Is Dune (The Finale) Worth My Time?

Hunters of Dune
Sandworms of Dune


By Brian Herbert 
and Kevin J. Anderson

These two books were planned by Frank Herbert, but he passed away and was unable to finish the series.  In fact, the notes for the books were in a safety deposit box, which lay unopened for years after Franks's death.  Brian, his son, came across the notes, and eventually Kevin and Brain crossed paths, and decided to start working of the Dune story once more.  Brian had helped his father on some of the original books, and Kevin has written many books on his own.

So if they had all these notes to finish the series why not finish it, why write all these other books?  Well, simply they wanted practice.  But a deeper reason has to do with the story.  There are some vital elements that need to be understood before you read the last two books.  That was their thinking, and now that I have read the last two (and all the books written before them), I agree with them.

The two books are very good.  Even better than the last three. They bring the story to a great close that I think could really be related to current life, in many different ways.  I did not expect the ending, and it was far better than what I could have came up with.  I think these two men have done a fantastic job in keeping the Dune Universe true to franks dream, but instead of trying to emulate him, they made it their own, and they have done a wonderful job at it.

As to the order to read the series I recommend this. (I am only going to include books up to the point I have read.  There are three more, but at a later time I will tell you where they should be read in the set.)

Start at: 

Dune

Dune Messiah

Children of Dune

God Emperor of Dune

Dune The Butlerian Jihad

Dune The Machine Crusade

Dune The Battle of Corrin

Dune House Atreides

Dune House Harkonnen

Dune House Corrino

Heretics of Dune

Chapterhouse Dune

Hunters of Dune

Sandworms of Dune

That is just my opinion, feel free to read them anyway you want.  I am reading them in the order they were written.  And because of life, the lengths of the books, and my poor memory, I felt like by the time I got to Hunters and Sanworms, I had forgotten important things from Heretics and Chapterhouse.  


An alternative place to start would be Dune The Butlerian Jihad.  And continue to read them in chronological order.  When I catch up to the authors (that's correct, they are still writing books) I will read them in the chronological order.

I think the order I have given you is the best of both worlds.  Because if you start the series at Dune and do not really care for it, its a self sufficient story, and needs no other books after it, making it a good place to start. And if you do like it, you can explore the universe in an order that should help you retain the information needed most to understand the end.

Is Dune (The Machine Trilogy) Worth Your Time?

Dune The Butlerian Jihad
Dune The Machine Crusade
Dune The Battle of Corrin


By: Kevin J Anderson and Brian Herbert

If ever there was another place to start the Dune series, this would be it.  No real background on Dune is needed.  Just jump in and go.  As you progress through the trilogy, the books get better.  There are lots of characters to keep track of, and lots of things happening all at once.  And in these books, I think the authors did the best job yet of really bringing the events together seamlessly.

Not only that, but if you know where the books are headed, you still find them very enjoyable.  I was always trying to figure out how the books would get to where they needed to be for Dune.  It was always kept me guessing, and they even threw in some unexpected twists.  Although the books are long, and there are lots of characters, I feel that many of the characters have lots of depth.

I would not be at all surprised if there, eventually, comes a few books before these.  I think there is fabulous potential involving the rise of the "Bad Guys."  The newest book, Sisterhood of Dune,  is the start of a trilogy between this trilogy and The House Trilogy.

This trilogy has many of the same issue that the House Trilogy did.  It moves slowly, and at times it lacks the grandiose feeling of the original.  However, I think they are the best ones yet by these two authors.  And please keep in mind, that although they are not written by Frank Herbert, they are written based on his notes, and they do a fantastic job of making it their own.  Not only do these three come highly recommended, the whole series dose as well.

Is The Devil Inside (2012 Film) Worth My Time?

I had heard so many bad things about this movie.  My opinions are usually nicer that my peers.  So I wanted to see if this movie was as bad as I had heard.  I expected an awful movie, and at the very least I could laugh at how bad it was.

Rated R, for good reason, and at just over 1 hour, seemed a little short.  No noteworthy stars, producer, or directer. The ending seemed a little abrupt, but was actualy a fine ending, in my opinion.  I saw quite a few continuity errors, but I was looking for them, kind of my pet peeve.

The director really tried to make it seem like a real documentary.  Minus the continuity errors, he did a fine job.  A few times the "realness" was broken, again mostly from the continuity errors.  The movie showed some real potential at the beginning, but as the movie went along, it failed at meeting that potential.

It is not a movie I would call scary, just kinda gross.  I was only scared once, but that was one of those cheap scares, a barking dog during a conversation outside.  Some of the movie I found humors, in a strange way, some of the spoken dialog from the possessed people was just comical.

Not a movie to see in the theater.  It might be worth it from RedBox.  And if you have the chance to watch it for free, go for it, as a last pick.

Is Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011 Film) Worth My Time?

Sequels.   Many many movies have had a sequel.  And most of them have done it poorly.  I was worried that the trailer's promise that this movie was "better than the original" would fall short, as many sequels do.  So I went in wanting an expectational movie, but expecting much less.  I got the movie I wanted, not the one I thought I would get. 

It was the sophisticated, classy, fast paced, and witty movie it needed to be.  Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) is sporadic, a little manic, and always brilliant. When things almost got out of hand, somehow he pulled it all into a plan that was either built, or one that fell into place by accident.  Not once did it seem to be clunky.  The plot moved nicely from point to point.  Being a detective movie about one of the histories greatest detectives, Holmes' logic was sometimes hard to follow, but given a recap to the slightly slower Watson (Jude Law), things became clear. 

Rated PG-13 with some blood, guns, some ladies with old-fashioned dresses, and no swearing.  2 hours and nine minutes was the perfect amount of time.  At one point I thought it was almost over, that we had reached the climax.  It was a teaser, and the next climax was for real and much better than the first.  I only have one issue with the movie.  The last 30 seconds was a shame.  More on that in the comments, no spoiler here.  Overall I was beyond pleased with the movie, and it was worth my time, and so it is worth your time.  As for a 3rd in the series, who knows?

Is StumbleUpon Worth My Time?

Yes.

However, it is MAY NOT be a good use of your time.

For those of you living under a rock.  StumbleUpon is a web site that takes you through a journey of the internet.  When you create your profile, you tell it the general categories of things that interest you. After you finish that, you then click the "Stumble!" button, and your journey begins  As you stumble across the web, along the way the idea is to tell the site, by clicking a thumbs up or thumbs down button, which sites you liked, and which ones you did not like.  And so as you go, the sites you come across are more and more tailored to you, based on what you say you like and do not like.

Your base interests can range from games, movies, news, cartoons, and even some adult content.  I have.... wasted, I hate to say that, spending time on Stumble felt so much better than just doing nothing, but nothing productive came of it, so it fits.... I have wasted many many hours on StumbleUpon.  There is something magic about the idea of sitting for hours on end, finding awesome short films, fantastic short stories, mindless videos of people be REALLY dumb, or learning tips on how to be more successful in real life.  The site has endless possibilities.  You can stumble the funny, unique, old fashioned, weird, sexy, dirty, profound, educational, and the entertaining.

The possibility that it could actually be used productively is there.  People may actually use it in that way.  I do not, and can not.  I find myself just clicking as fast as I can to get to the next new thing.  I rarely watch videos, hardly ever read an entire article, and mostly just look at pictures and memes.  And I do not think I am alone in this.  In fact, I have stumbled upon cartoons making fun of that very fact.  The fact that you can sit for hours, look at hundreds of pictures and leave totally satisfied about what you have done, and think nothing of what you saw ever again.  I KNOW I am not the only person who binges on StumbleUpon.

If you have noticed I have a StubleUpon badge on my blog here.  Because I know that it increases my viewership with more people that "like" my blog.  It is a great way for people to find things they would have NEVER found any other way.  Lets face it, the internet is HUGE.  It is impossible to find everything that could interest you, neither do we have the time to search through the entire web trying to find something interesting.  Stumble is a great site to discover new things, and it does so by transporting you all over the web with minimal work on your part.  All you have to do it sit back, click the mouse, and enjoy the ride, and what a ride it is!

stumbleupon.com

Is Dune (House Trilogy) Worth My Time?

Dune House Atreides
Dune House Harkonnen
Dune House Corrino


By Brian Herbert 
and Kevin J. Anderson

So, you have read the first six books of Dune, and now you want to know what to expect from the next set of three.  Or maybe you did not read the first six, maybe you wanted to start the series here.  For whatever your reason or how you got here, you need to know a few things.

First, they were not written by Frank Herbert.  It is SO important you know, understand, and are okay with that.  They were written using notes written by Frank.  Also, Brian helped his father with the last few of the first six. Not to mention that Keven has written many science fiction books.  So it is not like the series is continued by nobodies. 

Next, the books do not have the same grand feeling as the others.  They seem less complex, less integrated with social issues of today.  They are a fantastic story, and give you a wonderful history of how things got to be how they were.  There are a tremendous amount of events that fill the books and I never became board, but it just does not have that grandiose feeling of the first six.  The three books roughly cover from Duke Leto as a pre-teen to the birth of Paul.

The first (House Atreides) is the worst of the three.  It slowly gets better and by the end I was happy where it was.  And each book after that got better and better.  By the end of the third (House Corrino) I had completely stopped comparing it to the first six, I did not care that it did not meet my standards of the other books, they were good in their own right, and it is unfair to everyone involved to compare them.

And lastly, they move slow, and that is okay.  They pick up momentum, and their comes a point where you don't want to put it down.  I was worried that they would be so poorly done that it would take away from what Frank as built.  It does not.  It is a great addition to the already mind-blowing series.  It is worth every minute of your time.

dunenovels.com

Is J. Edgar (2011 Film) Worth My Time?

I was expecting a film to commemorate J. E. Hoover.  Something patriotic.  Something to tell us how much he did for our country, and how things would be different without him.  

What I got was so much more.

The movie did show me some of that.  But what I got, and did not expect, was a story about a REAL person.  A story about someone imperfect.  A man with goals, dreams, hopes, reservations, fears, and confusion.  

The movie revolves around history, events that he shaped, and events that shaped him.  Knowing what happened in our history since 1914 could be very helpful.  You do not need to know every bit of history, but knowing the basics is a good idea.

A movie of 2 hours and 17 minutes seemed a little daunting to start with, but it progressed nicely, pulled you in from the start, and kept you interested until the end. 

The movie takes place over his lifetime in the FBI, but not chronologically.  It flips back and forth between "now" and the past, making it hard to follow at some points.  For the most part it was easy to tell when you were based on how old he looked.  Throughout the movie old J. E. Hoover is dictating a story to a writer, well multiple writers. Thus my confusion when the writer would change in what seemed like in the middle of a scene, split by a flashback, so really two scenes.

It is rated R, mostly unnecessary.  There is some bad language, some suggestive dialog, and adult moral issues.  

The plot was deep and thought provoking. Staring Leonardo DiCaprio as J. Edgar, and directed by Clint Eastwood, could we expect anything less?  This movie is definitely worth your time.