Children of Dune (SF) - Frank Herbert ****

After a slightly bumpy second title in the series, Frank Herbert returned to form with Children of Dune, which has a lot of the positive aspects of the original, but moves things forward considerably. With Paul's children Leto and Ghanima centre stage (though, to be honest, Ghanima gets a little sidelined), we have a second run at what Paul attempted... in perhaps a more measured fashion.

One huge step forward in the writing over the first novel is that there are more shades of grey - the baddies here have redeeming features and are capable in some cases of change and development. Although Children of Dune could never have the impact of the original Dune, bursting as it did fresh onto the science fantasy stage, it is a very worthy successor.

Perhaps the biggest fault of the book is that, even more so than the first title, there is a huge amount of agonising and philosophising. It's not that there's not a good spine of action - there is - but it's surrounded by a lot of, sometimes repetitive, discussion and internal monologue. It also raises environmental/biological issues that should have come through earlier. By this stage in the series, the planet has been partially greened - this is killing off the sandworms, but no one seemed to realise this would happen, even though it was entirely obvious, and they are totally central to Dune's economy. This then gets the reader thinking about the biology of sandworms. These vast creatures would need a huge amount of energy - but where do they get it from in the empty desert? It's pretty much impossible to see how the worms could be powered, biologically speaking.

Despite these concerns, though, the book works well, with some genuine surprises. If you liked Dune, it's worth getting through the (relatively short) okayish Dune Messiah to get on to this one.

Children of Dune is still solidly in print - but for entertainment's sake, the cover shown here is from my 1978 New English Library copy.

Paperback:

Kindle:

Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you

Review by Brian Clegg

Comments

The Antigravity Enigma - Andrew May ****

Antigravity - the ability to overcome the pull of gravity - has been a fantasy for thousands of years and subject to more scientific (if impractical) fictional representation since H. G. Wells came up with cavorite in The First Men in the Moon . But is it plausible scientifically? Andrew May does a good job of pulling together three ways of looking at our love affair with antigravity (and the related concept of cancelling inertia) - in science fiction, in physics and in pseudoscience and crankery. As May points out, science fiction is an important starting point as the concept was deployed there well before we had a good enough understanding of gravity to make any sensible scientific stabs at the idea (even though, for instance, Michael Faraday did unsuccessfully experiment with a possible interaction between gravity and electromagnetism). We then get onto the science itself, noting the potential impact on any ideas of antigravity that come from the move from a Newtonian view of a...

The World as We Know It - Peter Dear ***

History professor Peter Dear gives us a detailed and reasoned coverage of the development of science as a concept from its origins as natural philosophy, covering the years from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. inclusive If that sounds a little dry, frankly, it is. But if you don't mind a very academic approach, it is certainly interesting. Obviously a major theme running through is the move from largely gentleman natural philosophers (with both implications of that word 'gentleman') to professional academic scientists. What started with clubs for relatively well off men with an interest, when universities did not stray far beyond what was included in mathematics (astronomy, for instance), would become a very different beast. The main scientific subjects that Dear covers are physics and biology - we get, for instance, a lot on the gradual move away from a purely mechanical views of physics - the reason Newton's 'action at a distance' gravity caused such ...

It's On You - Nick Chater and George Loewenstein *****

Going on the cover you might think this was a political polemic - and admittedly there's an element of that - but the reason it's so good is quite different. It shows how behavioural economics and social psychology have led us astray by putting the focus way too much on individuals. A particular target is the concept of nudges which (as described in Brainjacking ) have been hugely over-rated. But overall the key problem ties to another psychological concept: framing. Huge kudos to both Nick Chater and George Loewenstein - a behavioural scientist and an economics and psychology professor - for having the guts to take on the flaws in their own earlier work and that of colleagues, because they make clear just how limited and potentially dangerous is the belief that individuals changing their behaviour can solve large-scale problems. The main thesis of the book is that there are two ways to approach the major problems we face - an 'i-frame' where we focus on the individual ...

Search This Blog