Looks like an interesting project. I’ll be sure to pass it along.

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.

Once again you are misrepresenting what was said in an attempt to personalize it, much as you are doing with your claim of him calling you a liar or being personally insulting to you.

What I said in the initial posting was:
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.”

These are all claims made at Jacurutu and/or on Amazon. It is stated in a factual manner. Please point out how this is insulting to you.

Re: Shills.
From your Sep. 25th post, in response to an earlier post by me:
“You claim (at first) that KJA is paying for good reviews (which are flat out false).”

Nope. It is not. And you still won’t argue the point or even tell me how receiving merchandise for writing reviews is not an instance of “getting paid for writing a review”.

The fact is, as was pointed out on Jacurutu, that there is no payment of any kind for posting reviews. No points, no merchandise, no money. Nothing.

That is why I am saying that you need to stop beating this dead horse, and that the KJASF shill comments should stop.

On Lies and Personal insults:
Once again, you are misrepresenting the facts. His “Talifan” comment was not aimed at all detractors, but rather the more militant ones. These are the same ones that you said that you have issue with the methodology that they employ. I suspect that you choose to count yourself as part of the insulted as a further justification for your ire.

KJA does not run http://www.DuneNovels.com, and has nothing to do with the decision of the moderator there to censor people based on their views. That site is, as you well know, run by the Herbert Family.

No one is neglecting any debates either. I have spent a fair amount of time discussing these issues, as have others.

Re: FH and Technology
I just do not know where to start here. You are assigning words and thoughts to me that are down right ridiculous, as is your claim of my view that the original dune books are not great literature. I’ll save what will be a quite lengthy response to this for a more appropriate venue of discussion.

Re. sketch comparison:
Since your original “article” here starts off by calling me one of Chigger’s “cohorts at Jacurutu”, and you have misrepresented me and my opinions time and again in this thread, I don’t think taking the sketch comparison as an insult is any great stretch of the imagination. Calling me obtuse to suggest it is not exactly polite either. Your initial call for civility rings a bit hollow to my ears, at this point. If you really want to be working for a more civil tone, you should be more careful about which Monty Python character your compare your opponent to in the debate.

Re. Shills:
- “Your tireless claims that the KJASF people are paid shills is wrong, and I expect that these baseless claims will stop.”
Please go back and read my statements on this. You will find you are, once again, quite representing me. Or maybe you won’t. Do you want me to spell it out one last time, or do you want to keep on believing whatever you find convinient?

Re. Lies and personal insults:
You are right that KJA never phoned me up personally to insult me. He has, however, villified me and mine (the socalled “OH movement”), belittled Frank Herbert’s work and legacy. This is the insult. And you already knew this. Bringing out the fact that he never contacted me in person is disingenuous at best – you knew this was not the point already.
In turn, I have ridiculed KJA and his work – but only for faults which I truly believe are there. And I have called him out on his inconsistencies. And invited him and his fans to debate the issues; something which you have all neglected to actually do – some while you clamour for civility and discussion. I have a suspicion it is the later part you guys have a real problem with…
And no, I will not “let it rest” that KJA have called everyone who disagree with him a “talifan” – he is labelling us as radicals whom you cannot possibly hope to have a debate, yet he is the one running a censored website where I got thrown out for debating the issues. And he won’t answer simply, polite questions…

Re. My opinion about FH and technology:
- “I have never said that “Frank Herberts work did not hold anything interesting to say about technology”, nor have I said that anyone looking for insights about technology in his works are idiots.”
Yes, you have. When you said the Butlerian Jihad was not grounded in morality, religion and social upheaval, you are claiming that there is nothing insteresting going on there beyond the Terminator movies. You are the ones claiming “you could never distrust a machine” means machines can betray mankind. You claim that Frank Herbert’s choice to model Dune over the heroic myth is not important (cf. Pauls birthplace). You, and KJA, claim that Dune does not, in short, mean what it says or is as great literature as I claim it is. This is the basic difference between fans of the new books, and socalled “OH’ers” – and why we are so pissed.
- “If you have proof to the contrary, please feel free to post a link back to it.”
Oh, I have plenty. I would love to discuss these matters with you at length, but not here – we have an ongoing discussion which you have abandoned – you can return to it at any time and drop me a PM about it at Jacurutu.

In regards to you’re October 21st post.
The Monty Python reference was ment as a humorous comparison of how I am viewing this conversation. It was not meant to be insulting, and, honestly, I feel that you are being purposely obtuse by interpreting it as such.

Your tireless claims that the KJASF people are paid shills is wrong, and I expect that these baseless claims will stop.

Re: Lies. So he has not attacked you personally, as you tried to make it seem that he did. You are beating the “Talifan” thing to death. There anre a lot worse things being said by Jacurutu members about KJA and his fans, and to the best of my knowledge, started long before the now infamous “Talifan” comment. Give it a rest.

Re. My opinion about FH and technology:
I have never said that “Frank Herberts work did not hold anything interesting to say about technology”, nor have I said that anyone looking for insights about technology in his works are idiots. To the best of my knowledge, neither has KJA. I think that you need to take your own advice on about being the arbritrer of someone elses opinion.

If you have proof to the contrary, please feel free to post a link back to it.

“But since we don’t, in your eyes, we must be destroyed!”
No. Just informed and invited to defend your position.

“But you never do. You just attack the people who write the reviews saying they do like it.”
No. We have written plenty of reviews, and commented on many more. And we inform people that the positivie reviews cannot be trusted because there is a secret clubhouse with special gifts for those who write such positive reviews.

“I love the “Dune” universe. I always have. But I am not so obsessed with FH that I am going to send wave upon wave of pure and unhealthy rage at anyone who picks up the story where he left off.”
Me neither. But I am “obsessed” enough to care and defend it when people lie about it. And enough to make certain demands to any continuation of it – at the minimum some consistency, care for the world Frank created and attention to themes. And maybe a bit of humility.

“I have made my point to your kind more than enough times. And I’m done. ”
If your point was that we are all trolls and evil and send deaththreats, then good riddance to “your point”. If you ever want to actually discuss the inconcistencies I and others see, please feel free to do se.