Both of these are terrible takes on the books.
Spice is not a solution in dune in fact the whole 4th book and the end of the third are centered around forcing humanity to wean itself off spice so that it may evolve.
The central concept is that humanity must not depend on machine or drugs or complicated eugenics and must instead look inwards and improve itself by facing hardship.
In foundation (at least the start) the complicated maths is essentially there to prove that all establishments fail and survival requires constant change. Very differently from dune foundation sees technological superiority as key to this and importantly the ability for society to change in order to support the technological progress.
Even if you don’t agree with the above neither book aims to “fight imperialist bullshit” if anything they both quite staunchly support the idea of a benevolent dictator controlling all.
Or is Dune about the folly of different types of dictatorship; sadistic, benevolent, religious or machiavellian? Taking only the first book (because that’s as far as I’ve read) every leader is thwarted or confined by the consequences or weakness of their own style of leadership.
I read an interview where frank said that his intention was for Dune to be a cautionary tale about the dangers of charismatic leaders (which is to say, the “classic” hero archetype). Which - for the first book - tracks pretty well. The free are basically just used as cannon fodder for Paul to win back his power (and a lot more), then when he wins, he sets them loose on the universe because he can’t control them.
The trouble I have with that though is that he goes on to contradict that point in later books, but I won’t get into that because I don’t want to spoil anything for you
bitch better have my giant exo-foreskin
It’s honestly crazy how many people can read Dune and completely misunderstand the themes of the book.
Though to be fair, it sometimes feels like Frank himself didn’t fully understand what themes he was going for. Books 1-3 were staunchly “Beware of heroes, charismatic leaders will lead you to evil and despair”, then in GEoD, we find that literally the only hope for humanity was millenia of oppression by a totalitarian government.
But either of those two takes is still wildly better than “spice saves the universe” lol
Dune has one of the most complex (and necessarily logical) universe in it. I’m not surprised every reader found different themes more fitting.
Dune had no good guys, none at all.
Everyone was out for themselves or their narrow view of what was just and best for humanity from their simplistic and self-centered perspective.
Leto 2 was the exception because he was out for his narrow view of what was best for humanity from his broad, self-centered perspective that still didn’t really lead anywhere.
The actual point of the books is that no ideal survives the test of real time, and over time civilization tends to ossify, so we are doomed to catastrophe by our very nature.
It wasn’t the qctual only hope, just the only path Paul and Leto could see, and we know they aren’t omniscient
Ok but to be fair they were using spice for like 5000 years?
vs The Expanse: we are headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense but humanity’s salvation will come from… Nevermind, we’re fucked.
Just most of us, except Amos. Amos will be fine.
He is that guy
Nothing this guy can’t shrug off. Litterally.
He’s got the shotgun, you’ve got the briefcase. All in the game, though.
[…] humanity’s salvation will come from alien technology we haven’t discovered yet.
The expense always looked like almost utopic to me.
Truly ? What aspects of it ?
I mean they do have universal basic income on earth but apart from that humanity is all kinds of fucked. And it doesn’t exactly get better as the story progresses.
The fact that the earth is even united and not completely screwed is already a great start. It was even recovering from climate change before Inaros.
The earth is united like the United States is united. The tribes just got bigger is all. Instead of NATO vs BRICS, the Expanse universe has Earthers vs Martians vs Belters. And people are suffering hard on earth as evidenced during Bobby’s trip to the ocean.
Bobby’s saw a very different earth in the books tho.
People living in UBI weren’t really living a paradise but they weren’t homeless hobos like in the show.
Example B of earth being shittastic is the entirety of The Churn novella
The story for The Churn is entirely Earth based and provides a description of what the average life in a crowded, metropolitan city is like in the world of the Expanse. The city of Baltimore has given way to a multitude of crime bosses, and organized black markets. There are multiple bosses who each keep a “family” of personal guards that operate the smuggling of goods, illegal memory implants, weapons smuggling, cybernetic implants, and other illegal goods and services. The story takes place over the course of about two days.
Everyone starts to come together in the last book though.
They’re kind of forced to by an outside context problem, to quote Banks.
In a very… Specific way.
The earthers are not doing that bad in the beginning that is true. But the rest of the system have it rough.
To be fair to Inaros he did end global warming and the overpopulation of earth.
Inaros did nothing wrong.
Chrissie’s fabulous saris
Fair enough.
Isn’t the UBI on earth literally so poor that people on it are stuck in lives of poverty unless they can get into some kind of training scheme?
Mostly they suffer from extreme boredom and mediocre lives. Nothing drastic but soul suckingly unfulfilling.
You mean dystopic right … right?
Not at all. It always looked like something in between for me. Humanity is still struggling but moving forward, and most people live under various kind of regimes but no big bad Empire.
Well the belters have it pretty rough and Mars is basically totalitarian. And without spoiling anything I’d suggest you keep reading, it is worth it :).
I have a question for you, fancy pantsy book reader on their own instance: should I watch the show and then read the books, read the books and then watch the show, or read the books and skip the show?
Doesn’t really matter as the show ends three books short. You probably want to read them though rather than try and pick up from book 7 after the show as lots of characters were changed a bit in the show and one is killed due to off screen drama who should survive.
That character death was so sad. But the reason behind the scenes was absolutely justified
Well my pants aren’t fancy at all thank you very much :p.
The show is great, and so are the books. Mostly I would start by watching the show which is, for the first season at least, much more polished imho (the writers of the book were also show runners). After that, the show ends at book 6 (there are 9 total) but several character arcs are tweaked so I would recommend reading at least books 3 to 6 before 7.
Thank you!
“(the writers of the book were also show runners)”
This must be why the books read like a TV or movie script to me.
Watch the show and then read the books. In my opinion the show is fantastic and incredibly enjoyable (except for ending the series in what is obviously the middle of a significant plot thread, which is annoying) but the books are even better and spoiled the show a tinsy bit for me.
Listen to the books, don’t care about the show.
Winston Duarte has entered the chat.
The chat has become Winston Duarte.
So you would enjoy the belter life much?
Belters are a vast minority, though.
So?
OP could at least make the effort to plug the dude’s post.
https://mastodon.social/@flargh/110821695878847573
@flargh@mastodon.social
Seriously, we’re in the fediverse together, why not take advantage of that
I’m still absolutely loving the fact we are on different instances in completely different parts of the world, yet we can still communicate.
Man IRC would blow your mind.
Nah, I used that a lot back in the day. It’s just crazy that I’m seeing some real trends of interoperability between services. ActivityPub is a dream come true for me.
This is so much more than IRC ever was.
Arthur C. Clarke: We’re headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense, but humanity’s salvation will come from encountering benevolent alien intelligence we haven’t discovered yet.
Ray Bradbury: We’re headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense, but humanity’s salvation will come from rediscovering the beauty of books and humanity’s inherent capacity for empathy in a world we’re rapidly forgetting.
Robert A. Heinlein: We’re headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense, but humanity’s salvation will come from pioneering individualism, libertarianism, and multi-planetary colonies we haven’t established yet.
William Gibson: We’re headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense, but humanity’s salvation will come from navigating and subverting the interplay of high technology and low life in a cybernetic reality we’re only beginning to understand.
Ursula K. Le Guin: We’re headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense, but humanity’s salvation will come from understanding and integrating a spectrum of social, psychological, and cultural perspectives we haven’t fully considered yet.
Neal Stephenson: We’re headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense, but humanity’s salvation will come from unprecedented technological and social innovation, often resulting from deep historical and philosophical introspection, in a future we’re yet to engineer.
Octavia Butler: We’re headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense, but humanity’s salvation will come from embracing and adapting to change through the lens of bio-diversity and sociocultural evolution we haven’t fully embraced yet.
Ayn Rand: We’re headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense 😃
Exactly what I thought for Heinlein. All aboard! 🚂
Liu Cixin: We’re headed to being fucked.
Douglas Adams: We’re headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense and humanity will almost completely be erased, but as a matter of fact, there is much more and weirder nonsense out there, which of course makes the previously mentioned nonsense quite nonsensical and thus the destruction of humanity quite unimportant from a galactic point of view. (Where this point is located, has been a debate for aeons.)
Gene Roddenberry: We’re headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense, but humanity’s salvation will come from remotely incubating and uplifting improbably humanoid alien species across vast swaths of existence to shore up our defenses against mysterious adversaries that plot our extinction for reasons they’ve not monologued yet.
That sounds more like post-post-post-Roddenberry Trek.
Gene Roddenberry: We’re headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense, but don’t worry, it’ll get better.
Every fantasy author (except Tolkien): We’re headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense, but humanity’s salvation will come from an individual or small group who will save the world through the judicious application of violence.
Do Gene Wolfe
Gene Wolfe: We’re headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense, but humanity’s salvation will come from traversing complex, labyrinthine narratives and deciphering symbolic, metaphysical riddles we haven’t begun to understand yet.
deleted by creator
Neither of the stories present salvation, merely survival.
Warhammer 40k:
we’re headed for some bleak imperial nonsense butBY THE GOD EMPEROR SUCH HERESY IS INTOLERABLE.Bringing Warhammer 40k mythos into this isn’t fair. That is like bringing a gun to a kid’s thumb war.
One two three four I declare EXTERMINATUS
They shoulda brought a gun
It’s kids’ problem now.
But guns are inferior to melee combat in the 40k universe so the kids would win.
I’ll let you all guess which one was published in the 50s and which one was published in the 60s.
Please provide a link in addition to a screenshot when you are referring to a post in the fediverse. You can easily link to a mastodon post from Lemmy since both are federated, and if you do it, your post will magically appear as a response to the original mastodon post.
https://mastodon.social/@flargh/110821695878847573
Too late but here it is
I started reading Foundation (the first one) just yesterday. So far I love it!
Lucky you, I wish I could experience it fresh again!
Just wait 50 years like I did to reread the trilogy and it will almost seem like you’ve never read it before.
Nice, just another 30 years to go I guess!
Don’t forget prelude!
I envy people who can do that, I can’t hardly start a new series without rereading my favorite series again.
Believe me, i’d rather be 34 than 64. There also are not that many trilogies that I’ve re-read, Probably just Dune, Foundation and LOTR.
Iain M. Banks: we’re living in an AI-regulated Utopia, but the AI that we totally trust might be doing some light imperialism on the side.
Pratchett / Baxter: we’re headed for some bleak imperialist nonsense, and another one, and another one, and another one, and oops, a blank…
Edit: added the Long Earth one.
The Culture stuff is great but nothing tops The Algebraist. A near-perfect standalone sf doorstop imo.
Big ideas, some laughs, a mystery that you can solve if you’re paying attention, strong characters, interesting aliens…
The last one that hit that sweet spot for me was Mother of Storms by John Barnes.
Hadn’t read The Algebraist yet, so there’s a new one on my list. Thanks! I’ll make sure to check out Barnes, too.
The Culture weren’t actually the future of humanity though right? Non-canon stuff has indicated we join eventually in the future but the society formed independent of us and even visit and examine us in one.
Actually, you’re right.
Oh well, a humanity, then, just not ours.
Instead of tripping on drugs, he could have gotten the same effect by changing only a single letter
Switching from “a” to “e”
Not entirely accurate, but gets the point across and has a better punchline
Humenity’s selvation will come from tripping on drugs?
Foundetion?
Edit: took me a second. Math -> Meth. Let’s hope the field of Methmatics can save us.
Oddly enough, both involve predicting the future.
And the threat of artificial intelligence
Thou shalt not make a machine in the image of a man.
Using drugs to solve the problem of institutional memory is my favourite Frank Herbert invention.
Saberhagen’s Berserker: The machines will visit some bleak imperialist nonsense on you a hundred fold before wiping your entire fucking species out.
Just putting this out there for future reference, I am pro Basilisk.
You hear that future A.I. singularity overlord?
Oh fuck don’t remind of this
Asimov: weird mutants capable of overthrowing the universe should be put down with prejudice.
Frank Herbert: weird mutants capable of overthrowing the universe should be made emperor.
If you read Foundation til the end (Foundation and Earth), you’d see that it’s the other way around.
the mule did nothing wrong!
