The Reader's Lament: Hunters I.1.a-b

Memory is a weapon sharp enough to inflict deep wounds.
—The Mentat's Lament

I find it odd that the first section of a book whose writing style seems to presuppose a complete lack of memory of the part of the reader should begin with an epigraph invoking that very faculty. But maybe the authors were justified, judging from the large number of people who claim to enjoy reading it. For the first time in my life I regret that I am not an ADD sufferer! Because what is wounded by possession of a memory in this case—besides your willing belief in the story that unfolds—is memory itself! The memory of how good the original six Dune books were....

So OK, enough with the pleasantries. Let's bitch.

1. If anyone needs to be told that Rakis = Dune, they shouldn't be reading this book. Deadwood, snip snip.

2. Actually, Rakis/Dune isn't "lost", it's still merrily twirling its way around Canopus. What is this, an attempt at pathos? Try the other word starting with a 'b'.

3. The no-ship What-tha-ca? I don't recall it having a name? I guess they'll explain this eventually. And I'll shred it again.

4. Miles Teg is a clone. He's not a ghola. They tell us this themselves later. SO WHY CALL HIM A GHOLA HERE?! And he's not a "thirteen-year-old", he's a multicentarian IN THE BODY of a thirteen-year-old. Big difference, you'd think.

5. Stimulant beverage? Why not just call it spice coffee and be done with it? Who cares if there's no java in it?

6. "Rakis...the legendary desert planet"...they've already called it that once already. Enough repetition already!

7. If the "Honored Matre war vessels" are "undetectable", how can the archival images show them? (See 19 below.) And who was filming these archival images in the first place? Some BGs in another undetectable no-ship of their own?

8. Who equates explosions with pinpricks? Firecrackers maybe?

9. "Those new weapons must have been developed out in the Scattering. Teg pursued a Mentat projection. Human ingenuity born out of desperation? Or was it something else entirely?" OK, so much for the first-order projections; what about the second and third order ones?

If A, ingenuity born of desperation, desperation in the face of what? If B, then what else entirely? Developed by whom or what? This is a good place to develop amnesia, because gone are the subtleties and intricate reasoning of the old novels. This is our first glimpse of the infamous "loss of 50 IQ points".

10. Can an atmosphere catch fire?

11. "By strict definition...." Ah, at last we come to the ghola/clone thing. OK, so most people refer to him as a ghola even though he's a clone. Those BG always were sloppy in their use of language. And it's contagious: even the authors are infected!

12. "...the Honored Matres. Whores, the Sisterhood called them. And with good reason."

whore, noun. a prostitute; a promiscuous woman.

Um...I don't remember the Honored Matres doing it for money or really even for fun. It was more of a control thang, right? So what good reason is there for the BG to call the HM "whores". I mean, it's not like the BG never used sex for their own purposes, right? Anyway, the usage originated with Frank Herbert; it's an in-universe character thing, doesn't have to make sense. That doesn't mean there's "good reason" though.

13. WTF are "intuitive finger controls"? Something to control intuitive fingers? Whew, better grab me another cup of stimulant beverage...this is gonna be a long haul. Again, who recorded the images?!

14. Sheeana appears. Just in case you forgot, she's originally from Rakis. That's why she has "unruly umber hair flashed with streaks of copper from a childhood spent under the desert sun." With totally blue eyes, because she has eaten spice all her life. She's a Reverend Mother, too, by the way, in case you'd forgotten. With big pouty lips.

15. Reminder: Teg's body is thirteen; that means he's started going through puberty; crackly voice, rampaging hormones...or at least, you'd have expected the latter. And here he is alone with the woman who abused him as a boy, had her hands all over his "Shy Hoolewd"...and they don't explore this at all. (Maybe something to be grateful for, I guess.) "The Bashar accomplished a great deal in three hundred standard years, before I died." More person-perspective confusion. This time the path of infection seems to have been authors to character.

16. "...her expression fell into a troubled mask." Thank Dur it didn't fall into his cup of stimulant beverage! That would have been a mess, what? OK, let's get this straight: he's been obsessing over these same images for THREE YEARS NOW? And no one has thought of an intervention? Curtailing his time in the archives chamber? OK.

17. "It had been their intent to prevent anyone...from finding the ship." Their intent? I thought Duncan did it all on his own, a spontaneous reaction to the threat he perceived from the old couple. Oh well.

18. "So many unknowns trouble me, where are we, who is chasing us...." How they expect anyone to buy (= believe) this crap, why does lint collect in my navel, do I really have the stamina to do this for the entire book?!

19. If there's humming, there's not silence. Duh. But here's confirmation, at least, of the ship's invisibility. (See 7 above.) And a reminder: It's big. They mean BIG. Just in case you hadn't gotten that bit yet.

20. "Now that his memories had been awakened...." Yeah, more than three years earlier. Strictly speaking, his restored memories do not tell him "what he had done up to his death": they only tell him what happened up until right before he died, when Odrade took the cell sample.

21. More recap: Teg and his merry band stole the no-ship; Gammu used to be Giedi Prime used to be the homeworld of the nasty Harks but they're all dead; Teg and the Duncan ghola (number twelve in an unlucky batch), blah blah blah, I did read the old books, thank you, a tree died for this, snip snip. But notice how they glaze over the slaughter of hundreds of HMs & friends, the gratuitous mentions of Muad'Dib and the ancient Butlerian Jihad.

22. Blah blah blah, nothing new to see here, move along now.

23. "That had been Teg's first life. His real memories ended there." Um...no, his real memories should end at the point where Odrade took the cells used to grow him.

24. "Now that he was alive again, he had a second chance." This idea of people getting a "second chance" seems to be an important one to B&K, seeing how they go on about it. Everybody and his brother (Paolo?) gets a second chance. Even the ones not usually thought of as having screwed up their first time around.

25. More recap, then this: "Better than anyone else, the escapees understood about the mysterious Enemy that continued to hunt for them, no matter how lost the no-ship might be...." Just what is it that they understand so much better than anyone else? I'm confoosed. Can anybody out there help?

Weary with the unnecessary repetition of things most Dune fans should remember, Sand Chigger stretched his many legs and hit "Publish" to post his initial musings, then wandered off towards the bedniche and the futons to see how far ChiggerBint had gotten in her perusal of their new copy of The Camel Suture.

Though he was struggling with text written as for a thirteen-year-old, he had accepted this task willingly, and would not truly rest until it was complete. En garde!

(v.1.1 - added blank lines between items)