The Arrow's Path

The game I am going to review today is not necessarily a lost classic. It's a relatively recent manufactured boardgame. The original incarnation came out in 2020, entitled Dune: Imperium. It was riding the wave of the coming two-part big screen depiction of Frank Herbert's classic science fiction masterpiece novel, Dune. I suppose for full disclosure, I do have a minor theme bias on this game. I do love the original Dune novels. I discovered them in college. The first four are phenomenal. Frank Herbert for the last two, unfortunately, began cranking them out for the money. The last two are mediocre, and not nearly the philosophical masterpieces that the first four are. God Emperor of Dune is truly one of the great politically mind bending science fiction masterpieces of all time. Frank Herbert died before finishing the 7th novel, which was supposed to end the series.   As a side note, his son, along with Kevin J. Anderson, took up the Dune mantle, and wrote several prequel ...

So, finally got around to seeing Dune 2 , which is a designation I don't care for. It's really not a sequel. It's just the continuation of the first movie, which stopped right after the Harkonnen attack House Atreides on Arrakis. Really, the first film only got to the very start of the good part of the novel when Paul Atreides first encountered the Fremen on Dune. So, really "Dune 2" is just the good part of the first novel. SPOILER ALERTS: I AM GOING TO NOW DISCUSS THE FILM. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.  I had mixed feelings about going to see this movie. I did not particularly care for the first one, but Dune is one of my all time favorite Science Fiction novels. I have read the entire series, as well as the expanded prequel universe his son wrote, the Butlerian Jihad trilogy being by far the best of his son's work. They got progressively worse as they went along after that.  Really, the first 4 original Frank Herbert novels are all amazing in their own right. Th...

I finally got around to watching Avatar this week, thanks to Netflix. Avatar is, I believe, the all time grossing film now, or close to it. I have read some different accounts of this, depending on how you factor in overseas receipts, subsequent DVD sales, inflation, and such. However you factor the money, James Cameron is clearly a billionaire, as he also directed the No. 2 all time grossing film, Titanic . I dragged my feet on seeing Avatar because I have heretofore thought James Cameron was a dreadfully melodramatic, not a particularly good storyteller, and not a particularly good director in terms of knowing what to cut from films. There is still about an hour gap in the middle of Titanic I have never seen because I have tried to watch that film more than once and always fall asleep about an hour into it, sleep for an hour, and wake up to watch the final hour. For the life of me, I cannot figure out what on earth I missed in that film other than fluffery for that missing hou...

I happened to be surfing around Amazon.com and ran across something that perked me right up. Apparently, Frank Herbert's son and Kevin Anderson have teamed up for another Dune prequel . They've down two three-part Dune prequels that were very good. The Machine Crusade series was excellent. They've also written a two-part Dune postquel (is that a word?) that I have not gotten to read yet. I haven't had the incentive, as I felt like I needed to go back and reread the last Frank Herbert Dune novel, which I haven't read in 10 years, and as I recall was really bizarre. Also, in the interim between the last of the prequels and the postquel , I read Kevin Anderson's very well done series The Saga of Seven Suns, which I have talked about in previous posts on this blog. The series was non-Dune related, but it certainly had some Dune characteristics. Its a massive 7 volume space opera, but its well worth the time. I noticed on Amazon that the new Dune novel takes pl...