anything that is KJA related. He has also been ridiculing KJA on Twitter, as was reported by the keeping the door blog, and his cohorts at Jacurutu are now making outrageous claims like:
- Brian Herbert doesn’t really write the books, it’s all KJA.
- There were no new notes and outline found by HPL for “Dune 7”(which was released as two books, Hunters of Dune, and Sandworms of Dune).
- That it is a provable FACT that Tor/McMillan, Kevin J. Anderson, the HPL have conspired for years in an absolutely shameful campaign to remove negative reviews of Dune books at Amazon.
- That Kevin J. Anderson is paying members of his fan site to post good reviews at Amazon.
All of these claims are, of course, unsubstantiated; though a member of the Jacurutu crew (Mr. Teg) claims to work in publishing and has direct knowledge of how Amazon never removes reviews unless they are requested to by the account holder (in this case TOR and HPL). I am researching this particular claim and will post more on it later, though it seems to be related to the more industry as a whole, and not tied to any one author or publisher.
For the most part these claims appear to be part of an ongoing campaign of dissemination of misinformation and propaganda to the general public. This is being done in an attempt to get HPL (owners of the rights to Dune) and Tor to stop publishing new books in the Dune Universe, or to get them to at least consider changing authors.
With Winds of Dune hitting the New York Times best seller list at #15 in the Adult Hardcover Fiction category, making it the 14th Dune book to land on the list (including the original series by Frank Herbert), it seems unlikely that the Herbert family or the publisher would want to break up the Herbert / Anderson team.
Recently, in response to the continued verbal assaults against anyone that likes Kevin J. Anderson’s books, or the new Dune books, Fans have begun to get more active on the Amazon forums, and on popular social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace (you can find the KJA fan club on Facebook here).
What is the solution? Who knows. What I do know is that the extremism needs to stop. Both sides need to stop any rhetoric, and take some time to reevaluate the situation. David Brin, another noted author, wrote an interesting article on his blog about Disputation Arenas that I think could apply here.
Disputation Arenas were a place where select members of opposing factions, ostensibly the wisest, would get together to listen to BOTH sides of the issue. Brin goes on to say:
“the key features of any Disputation Area system must not only include excellent tools for argument-management , position-parsing, analytic tools and all that. It must also address to problem of how to get people (or advocacy groups) to come! And how to encourage an environment where ALL participants have to grudgingly acknowledge “Hm… I guess I need to take that into account.”
Would creating a Disputation Arena be practical and effective in a dispute such as this? I don’t know. I would hope that, at a minimum, both sides could agree to disagree in a more appropriate manner. It is something that should be advocated and explored by both sides.
There is no justifiable reason to keep harassing the authors and the fans, as Ronald Craig and the Jacurutu crew are. They have lost sight of the fact both sides of the issue have common ground in being fans of the original books, and that the Herbert family has the right to do as they see fit with Frank Herbert’s legacy.
I felt compelled to get into the fray not so much because of any fanatical loyalty to Kevin J. Anderson or Brian Herbert, but because I have a healthy distaste for what I was seeing. I firmly believe that authors have a right to write, and that readers have the right to read any book that pleases them.
The quality of any given book is subjective to the interpretation of the reader. Readers, in turn have a right to provide constructive criticism to an author in a responsible and respectful manner. If you do not like the books an author writes, you do not have to purchase it or read it. After all, writing is as much a business as it is an art, and if I writer doesn’t write what the majority of their fans want to read, they will find it more and more difficult to get published.
In keeping with the spirit of disclosure, I feel I should tell you that I am a fan of some of Kevin J. Anderson’s books, the new Dune books by the Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson team, and am an active member of Kevin J. Anderson’s international fan club.
I’ll close this with this quote by Peter Ustinov.
“Critics search for ages for the wrong word, which, to give them credit, they eventually find.”
Feel free to leave a comment, or discuss this on the Chaos Forum.
Restless Knight
***Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed here are solely the views and opinions of The Restless Knight, and do not in any way represent the views of KJA, HPL, Tor / Macmillan books, Amazon.com or any organizations associated with these entities.***
Tags: Brian Herbert, Controversy, Fantasy, Frank Herbert, HPL, Jacurutu, Kevin J. Anderson, KJA, Sandchigger, Si-Fi, SyFy, TOR, Winds of Dune
Brian.
I am sorry if I misrepresented anything. That was not my intention. I am not trying to personalize something which is not personal – but calling me a rabid fan who will not see reason but is merely harboring some irrational hatred, and lying about a book I care deeply about are all personal matters. I did not make them personal. They are personal.
You then bring up some stuff from the initial post re. some of the claims that have been made about OH’ers in general. I will point out, exactly, which part is insulting to me. Ready?
“…his cohorts at Jacurutu…”
That’s the one. That, and your continuing comments like “…and the Jacurutu crew…” is the insulting part.
You claim, in the initial post, that you are calling for civility is hollow. You scooped it out when you, in the same initial post (twice!) lumped all of the other side of the debate together as a nefarious group who only wants to ridicule and hurt KJA, while lying to the public. This is insulting to me – and goddamned hilarious too, because I have opened up for debate to Byron, Arnoldo, Simon and you at Jacurutu. And I was banned at Dunenovels for doing the same!!!
Obviously, there are different levels of civility on both sides. I wouldn’t argue with Chigger, if I disagreed with him and understand why others would not. Simon was polite and to-the-point in our private discussions. I could name quite a few situations where it has been the other way around – your own lies and insults about my position come to mind…
On shilling, then your claim of “no payment” is something we only have your word for. And you have not made it clear whether you even claim that there never was a point system. But we do have a text from KJASF which states there is a point system. I am not going to let this rest, and I am probably never going to trust you or KJA about it. You can cry about the injustice to high heaven if you want, but I still think KJA is gaming the system when he recruits all his most loyal fans and then encourages them to write more reviews. And I think there was or is a point system involved, which makes it not just a problematic practise, but outright shilling (and soon-to-be illegal).
About the whole “talifan” deal.
You are right. You can read his comments as only applying to “the worst of us”. That’s not how it comes off to me, though. Also notice how he never, in any interview, talks about the “other people” who do not like his books and who have grievances. All we have is an insulting, stupid FAQ which hardly tries to deal with the issues of one books inconsistencies. Where do I fit in KJA’s worldview, if not as a talifan?
And, I have to comment on this:
- “I suspect that you choose to count yourself as part of the insulted as a further justification for your ire.”
Because it highlights exactly what is so blatantly wrong about your way of understanding me, and everyone I have ever met on the “OH side”. We do not first have an “ire” and then need “justification”. There is actually something out there which cause us to be angry in the first place. We’d love to discuss it with you guys, but you all seem to wander off when the discussion gets going…
On Dunenovels and who is running it, you are, of course, correct. But KJA is hardly uninvolved (his Dune blog and news are there). And my point was that the socalled “OH movement” is being censored there. First, this makes animosity on our part quite understandable. And secondly, we naturally take up our discussion elsewhere (Jacurutu and Amazon) – of course we are not going to shut up just because the HPL and KJA won’t talk to us. Maybe if we were heard, if we were allowed to voice our opinions on the “official Dune message board”, if KJA actually responded to criticism instead of bringing up “the talifan” again, if the FAQ on inconsistencies actually responded and did not just cherrypick and toss aside criticism…
Maybe then we could have a debate about the issues, instead of the current “war” over at Amazon, which you seem to be so much against. And which you help propagate by lumping all of “us” together as irrational vandals.
And this throw-away is another one I have to comment:
- “No one is neglecting any debates either. I have spent a fair amount of time discussing these issues, as have others.”
You are neglecting several debates at the moment. And you know it. You do not get points for time spent, you do not get points for jousting with me here over yours and KJA’s general behavour and you do not get points for slugging it out with Chig. You get points when you stick to a debate about the inconstencies and finish it.
- “…as is your claim of my view that the original dune books are not great literature.”
Nope. I said “as great” literature. I assigned to you nothing but the implications of your claims. If you think Frank’s thoughts and themes of the Jihad were “evil, murderous, torturing, psycho-robots tried to enslave and kill mankind” then you are missing out on some of the grander themes of this piece of literature. It is signifigantly less, in your mind, than it is to those of us who read “you could never distrust a machine” as “you could never distrust a machine”, “island” as “island” and “birthplace” as “birthplace”.
For those who read “island” as “island, except when KJA told me it was really something else, like a satelite or something”, Dune will obviously be lessened. How you can do that and still claim to be a fan of Frank Herbert, I will never fathom.
You, by your own words, claim that Paul’s birthplace of Caladan is a lie and that the Jihad was not a human decision to do away with the things which “destroy us as humans”. Dune, to you, is naturally less about the hero myth and man’s need to make his own decisions, than it is to one who does not read Dune through KJAs writings.