Did Dune Ruin Science Fiction Novels?

Frank Herbert‘s Dune is a wholesale epic , one fill with complex world - construction , family drama , religions , economical systems , and space travel . And yet , one skill - fabrication fan wonders if Dune ’s multi - layered achiever has ruined the skill fiction novels that come after .

A substance abuser on LibraryThing post under the name bookmonkey00k has set forth the theory that Dune ruin scientific discipline fabrication novels . It ’s not that Dune is a uncollectible volume — quite the contrary , the poster admit he quite enjoy Dune and the rich cosmos it portrayed . His payoff is that he suspects Dune ’s success is behind the increasing girth of science fable novels after 1965 :

essentially , the great unwashed take care at it and instead of saying , “ Wow – you’re able to have this kind of massive family drama / economical intrigue / state of war story / mystical journey all in the circumstance of SF ” , they allege , “ Dune must be amazing because it ’s really long . ”

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So after 1965 all SF started to get really , REALLY , BIG . I intend , when I ’ve lined up my copy of Dune with three SF book that had been written in the former decade ( Double Star and Starship Troopers by Heinlein , and Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement ) , all of them award winners , all of them critically acclaimed , and all of them just adding up to the page count that is DUNE .

go are the day of the 200 Thomas Nelson Page book , which could be devoured in a couple of days . Instead , he says science fabrication novels are less interested in tell interesting stories with refreshing estimation than in cramming in every item until the book is well as a doorstop than a configuration of amusement . Moreover , translate these tomes can take weeks , turning what should be a simple delight into an taxing commitment . The poster implores Herbert - loving science fabrication writer to take their pool stick from William Faulkner ( when rewriting , “ kill your darlings ” ) , and trim the fat from their book , leaving a pruner , more engaging account behind .

But other posters in the meeting place suggest some other reasons why novels started getting foresighted after 1965 : Like , for example , the fact that novels were no longer being serialise in clip before come out in book form ( and magazine had tended to have less space for long books ) . Or the fact that phantasy books , shape by Lord Of The Rings , were hold up longer and more epic , and this bleed over into SF . And then there ’s the simplest account : “ People like dense books . It make them feel like they get more for their money . ”

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