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- Movie directed by Duncan Jones
- Starring Sam Rockwell, Kevin Spacey, Dominique McElligot, and Kaya Scodelario
- Released 12 June 2009
- Runtime: 97 minuts
This is a difficult movie to review without giving away a couple of hints of the plot – so beware of some small spoilers.
Just like when I watched Prospect, I wanted a slower-paced movie to put on while I was doing things with my hands, so I looked for another character-focused low-budget sci-fi project. And while Moon ticks all those boxes, it struggled a bit more to convince me.
The ‘lone crew member on the base/ship’ has been done to death in sci-fi, but it is a trope for a reason: loneliness and fear are powerful emotions. It is also perfect for smaller projects like Moon, because it requires a little less of everything to still have an impact: fewer actors, fewer sets, fewer props.
The problem with stories with this premise having been done so often, is that they start falling into a predictable pattern. I understand there are a couple of deliberate references and throwbacks to other sci-fi movies in here – I feel a lot of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien and The Martian in particular – but showing a sci-fi literate audience that you know you’re following in others’ footsteps does not make your movie any more original. A movie about the loneliness of survival in space needs a little extra to make me feel it is worth watching.
In Moon, I get the feeling that the interesting idea to have the main character appear on screen twice is supposed to be that ‘little extra’.
This script might have been written as an acting challenge for Sam Rockwell – he does all of his acting in this movie opposite a video, a prop, or, indeed, himself. Considering, he did a good job and I get that people are impressed with that. But I don’t think it was an Oscar-worthy performance. It is possible another actor could have carried this movie on their own, but Rockwell didn’t draw me in that way.
Because the focus is on Rockwell acting opposite himself, the main mystery of the movie (relatively predictable as it is) is actually revealed rather early on, breaking the tension arc and making the second half of the movie feel like an afterthought.
It is made worse by the fact that the plot is a big tangle of assumptions and just-so stories causing everything to function exactly as the plot demands.
It never made sense to me why Sam Bell had to be at the base in the first place, why he was there alone, why communications with the moon were so difficult, or why Lunar Industries when with the convoluted ploy/deception that is at the core of the lot in the first place.
I could go on, but the bottom line is that this movie was never about the plot. That could be fine, but in this case it left precious basically just Rockwell’s acting as a selling point – and nice as it is, it feels a little meagre.
In conclusion, this movie does some interesting things and looks convincing, but the premise is rather bland and the plot makes no sense. All the interestingness of Sam Rockwell talking to himself could not make up for the fact that Moon was just not that exciting.
If you want to watch a sci-fi movie that is all about intense acting over flashy action, I would rather recommend something like Ex Machina.
You won’t waste an evening if you put on Moon, but I feel like there are better options out there.
- Novel written by Nicole Galland
- Published on 23 February 2021
- Sequel to The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.
Listened to the full-cast audiobook – well read but not quite as satisfying as it could be due to the narrative structure.
I really liked the crazy premise and surprisingly lucid execution of The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. by Nicole Galland and Neal Stephenson, so I figured I’d give the sequel a listen as well.
I did see that Stephenson was no longer on the cover so I knew the focus of the story was going to shift from Stephenson’s sci-fi to Gallant’s historical fiction. On the other hand, Stephenson gave Galland enough of a step-up to continue the story without too much sci-fi input.
It turns out that indeed, Galland focussed on the historical aspects of the story over the present day sci-fi storyline. While I appreciate this makes sense from her perspective, I honestly felt a little let down that what I perceived as the ‘main’ story line after the end of The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. (spoiler alert)- the rivalry between our protagonists and Gráinne-controlled D.O.D.O. – is hardly explored.
Rather, Galland uses that rivalry as a backdrop to set up effectively two historical fiction novellas, one set in Roman Sicily, another in the London of William Shakespeare. In both novellas, two opposing time travellers each try to achieve their own ends in a particular place and time without triggering ‘diachronic shear’ (i.e., a change in history to big for the universe to accommodate).
The present-day rivalry between the two organisations, including the role of the mysterious Fugger banking family, is demoted to inciting incident. Unfortunately, I felt that that was exactly where the biggest potential in a sequel was.
Galland’s historical storytelling is still very good. The prose flows well and the pacing is high. I was slightly disappointed by the resolution of certain plot lines, but I felt like that was not where Galland’s focus was.
Instead, I almost feel like this book was written specifically for Shakespeare-nerds, who want to imagine themselves rubbing shoulders with the Bard and his players.
That could have been a cool premise, too, but it felt a bit out of place to me. Most fans of The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O., myself included, would probably expect an exploration of the effects of rival time travellers attempting to affect the present – and that is just not what Master of the Revels delivers.
Overall, Master of the Revels is a fine book, but it just didn’t offer what I expected or would have wanted. I had no issues finishing it, but I would only recommend it to readers with a real love for historical fiction or Shakespeare, and not so much to readers looking for a follow-up to the interesting sci-fi in The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.
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- Novel written by Martha Wells
- Published on 5 May 2020
- Part 5 in the Murderbot Diaries
Listened to the audiobook with Kevin R. Free – well read.
I am in a complicated relationship with the Murderbot Diaries – I liked All Systems Red, it is easy to recommend to people because it is light reading and the premise is so good. I also love the idea of telling the story through novellas rather than novels, which is refreshing and makes for nice bite-sized chunks.
At the same time, I found that the action-packed nature of the series means that almost all space Wells has in each novella gets taken up by the plot. What breathing room she has, she uses to develop the Murderbot and its relationship with the humans around them. I understand that choice, but I guess I would have liked Wells to scrape a little of the action scenes to allow just a little more background.
As a result, I have felt that the worldbuilding in the story is a little underwhelming. The novellas have started to feel a little samey, largely because the limits to the Murderbot’s combat- and hacking abilities have never become clear.
I think the Murderbot Diaries contrasts unfavourably with the Singing Hills Cycle of novellas in this respect. In in the Singing Hills Cycle, Nghi Vo manages to subtly flesh out the relevant parts of the world just a bit more in each novella.
So when I saw the next instalment in the Murderbot Diaries was a novel rather than a novella, I allowed the series one more chance to drag me across the line.
I think Network Effect does address some of the issues the series was running into. In particular, I liked that the novel gives Preservation, the home of the Murderbot’s human friends, some time in the lime light. And because Wells takes just a bit more time to introduce them, some of the characters in this novel read as much more three-dimensional than in some of the previous stories.
But Wells does not really go into detail about the limits of what the Murderbot can do, as I really hoped she would. I guess I have to admit now that this is not because she is strapped for space but because she simply doesn’t want to.
So I think Network Effect is, in the end, very similar to the novellas in the series, with the exception that the plot is a bit more elaborate and some of the characters are a bit more developed. Most importantly, it feels less like an extended action sequence and more like a narrative interspersed with action.
I think that Network Effect does take the series to the next level, but it didn’t quite bring what I hoped it would. If you liked the series so far, I think Network Effect is going to fit right in and might even be spectacular. If you’re in the same boat as me… I’m afraid it won’t change how you feel.
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- Novel co-written by Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland
- Published on 13 June 2017
- Followed by Master of the Revels
Listened to the full cast audiobook – well read by all actors, but due to the narrative structure the full-cast effect wasn’t nearly as satisfying as it is for some other audiobooks.
I’ve often said that I love stories with interesting story structures, and The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. is certainly one of them. The novel switches back and forth between contemporary or near future science fiction and a whole series of different historical settings, which, as the novel progresses, start bleeding into each other more and more.
The premise of the story which makes all of this possible – the contemporary characters finding a way to revive magic and use it for time travel – is one which might have only been dreamt up by a team like Galland and Stephenson: the first a specialist in historical fiction, the second a big name in the sci-fi scene.
The resulting novel, once it gets going, is incredibly dynamic and fast-paced, though it might take the reader some work to keep up with all the plotlines that are moving at the same time.
I haven’t read anything else by Galland, but my sense is that The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O takes a lot more from her style than it does from Stephenson’s. Gone (or at least: shortened) are the long tangents on feral hogs in Texas or orbital mechanics that I know Stephenson for. In exchange, we get a lot more interpersonal dynamics and interesting variation in narrative style. What we certainly retain from a Neal Stephenson novel, however, is that the narrative takes on more and more fragments of insanity as it nears the end.
I think the historical settings in the book are well-researched, just like Stephenson’s signature tangents usually are. But even though I’m an incredible history nerd, I really missed the original thought that goes into the sci-fi tangents (who’d have thought I would say that after my review of Termination Shock?). Perhaps I don’t read enough historical fiction to be able to assess how exceptional the historical accuracy actually is.
On the topic of historical accuracy, I would be remiss to not mention that the authors recognise the Historical European Martial Arts (H.E.M.A.) scene when describing the historical training time travellers need to undergo – implicitly touching on every H.E.M.A..ist’s secret dream of testing out their skills against the practitioners of the times long gone.
Overall, I think The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. is a pleasure to read, with interesting and surprising twists and a nice focus on the characters. It is, however, perhaps less thought-provoking than the top-shelf science fiction is and a little less dramatic than some of the best fantasy. Still, I think that readers of both genres will really appreciate the original blend of stories. I know I am looking forward to putting on the sequel (by Galland allone) sometime soon.
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- Movie directed by Zeek Earl & Chris Caldwell
- Starring Sophie Thatcher, Jay Duplass, PedroPascall
- Released 2 November 2018
- Runtime: 100 minutes
I’m not a big movie watcher myself, mostly because I am just not good at sitting still and watching something without using my hands for something, anything. Recently I wanted to finish a couple of sowing projects that had been lying around and I had a bit of an audiobook overload so I looked for something simple to watch instead – and I settled on Prospect.
I never heard of it and I am assuming you neither have you, but it featured Pedro Pascal in an astronaut’s helmet on the tile, so I figured ‘why not?’.
I’m going with a three star review, but that is probably on the generous side if we measure Prospect against most of the sci-fi blockbusters rolling out of Hollywood. Prospect is a small budget movie (Wikipedia tells me: USD 4 million), and it shows. It feels fair to take that into account on some level at least.
However, I really like the type of project that flows from the budget limitations.
Prospect is a small-scale movie, with few starring roles, no big CGI set pieces and a relatively simple script. Those are ingredients for an intimate, character-focussed story that punches well above its weight in terms of budget. Question is, does Prospect fulfil that promise?
I think Prospect is at its best when it is at its least ambitious. In fact, I think Prospect may be at its best in its opening shots, with just two characters confined to a used future landing pod preparing to drop to a moon, announcing they’ll catch their ride back to inhabited space on the back end of the gravitational sling. I think these scenes ooze atmosphere and show off the beautifully crafted decor and props very well.
To be honest, I think the movie doesn’t manage to keep up that level of attention to detail. As more characters and settings are introduced, it feels like time and budget ran out to set the scene as lovingly as the introduction does. Towards the end of the runtime, the action scenes are dark and patchy, obscuring many details.
What needs to carry the movie is the interaction between Sophie Thatcher’s Cee and Pedro Pascal’s Ezra. Honestly, Pedro Pascal might be the most recognisable element of the the movie poster, but I don’t think he’ll be the most memorable performance for most viewers; his villain-who-seems-to-read-every-line-from-a-thesaurus is characterful but also just a little predictable. I honestly liked Thatcher’s performance going from doe-eyed to grim-faced better.
Though I think the script sets up their dynamic well, I was a bit let down in the end by how it played out; I can’t give more details without spoilers, but it kept feeling just a little forced. I wonder if I would have enjoyed the movie more if they would not have ended up meeting anyone along their journey, giving them more time for character-to-character moments.
So Prospect is not a perfect movie, but it is at least a decent movie, and a welcome change from the overwhelming style of many sci-fi epics. I loved the props, I thought Thatcher did very well, and I could honestly watch that opening over and over again. If you’re no sure what to watch, you could do a lot worse than putting this on – and if you decide halfway through it might not be for you, don’t worry: you’ve already seen the best bits!
- Novel written by Rob van Essen
- Published in November 2023
- Standalone
Listened to the audiobook with Maarten Westra Hoekzema – honestly a terrible reading, constantly missing emphasis and sentence structure. Felt like a poorly conditioned AI – I recommend reading on paper instead.
We’ve discussed before that the speculative genre is not particularly well developed in Dutch language literature, so when a Dutch sci-fi book hits the mainstream, I jump.
Ik kom hier nog op terug (’I’ll get back to this’) is typical of Dutch ‘genre’ literature in that it rubs up against ‘regular’ big-L Literature in many ways, including themes and conventions of style. It feels a lot more like magical realism than it does sci-fi. What distinguishes it from proper Dutch Literature is that it is neither about (i) the Second World War; (ii) how colonising Indonesia made Dutch people Sad™ nor (iii) sex, which is a welcome relief.
Still, it takes half the book for the first elements of sci-fi to appear. The start of the novel is frankly indistinguishable from traditional Dutch high brow Literature, with the exception that at some point Van Essen gives us a throwaway line that ‘he’ll get to the stuff about the time machine’. I’d argue that that seems like a pretty cheap way to keep your reader engaged, but it worked on me, so I’ll keep my mouth shut.
While the initial section of the novel is important for the plot going forward, it is slow and I really had to struggle through. The pace picks up a bit at about the 1/3rd mark of the book when we get to the protagonist’s adult life, but the novel is always going to remain a slow burn.
It is difficult to say much more about the story without giving away the mysteries that form the core of the novel, but once the ball got rolling on the main narrative, I happily returned to see it through and get some answers.
I felt the book ultimately fizzled a bit when the answers turned out to be few and far between (though I understand that that is, to some extent, the point). On the other hand, I think it is typical of the kind of book that Van Essen is writing that we’re focusing on the characters as opposed to the plot. The mystery is just a device to get us to think about certain questions, and we have to give it to Van Essen that the questions he poses are more than adequate to keep the reader involved.
The result of the mysteries sort of ‘hanging around’ for most of the book and the protagonists at some point mostly disengaging with them is that Ik kom hier nog op terug has a surreal vibe. The novel is also very clearly nostalgic for having studied in the 80s in Amsterdam, which I didn’t (big surprise: I wasn’t born yet), which might have added to that surreal feeling for me.
I think Ik kom hier nog op terug sits at an interesting, but difficult intersection: perhaps a bit too speculative for the reader of Literature, perhaps too literate for the fan of the genre.
Personally, I liked Ik kom hier nog op terug well enough as a sci-fi fan, though ultimately I probably wouldn’t call it a sci-fi novel. Ik kom hier nog op terug is not about the effect of possible future events or inventions on human society, but about the long term effects of seemingly innocuous choices on individuals, and whether these are things we (should) regret. The time machine in the novel only exists to make that question more tangible. As a result, I felt Van Essen didn’t really attempt to engage with the broader sci-fi genre, other than referencing H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine and its 1960 movie adaptation. This feeling was rather reinforced when he mixed up steampunk and cyberpunk in a throwaway line of dialogue.
In conclusion then, Ik kom hier nog op terug is well worth the read, but don’t trust the librarians and booksellers that file it under the science-fiction section!
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- Novel written by John Scalzi
- Published in 2005
- Part 1 in the Old Man's War Trilogy
Listened to the audiobook with William Dufris – the narrator was not the problem.
Oof, sometimes you decide to try out something new (”that’s a Hugo nominee, what’s the worst that could happen?”), and then this happens. Old Man’s War was definitely not for me.
I could list quite a few things I disliked – like the plot really only getting rolling in the final quarter of the book, or the completely unearned Marty Stu-ness and paper-thin character of the protagonist.
I could bring up that whenever the protagonist runs into a challenge or a possible antagonist, they are simply removed a couple of pages on.
I could mention that whatever is happening is constantly interspersed with lots of long combat scenes that are completely tensionless and are just no fun to read – Old Man’s War feels like a 14-year-old having a power fantasy while playing a shooter video game.
I could bring up that Old Man’s War seems to be glorifying violence (or attempting to make violence funny?).
I might wonder why this novel’s attempts at humour constantly fall flat (though I might have the answer which is that I just don’t find alien gut splattering the pages laughable).
I could continue, but I think I got my point across.
Old Man’s War got under my skin in more than one way, but perhaps the most frustrating is that it forgets its premise about a third of the way in – the novel starts with some mystery on how old folks will be fit to fight a war – but once that mystery gets resolved, the fact that the characters are supposedly all 75 years old stops playing any role in the story. That’s frustrating, but it is especially annoying because of the book’s title, which makes it at least appear as though it would matter.
Overall, the novels just drips in poor sci-fi B-movie energy.
Old Man’s War felt like Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, but without any of the originality or the (admittedly, deeply problematic but still) philosophy;
It felt like Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers movie adaptation without any of the irony;
It felt like Richard Morgan’s Altered Carbon without any of the thought spent on any of the implications of the possibilities introduced by the sci-fi elements of the plot;
It even felt like Warhammer 40.000 without any of the shameless over the top grimdark bullshit that makes that setting compelling.
In short: Old Man’s War just felt extremely derivative, a rehash of old tropes with nothing new to add – and neither the plot nor the characters can save it since those, too, are unoriginal in the extreme.
Looking at some of Scalzi’s other writing, I see a couple of satirical takes on well-worn sci-fi tropes. I’ve seen people online argue that Old Man’s War somehow satirises Starship Troopers. Perhaps I’m not smart enough to get it, but I don’t get how taking a trope, playing it straight, but removing the (again, admittedly sometimes icky) philosophy is satire. But perhaps more importantly, that has also already been done: the Paul Verhoeven movie adaptation of Starship Troopers exists (and existed at the time Old Man’s War was written) and it does not feel that dissimilar, just a lot more scathing.
I disliked Old Man’s War rather badly, so I’m not continuing the trilogy – but I am still open to giving Scalzi another shot. Perhaps I should find something that is more explicitely a satire and see if that works for me?
- Novel written by Arthur C. Clarke
- Published in 1953
- Standalone
Listened to the audiobook with Greg Wagland – good narrator.
Borderline 2.5/3 star review.
When I set out to write this review, I had an idea in the back of my mind to comment on the difficulty of translating 1950’s science fiction, which was often serialised and published in magazines (see for example, Foundation), to the modern reader, who expects coherent novel-length stories.
You may imagine my surprise when I found out that Childhood’s End was (mostly) published as a single novel, with (most) of the discontinuities of the stories a feature rather than a bug.
Whether intended or not, I found Childhood’s End a rather disjointed novel. It contains several only superficially connected themes, plotlines and characters, each vying for the reader’s attention. As a result, I felt none of the themes, none of the plotlines and none of the characters got the attention they really deserved. I didn’t dislike any of them – each of the lines is individually interesting – but there was just not enough space to go around.
That is a pity, because the themes are good. I was particularly drawn in by the question of how humanity might change after first contact if the aliens stuck around to babysit us. Clarke’s vision – of vanishing ambition and disappearing artistic and intellectual merit – is very interesting, but I don’t feel like Clarke really delved into it. Childhood’s End presents the idea but never gets the emotional impact across because the novel is much to busy grappling with everything else it wants to show. That sense of missed opportunity was illustrative for the novel as a whole.
Admittedly, Childhood’s End is an ambitious and imaginative novel and I think Clarke deserves praise for trying to tackle a number of interesting themes. Still, I can’t shake the feeling Childhood’s End would have been better of as a three separate stand alone novels.
I want to add that Clarke was surprisingly accurate with several of his predictions, foreseeing the space race between the US and USSR (even though his misjudged the timing) and critiquing a society that was so flooded with entertainment that people had up to three (!) hours of screen time a day. These kinds of gems never fail to bring a smile to your face and these types of revelations alone make reading science fiction from the Golden Age worth it for me.
Whether Childhood’s End is worth your time depends on what you want from your novels – it is not a streamlined or thematically coherent novel that modern publishers would sell. If you want to read Clarke and that is what you’re looking for, The Sands of Mars is a much better bet. But Childhood’s End is brimming with interesting ideas and it is well-written and well enough paced that it never gets boring – and exactly because it would never see print in the 2020s, it might be fun to give a shot.
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- Book written by Paul Lynch
- Published August 2023
This book was a ‘slow burner’ for me. It wasn’t one of those books that you finish almost in one sitting because you cannot put it down, but weeks and even months after finishing it, this story still regularly pops up in my mind without warning.
The drama is portrayed on a very human level, zooming in on the domestic. You find out about what is going on in the wider world mostly though the consequences that it has for the daily lives of the main characters, but you don’t find out much beyond that. The characters are not necessarily all that likable, and their decisions are at times very frustrating. But because of that they are all the more realistic.
The book isn’t some epic thriller with lots of action, but I think that made it only more terrifying. Slowly but steadily you are being led from a familiar world to one that is completely unrecognizable. It slowly leads you along, until, like Eilish, you realise that it might already be too late. Moreover, this book does not offer you the consolation that it is ‘only a story’: part of the terror is that this is the daily reality of so many people around the world.
The ‘regime’ in this book is faceless and untouchable. There’s no evil dictator, and you don’t get to know the names of any of the major leaders. There is also no clear religious, political or otherwise ideological motive for their actions, except for the universal hunger for power and control. This heightens the sense of powerlessness that you feel while reading this book: you can vividly feel Eilish’s immense frustration and anger, but above all her fear that anything she does will bring harm to her children. The decision not to give the regime a face or an ideological background makes sense, because this book is not about those in power. It’s about the terrible choices that people have to make in the face of violence that is inflicted upon them by forces outside of their control.
While reading, you cannot stop wondering: what would I have done? I hope I will never have to find out the answer.
- Novel written by Arthur C. Clarke
- Published in 1951
- Standalone
Listened to the audiobook with Greg Wagland – good narrator.
There is always something fascinating about reading science fiction from before some of humanity’s milestones in space exploration. It has not even been a century, but there is such a gulf separating especially the details of imagined and real life. With science fiction this old, you can laugh at all things the authors got wrong, and marvel at the things they got right.
In The Sands of Mars, I was actually rather surprised at how much thought Clarke seemed to have put into the colonisation of Mars; my experience with 1950’s science fiction is that whiIe it may be well thought-out, it doesn’t generally care about accuracy. The Sands of Mars is different: I would label it ‘hard science fiction’, or at least, a 1950’s attempt at hard science fiction.
Having said that, there is a lot in The Sands of Mars that is patently ridiculous to the modern reader, such as thriving vegetation on Mars, print newspapers in the village-size colony, or the fact that all women on Mars appear to be secretaries(?). But it is exactly these kinds of ‘misses’ that make you appreciate the ‘hits’ all the more: if Clarke was writing from such a different society and with so little knowledge, then each time he got it right is pretty impressive.
Still, if you’re looking for a slightly more recent (though the 1990’s aren’t exactly modern either) novel on the colonisation of Mars which fits more closely with our current understanding of the physics, I would rather recommend Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars instead.
Back to The Sands of Mars – it’s fascinating for it’s historical vantage and in the history of sci-fi, but is it any good as a novel?
I rather liked Clarke’s playful twist of writing the novel from the perspective sci-fi writer Martin Gibson who gets invited to describe the Mars colony, who actually gets to experience that disconnect between what he wrote and predicted with reality – it gives the novel a nice ‘meta’ feel without feeling forced.
Besides that clever premise, I think the plot is really nothing special – it has the typical 1950s style of mostly taking place in armchairs and behind office desks, with the added drawback of Gibson never quite taking charge of the goings on. Gibson is a wonderful fish-out-of-water that other characters can explain the details of spaceflight and living on Mars to, but he is trailing the plot basically all the way to its resolution (perhaps with one exception where he entirely accidentally stumbles upon a relevant development).
On the other hand, I think Gibson comes to life quite well for a protagonist in an early sci-fi novel – he seems quite a bit more complete than most 1950’s British gentleman-heroes.
In the end, I think the combination of a multidimensional main character and the interesting 1950s vantage make The Sands of Mars well worth reading – though always realise that you’re traveling back in time some three quarters of a century as much as you travel into an imagined future.
- Book written by Frank Herbert
- Published April 1976
- Part three in the Dune Chronicles
2.5 stars – I bet you didn’t see that one coming. Neither did I. Or, at least, I wasn’t expecting a drop that big compared to Dune and Dune Messiah. Let’s examine what happened.
One of the things I noticed is that Herbert’s style is getting boiled down further and further in Dune Messiah and Children of Dune: Dune has palace politics, hard-to-follow conversations on the edge of a knife, and occult tradition – but it also has really interesting worldbuilding and a plot that ultimately fits our traditional understanding of a fantasy plot. Dune is a complex, layered book that offers the reader something on many levels.
Dune Messiah has a lot more of the palace politics and the conversations-as-duels, and less worldbuilding, but the plot and theme connect to Dune very well. It also wrapped up Paul’s storyline nicely. I think Dune Messiah is a lot less layered than Dune, leaning more heavily on Herbert’s signature style. But it leaves enough of a ‘traditional’ novel to make the more surreal elements of Herbert’s writing feel mysterious rather than breaking your suspension of disbelief.
Children of Dune takes another step on the road, with even more of that trademark Herbert and even less traditional novel: sometimes, it felt like it was only palace politics and esoteric conversations that us mortals can only half follow along with. Perhaps the Dune Chronicles finally arrived at the point where it got too smart for me: While reading Children of Dune, I kept trying to distil meaning from long pages of platitudes and to understand why characters were doing certain things.
As a result Children of Dune was a pretty draining read, mostly in the sense that it took a lot of focus and I had to put it away after about half an hour each day. That effect is not helped by the fact that the plot of Children of Dune is really rather limited for how long the book is; I didn’t feel like I was progressing through the narrative much.
The plot is also pretty back-loaded – the most important development happens about 80% into the story, and I can’t help but feel like it wasn’t really foreshadowed. Perhaps I just wasn’t smart enough to notice; perhaps I would have to read the novel again to pick up on clever hints that I now missed.
That begs the question: will I read Children of Dune again? I’m not sure.
This review up until this point reads like I hated it, and I need to clarify that I didn’t. I enjoyed reading more about Arrakis, I enjoyed the mystery injected in the story by the character of the Preacher, I enjoyed the Bene Gesserit scheming, I enjoyed poor old Stilgar trying to make sense of a world that had outgrown him. I like Herbert’s style of prose and I even though it was perhaps a bit much in Children of Dune, I like those 3D-chess conversations and that sense of mystery. And I love that Herbert fully commits to his choices in the previous novel, leaning into the surreality of it all.
But I also need to be honest: I read Children of Dune because it is a Dune-novel and because I love Dune. Had this been a standalone, I might not have made it to the end.
And as a side note, I now understand why Denis Villeneuve wanted his Dune-trilogy to only cover Dune and Dune Messiah rather than having to find a way to commit Children of Dune to film.
I knew that the quality of the Dune Chronicles steadily falls off as it progresses, but to be honest, I was still a bit disappointed by Children of Dune. Knowing what Herbert can do if he is held back just a little from going all-out on his surreal style, one cannot help but wonder what Children of Dune and the rest of the series could have been like if Herbert’s editor would have stood their ground a bit more firmly (though I understand the novel was initially serialised, making that a much harder task).
As a big fan of Dune and the type of sci-fi nerd that even has a review website for a hobby, I am duty-bound to continue the series and to be honest, I am genuinely curious about God-Emperor of Dune. I wonder, what does a novel look like when it is just Frank Herbert’s mysticism? Only one way to find out…
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- Movie directed by Mahalia Belo
- Starring Jodie Comer, Joel Fry, Katherine Waterston and others
- Released 19 January 2024
- Runtime: 101 minutes
I’m struggling a bit to know what to say about this movie, because I thought it was just simply really good. The movie starts off with two kinds of ‘floods’: while London becomes submerged during a climate disaster, our heroin’s water breaks and her baby is born. The internal upheaval and sense of displacement a new parent might feel at finding their lives completely altered by the arrival of their baby, is therefore reflected in the chaos of the wider world as civilization breaks down. At the same time, having a newborn to care for makes the crisis even more acute: throughout the story you can really feel the desperation and terror of having to find shelter and safety for the baby.
The main focus of the story is not the events playing out in the larger world, but the internal struggles, worries and impossible decisions that come with being a new mother. Jodie Comber’s amazing performance manages to convey all of this, often without it even needing to be spoken aloud. Add this to the beautiful cinematography and great supporting performances, and this is definitely a movie to recommend.
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