Dune: The Heir of Caladan By Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson - This Lead-Up To Dune is Incredibly Good

Dune: Heir of Caladan (The Caladan Trilogy Book 3) By Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson

I'm always on board when Herbert and Anderson release a new Dune tale. I have read them all and love every one of them. Heir of Caladan is no exception to the rule for me. It is a great ending to the trilogy that leads directly to the events of the original Dune novel by Frank Herbert. I've always wondered about the events leading to Dune. Why is there such a vicious feud between House Harkonnen and House Atreides? How did House Atreides come into control of Arrakis? Why does Shaddam IV seem to not trust his cousin, Duke Leto?

Heir of Caladan, we get an idea of the answers to those questions and more.

This segment rounds out the trilogy that also includes Dune: The Duke of Caladan and Dune: The Lady of Caladan. All three books are excellent and well worth the time for fans readers who enjoy the books written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson.

It is busy in the known universe ruled by Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV.

Jaxson Aru, son of the CHOAM director, has made it his mission - or obsession - to free the universe from Corrino rule once and for all. He has made it clear he will stop at nothing to accomplish this mission and he has the attention of Shaddam. As a matter of fact, Shaddam is equally determined to rid the universe of Aru, and any of those who are in league with him. The Emperor's Sardukar troops are going to be busy making examples of those who dare to associate with the traitor Aru.

Duke Leto Atreides of Caladan plays a dangerous game. His mission is to infiltrate Aru's organization and attempt to bring it down from within. He has dispatched Gurney Halleck to Kaitain with a message for Shaddam, letting him know he is loyal and what his intentions are. The only problem here is that Gurney has been captured on his way to deliver the message by the Harkonnens. No one knows he hasn't delivered his message.

The Lady Jessica has been taken away from Caladan by the Bene Geserit and reassigned to the planet Elegy to be the new bound concubine of Viscount Giandro Tull. Jessica is on a mission that she hopes is successful, will allow her to go back to Caladan to be with her Duke and her son.

The Ducal heir, young Paul Atreides, is left on Caladan to assume the duties of his father. He faces numerous challenges and hopes to be successful thanks to his mother's training, and the advice of Mentat Thufir Hawat and Swordmaster Duncan Idaho. 

And, if that isn't enough, The Baron Harkonnen plots to see that Leto is left with nothing, not even a home. Hasimir Fenring investigates the spice situation on Arrakis, and the Bene Geserit think they are close to producing the Kwisatz Haderach they have long been searching for. One of the problems Paul must solve, once and for all, is the illicit production of the Caladan Drug thought already to have been eradicated.

All the characters are in play in this story of intrigue and plots within plots. As always, they are recognizable as who they are and each unique in their own voice and thoughts.

It is difficult to choose a single point of plot in Heir of Caladan because it is all just that good, but if I was forced to choose one, it would have to be Paul's trials filling in as Duke. He faces quite a few challenges, but young as he is, he appears quite capable of making the hard decisions and isn't afraid to take advice from the advisors surrounding him. Paul faces a few situations, but there is one which tests him at the highest lever because the stakes are the existence of Caladan itself!

My takeaway from Heir of Caladan is that no matter what one's plan is, no matter how carefully one plans, there is always the possibility of failure. In this tale, everyone has a goal they want to achieve, and it seems some come close to seeing those goals become successes, that is, until some random, unplanned element is introduced. It happens through this entire story.

I have read everything in the Dune universe (as far as I know) and enjoyed all of it. It is rich and full of splendid story and things to think about in every single volume. I first read Frank Herbert's Dune in 1984 after being sparked by viewing the David Lynch movie. The Caladan Trilogy continues chronicling the events that lead to that first amazing novel and is every bit as entertaining as all the others. Heir, this latest installment is no exception. It is loaded with heroes, villains, and people in-between. I give my highest recommendations to the trilogy and its conclusion. The characters jump off the page and when you get to the end, you'll want more.

Rating:⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Brian Herbert, son of Frank Herbert, wrote the definitive biography of his father, Dreamer of Dune, which was a Hugo Award finalist. Brian is president of the company managing the legacy of Frank Herbert and is an executive producer of the motion picture Dune, as well as of the TV series Dune: The Sisterhood. He is the author or coauthor of more than forty-five books, including multiple New York Times bestsellers, has been nominated for the Nebula Award, and is always working on several projects at once. He and his wife, Jan, have traveled to all seven continents, and in 2019, they took a trip to Budapest to observe the filming of Dune.

Kevin J. Anderson has written dozens of national bestsellers and has been nominated for the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and the SFX Readers' Choice Award. His critically acclaimed original novels include the ambitious space opera series The Saga of Seven Suns, including The Dark Between the Stars, as well as Wake the Dragon epic fantasy trilogy, and the Terra Incognita fantasy epic with its two accompanying rock CDs. He also set the Guinness-certified world record for the largest single-author book signing, and was recently inducted into the Colorado Authors’ Hall of Fame.

Jupiter Ascending - A Film That Descends To New Lows - Unwatchable For Many Reasons

Jupiter Ascending - 2014

As a former movie theater manager and owner, I have seen many films.  Many of them were very good and a few were really bad. As I remember back to those days, I can honestly say that Jupiter Rising would easily make it on the list of the worst Sci-Fi films I have ever seen.  And I don't even mean one of the best of the worse, it is just altogether bad.  What makes me really sad is that I was looking forward to this film so much because it is not a prequel, a sequel or a reboot, as so many of the offerings are these past several years.  It is an original film with a supposedly original story that falls so flat that it is virtually unwatchable.

Jupiter Jones is an unfortunate cleaning woman in a family business.  Her main job seems to be cleaning toilets.   Jupiter however doesn't know that she also has the genetic makeup to be the queen of the Earth.  An alien, Balem Abrasax knows that the planet has been seeded with human life that is to be harvested to make a substance to sustain and extend life for his species.  Balem will be able to harvest the planet very soon but he first must obtain ownership by getting Jupiter to sign it over to him or if she is killed.  It is up to Caine Wise to protect Jupiter and make sure that nothing happens to her majesty.

The plot of the film comes down to Jupiter's choice to save her family and allow the Earth to be harvested, or, with the help of Caine and a sort of galactic police force save the Earth from being harvested by Balem.  As one might suspect, and because of the predictability of this so called "original" story, Balem is defeated, Jupiter and Caine fall in love, and the population of the Earth is saved.

There are other characters and things that take place in this film, but they are really not worth mentioning because the really add nothing to this 127 minute (that seemed like "six hours" according to my ten year-old daughter who went to the show with me) ride through utter boredom.

Outside of saying that what I didn't like about this film is just about everything, I have to be more specific...

Characters: The characters were flat and uninteresting. There was very little character development. Jupiter as portrayed by Mila Kunis probably had the most development of all of the characters.  Her father was killed in an armed robbery of the family's home, she was born on a ship in transit to the U.S., and her and her mother went to Chicago to live with her aunt who runs a cleaning business.  Beyond that, characters come and go with little to no introduction or background other than that everyone is ready to advance their own causes to gain ownership of the planet.

Direct Reference to Dune?

Plot: This film, minus the killing and other pointless violence, is basically a Disney Princess movie.  The main character discovers that she is royalty, is protected by a handsome prince, chooses to become a hero by saving lives, and finally falls in love with the prince and lives happily ever after.  But that's not all. Now take the Disney film and mash it up with David Lynch's Dune film from 1984!  I'm not kidding.  The place where Balem lives looks like what one might imagine Geidi Prime.  The ships and structures like they were taken directly from Dune, and judging from what I have seen of the documentary on Jodorwoski's Dune, might even be a direct ripoff of those Joderowski's designs.  Even Balem himself has an eerie resemblance to the Baron Harkonnen complete with a Piter De Vries mentat-like sidekick.

Visual Effects: Nothing special.  While the visuals in the film are well done, they are in most films made in the last few years.  But the way they are used is truly appalling.  First of all, it is far too obvious that the Wachowskis directed this film to pander to the 3D crowd (I am on a one-man boycott of 3D, by the way.  It is ridiculous, in my opinion, to pay extra for the privilege of sitting in a dark movie theater wearing dark glasses and getting a bad case of eye strain and a blinding headache.).  Almost every scene has people or objects flying at the viewer, and along with that, these scenes are far too long to be entertaining.  One such scene seemed to go on for about 15 minutes!  One of the heroes in the film lives in a house that is virtually covered with beehives and there are bees constantly swarming around characters.  In one scene, the bees launch a mass attack on forces who are after Jupiter.

Sound: One particularly irritating aspect of watching this film is that almost all of the characters seemed to be mumbling their lines.  I found that I missed a great deal of the dialog. It was even worse if someone in the theater was rattling a popcorn bag or unwrapping cellophane from a candy package.  Also, the genius of Michael Giacchino was not even enough to pull this farce out of its tailspin.  The music was good and may have been the only redeeming part of this disappointing movie-going experience.

I attended the film with my daughter, Chrissy, who said that "there were too many scenes" in this film and as I stated before, she said it felt like it was too long.  I cannot disagree.  As I said, any of the scenes went on far too long to get the full effect of the 3D.  Chrissy also said that "it didn't make sense."

About twenty minutes into the film, I was seriously considering walking out.  It was just a few seconds later when a family of three got up and did just that.  I hope they got their money back. A few others also left at various times.  Those of us that stuck it out left the auditorium looking like we had been caught in a boiler explosion, and I will admit that there were a few times I found myself nodding off.

On the poster, it touts the Wachowskis as the directors behind the Matrix.  This isn't even 1/10th of the film that was and I will tell you that in the future, Wachowski will be more like Watch-Outski when it comes to me attending another one of their creations.

Just to be fair, I have to admit that a colleague and good friend, Mr. Chuck Roe texted me before the film started and said that I should go to American Sniper instead.  I should have listened.

My advice is to save your money for a film that was featured in the previews, Ant-Man.  The trailer looked very good.  

Don't see this in the theater, don't see this on PPV, don't rent it, or buy it in any form, unless you are a glutton for visual punishment.

Well, there it is…

Q'aplaH!

New Episodes Of The Dune Saga Podcast & SciFi Diner Featuring A Babylon 5 Discussion - I'm On Both, So You Must Listen - Resistance Is Futile

There are two items to cover today...

David, Scott and I got together after reading Dune: The Machine Crusade, the second in the Legends of Dune trilogy and had a lot of fun discussing the book.  We covered many aspects of the story, we talked about the characters, we covered our favorite quotes from the book, and read and commented on reviews of the book as well as our listener feedback.

We would love to have you listen into our conversation, but if you need a refresher on Machine Crusade, sstart by listening to David's Dune In Ten summary of the of the story.  After listening to that, jump right in and listen to our commentary on The Dune Saga Podcast #2 episode.

You can feed back to us in numerous ways including sending an e-mail to dunesagapodcast@gmail.com, post on our Facebook page, We are on Twitter at @dunesagapodcast, and you can leave us a voice-mail at 1-888-508-4343.

We will be reading the third and final installment of the Legends series, Dune: The Battle of Corrin.  Please send your comments for the show before January 21st.

What happens when Scott, Miles and M leave the SciFi Diner unattended, well you can find out if you listen to Raul Ybarra and me take over for one episode.  We learned that certain members of the Diner cast have never watched the epic television series Babylon 5.  We were agahst at this, so Raul and I got together and hijacked the diner for an overview of the series.

Listen to our discussion of many aspects of the show that is approaching it's 20th anniversary on The SciFi Diner Podcast Episode 192 - A Babylon 5 Rewind.

You can feedback to the Diner as always, or if you would like, can send feedback directly to Raul at raul@thechristiangeek.net or on Twitter @rytchgeek.  As for me, you can e-mail me at arrowoodjj@gmail.com, leave comment on my Facebook page, or find me on Twitter @JimArrowood2.

Well, there it is...

QaplaH'!

The Dune Saga Podcast Takes A Look At The Butlerian Jihad by Brian Herbert and Kenvin J. Anderson

The first episodes of The Dune Saga Podcast went live today.  Join David, Scott and me as we take an in-depth look at the books of the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert.  On this month's episodes, we take a look at Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson's The Butlerian Jihad.  There are two episodes involved with this book, first you can listen to "Dune in Ten," a ten minute recap of the book.  Next move on to the premier episode "The Dune Saga Podcast Episode #1: The Butlerian Jihad."

Our next show will be dealing with Dune: The Machine Crusade, also by Herbert and Anderson.  Listeners are invited to read along with us and comment on the books, or on our shows.  You can do this by calling 1-888-508-4343 to leave voice-mail comments.  You can e-mail us at dunesagapodcast@gmail.com, or visit our website at dunesagapodcast.com.  You are also welcome to like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter (@dunesagapodcast).

The Dune Saga Podcast Is Now Live

Dune Saga Podcast

I swore I would never do it.  I promised myself that I would never do a podcast.  I just didn’t have the time to learn how, or the equipment.   Oh I had no problem recording and sending in comments to the Scifi Diner Podcast and to a few others when, and if I thought I had something intelligent to contribute.  As time went on, I was invited to be a guest commentator on the Diner’s Rewind show where we talked about films.  It was great fun.  But still I kept telling myself that I would not do, or be on as a host of a podcast.

Never say never.

Never ended about a month ago when I was contacted by fellow sci-fi fan and poscaster David Moulton with an idea that really got me thinking.  Then Scott Hertzog of the Scifi Diner was also included in on David’s project and it was the birth of the Dune Saga Podcast.  So now I am a regular on a podcast.  What do I think about that?  Well I am excited and honored that anyone would consider me worthy to be included in this project.

Basically, on the Dune Saga Podcast, David, Scott, and I will be commenting on the books of the Dune series in chronological order, as opposed to in the order that they were released.   The first book we will be talking about is Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson’s Butlerian Jihad.  We will be recording monthly so that listeners to the Dune Saga Podcast can have time to read and comment.

You can find a complete list of the books we will be looking at on our website.  You can also find us on Facebook as well as Twitter (@dunesagapodcast).  To learn more about your hosts see this page on our website.

Our first episode is available to listen to embedded on our website, or wherever podcasts are available.  It is an introductory episode in which we introduce ourselves and explain in depth what we wish to accomplish.

Well, there it is…

Q’aplaH’!

Or, if you prefer…

May Shai-Hulud clear the path before you.