The Inside Scoop on Gaming

A Great House lies shattered, destroyed by intrigues illegally perpetuated by a scheming monarch more interested in profit than honor. The sole heir of that House's grandeur is now a fugitive, living in exile among tough, steadfast companions who vow to help avenge the injustice visited upon him. Sound familiar? It should- it's the plot of a classic and beloved novel more or less reheated and served lukewarm in a much-touted return to a universe many of us on this forum know all too well.

The influence of Frank Herbert's 1965 novel Dune on the gaming community cannot be ignored. The vast majority of gamers are at least aware of the novel's existence, or have seen David Lynch's 1984 film version. Many gamers, myself included, consider themselves fans of the series. Herbert's study of a far-future feudal society with its bickering noble houses, deadly intrigues, alien ecologies, and messianic fanaticism has asserted its effect on game creators and players in too many ways to count. References to Dune within my games and stories bring knowing smiles from my gaming associates- the appearance of Dune's ideas and plot elements are like a visit from an old and treasured friend.

How, then, to describe the recently published Dune: House Atreides, the first of a three-volume prequel trilogy to Frank Herbert's seminal sci-fi saga being written in tandem by his son Brian Herbert and multigenre author Kevin J. Anderson?

The old friend is back, but it saddens me to report that our friend has lost a great deal of weight, wit, and even a bit of his memory.

I wanted desperately to truly relish this novel, to devour its subtleties at length as I did with Dune almost seven years ago. I hoped against hope that the involvement of Brian Herbert, who collaborated with his father on Man of Two Worlds in the early 1980s, would elevate the plot and prose above the pedestrian (and I am being very kind, for brevity's sake) work we have come to expect from his co-author Anderson. Herbert seems to have validated my faith in him- Dune: House Atreides is not the disaster it might have been. That's the good news.

The prequel trilogy begins about four decades before the events of Dune, placing it somewhere around the years 10,148-10,155. I wish I could be more accurate, but that would have required the book to give specific dates. The facts of life set down in Dune have changed little- the Known Universe is ruled by the Padishah Emperor, in this case Elrood IX, who has held the throne for a century and a half thanks to the life-prolonging effects of the Spice Melange, on which the commerce of the Imperium depends. Scheming, reviled House Harkonnen controls the universe's only source of the spice, the desert planet Arrakis, and harvests it in the Emperor's name. House Harkonnen feuds with the noble House Atreides, bitter inheritors of a bloody vendetta stretching back to the dawn of Imperial history.

Leto Atreides (father of Dune's Paul) is an uncertain lad of fifteen, living in the shadow of his bold and beloved father, Duke Paulus Atreides. Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, in a fine twist, is a lean and muscular man with classically handsome features. Thufir Hawat is younger and much more battle-ready than we have ever seen him, although his description is almost criminally vague- he could be anyone. Crown Prince Shaddam, who will become the Emperor and initiate the critical events of the original Dune, is a bored and directionless nobleman who despises his senile father for lacking the good grace to die and let him have his throne. Duncan Idaho, peerless swordsman and Atreides retainer in Dune, is introduced here as an eight year-old boy on the run from Harkonnen slavemasters who have imprisoned him for sport.

The places are set, the table is ready, but the meal that is served is ultimately thin and unsatisfying. (Wow! I've used two separate metaphors for this novel's weaknesses. I think I'll quit while I'm ahead) Where Dune's subtlety was multilayered and mature, the events of this prequel are, at times, depressingly childish. The word "antics" springs to mind.

The central problem is that Dune's universe was one of evolved competence, where generation after generation of human minds had been forced along progressively more subtle and lethal paths. Herbert's characters were deadly rational, rich in treachery, adept at courtly games that could bring swift death to those who didn't play their very best. This attitude, this characteristic, was branded indelibly into every page of Dune. Although he sometimes veered off into bizarre psychological speculation, Frank Herbert was deep, subtle, and patient enough to give his characters that vital edge.

The cast of House Atreides, by and large, just doesn't have it. And while that might not seem like a fair comment, the attitude of the characters was as important an element of Dune as the setting of Arrakis, and its absence is glaring in the prequel. Dune's cast was a fearsome one, made up of individuals with frighteningly sharpened minds (even if they did conduct too many interior monologues now and again). The prequel's cast could be anyone. Your average co-workers. Your dull neighbors. Only a rare few really shine with the demonic maturity of perception that Herbert's Imperium demanded.

As mentioned above, a major component of the prequel's plot is lifted directly from the original. Before he has even become Emperor, Crown Prince Shaddam makes a pact with the wicked Bene Tlielax to illegally usurp House Vernius, an ally of House Atreides, using his elite Sardaukar terror troops in disguise. He will do much the same to House Atreides forty years down the line. But what could have been a charming homage is, instead, a muddled mess, as though the authors couldn't wait to get on to another part of the novel. Where the Harkonnen trap in Dune was well-explained and obvious in its function, the Tlielaxu conquest of House Vernius is pretty silly and almost devoid of touching sentiment. The entire subplot is an outgrowth of the lack of subtlety mentioned above.

The novel does better when it avoids the Tlielaxu altogether. The bizarre and devilishly clever antagonists of Frank Herbert's later Dune novels are reduced here to shrill, dimensionless, vapid little dwarves, complete with odious religious fanaticism and sparking torture machines that they display publicly as though they were cartoon baddies. They smack of Anderson's heavy hand- his Star Wars work is laden with villains whose exaggerated cosmetic deformities herald their evil nature. The Tlielaxu are strangely akin to the solitary Suk doctor who makes an appearance midway through the novel in a completely pointless and jarring scene where he refuses to see ailing Emperor Elrood until he has been shown a room full of gems and treasures. What stings here is not the ideas behind these characters but the thoroughly joyless, dull,and childish way in which they are presented to us.

Are there good points among the bad? Thankfully, yes.House Atreides moves between about seven major plots and viewpoints, and some of them can't help but be interesting. Isolated setpieces are intriguing and majestic. Early in the novel, a young Rabban Harkonnen and a manly crew of bravos head out into the wastelands of Arrakis on a sandworm hunt that would have done Hemingway proud. Leto Atreides, a likeable and tragic character who anchors the better portions of the book, is the star of a tense standoff late in the story where a split-second decision puts the fate of House Atreides in the balance and forever separates the boy from the man.

Other stories are hit and miss. Imperial Planetologist Pardot Kynes explores the ecological mysteries of Arrakis and meets the enigmatic Fremen in a fascinating subplot, but whenever the story turns to the inner workings of the Bene Gesserit it drags leadenly. Young Duncan Idaho's killer instincts are sharpened on a flight that takes him from the heart of Harkonnen cruelty to a new home among the Atreides, but interruptions in his story to revisit others will elicit groans of disappointment in the reader.

Dune: House Atreides is a mixed bag where the truly awful is as rare as the truly excellent, and the disappointingly mediocre fleshes out the bulk of the text. Atmospheric details are awry- holograms, energy knives, and other anachronisms seem out of place with the technology of Dune. The quotes which open each chapter are either taken from genuine Frank Herbert works or are as bland and unmemorable as tapioca. Intrigue is shallow and half-formed, much like the characters who spawn it. Readers will be made to wade through this morass for the occasional gems of style and setting.

At the end of this novel, I felt a melancholy disappointment rather than a more active anger, since the multi-million dollar marketing machine is already churning away, lighting the path for another two prequels even while the first is whisked to the 30% discount bin in bookstores across North America. Nothing can be done at this point, dear readers, but to hope that the lackluster reception this novel has received will convince its co-authors to try harder next time. Two strong sequels might still redeem this series, and make the first seem better in their context.

Is Dune: House Atreides an interesting way to spend an empty weekend? I give a guarded affirmative. Is it worth purchasing in hardcover? Certainly not, unless you're a rabid Dune collector with deep pockets. Is it as enlightening in the fine points of courtly intrigue as its predecessors? Not by any means. Perhaps most importantly, could you do better yourself, creating your own rules using a generic system and running a historical roleplaying game set in the Dune universe?

Definitely.

If you're looking for the real thing, look for Frank Herbert's original masterpiece, now appearing in a new edition with striking cover art. If you want to read the prequel, borrow a copy or wait for the paperback. You're not missing out in the meantime.

Long live the fighters!

Style: 2 (Needs Work)
Substance: 3 (Average)

Dune: House Atreides
Author: Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson Category: Novel Company/Publisher: Bantam Doubleday Line: Spectra Cost: $27.50 Page count: 624 ISBN: 0553110616 Capsule Review by Scott Lynch on 10/21/99. Genre tags: Science_fiction Far_Future Space	A Great House lies shattered, destroyed by intrigues illegally perpetuated by a scheming monarch more interested in profit than honor. The sole heir of that House's grandeur is now a fugitive, living in exile among tough, steadfast companions who vow to help avenge the injustice visited upon him. Sound familiar? It should- it's the plot of a classic and beloved novel more or less reheated and served lukewarm in a much-touted return to a universe many of us on this forum know all too well. The influence of Frank Herbert's 1965 novel Dune on the gaming community cannot be ignored. The vast majority of gamers are at least aware of the novel's existence, or have seen David Lynch's 1984 film version. Many gamers, myself included, consider themselves fans of the series. Herbert's study of a far-future feudal society with its bickering noble houses, deadly intrigues, alien ecologies, and messianic fanaticism has asserted its effect on game creators and players in too many ways to count. References to Dune within my games and stories bring knowing smiles from my gaming associates- the appearance of Dune's ideas and plot elements are like a visit from an old and treasured friend. How, then, to describe the recently published Dune: House Atreides, the first of a three-volume prequel trilogy to Frank Herbert's seminal sci-fi saga being written in tandem by his son Brian Herbert and multigenre author Kevin J. Anderson? The old friend is back, but it saddens me to report that our friend has lost a great deal of weight, wit, and even a bit of his memory. I wanted desperately to truly relish this novel, to devour its subtleties at length as I did with Dune almost seven years ago. I hoped against hope that the involvement of Brian Herbert, who collaborated with his father on Man of Two Worlds in the early 1980s, would elevate the plot and prose above the pedestrian (and I am being very kind, for brevity's sake) work we have come to expect from his co-author Anderson. Herbert seems to have validated my faith in him- Dune: House Atreides is not the disaster it might have been. That's the good news. The prequel trilogy begins about four decades before the events of Dune, placing it somewhere around the years 10,148-10,155. I wish I could be more accurate, but that would have required the book to give specific dates. The facts of life set down in Dune have changed little- the Known Universe is ruled by the Padishah Emperor, in this case Elrood IX, who has held the throne for a century and a half thanks to the life-prolonging effects of the Spice Melange, on which the commerce of the Imperium depends. Scheming, reviled House Harkonnen controls the universe's only source of the spice, the desert planet Arrakis, and harvests it in the Emperor's name. House Harkonnen feuds with the noble House Atreides, bitter inheritors of a bloody vendetta stretching back to the dawn of Imperial history. Leto Atreides (father of Dune's Paul) is an uncertain lad of fifteen, living in the shadow of his bold and beloved father, Duke Paulus Atreides. Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, in a fine twist, is a lean and muscular man with classically handsome features. Thufir Hawat is younger and much more battle-ready than we have ever seen him, although his description is almost criminally vague- he could be anyone. Crown Prince Shaddam, who will become the Emperor and initiate the critical events of the original Dune, is a bored and directionless nobleman who despises his senile father for lacking the good grace to die and let him have his throne. Duncan Idaho, peerless swordsman and Atreides retainer in Dune, is introduced here as an eight year-old boy on the run from Harkonnen slavemasters who have imprisoned him for sport. The places are set, the table is ready, but the meal that is served is ultimately thin and unsatisfying. (Wow! I've used two separate metaphors for this novel's weaknesses. I think I'll quit while I'm ahead) Where Dune's subtlety was multilayered and mature, the events of this prequel are, at times, depressingly childish. The word "antics" springs to mind. The central problem is that Dune's universe was one of evolved competence, where generation after generation of human minds had been forced along progressively more subtle and lethal paths. Herbert's characters were deadly rational, rich in treachery, adept at courtly games that could bring swift death to those who didn't play their very best. This attitude, this characteristic, was branded indelibly into every page of Dune. Although he sometimes veered off into bizarre psychological speculation, Frank Herbert was deep, subtle, and patient enough to give his characters that vital edge. The cast of House Atreides, by and large, just doesn't have it. And while that might not seem like a fair comment, the attitude of the characters was as important an element of Dune as the setting of Arrakis, and its absence is glaring in the prequel. Dune's cast was a fearsome one, made up of individuals with frighteningly sharpened minds (even if they did conduct too many interior monologues now and again). The prequel's cast could be anyone. Your average co-workers. Your dull neighbors. Only a rare few really shine with the demonic maturity of perception that Herbert's Imperium demanded. As mentioned above, a major component of the prequel's plot is lifted directly from the original. Before he has even become Emperor, Crown Prince Shaddam makes a pact with the wicked Bene Tlielax to illegally usurp House Vernius, an ally of House Atreides, using his elite Sardaukar terror troops in disguise. He will do much the same to House Atreides forty years down the line. But what could have been a charming homage is, instead, a muddled mess, as though the authors couldn't wait to get on to another part of the novel. Where the Harkonnen trap in Dune was well-explained and obvious in its function, the Tlielaxu conquest of House Vernius is pretty silly and almost devoid of touching sentiment. The entire subplot is an outgrowth of the lack of subtlety mentioned above. The novel does better when it avoids the Tlielaxu altogether. The bizarre and devilishly clever antagonists of Frank Herbert's later Dune novels are reduced here to shrill, dimensionless, vapid little dwarves, complete with odious religious fanaticism and sparking torture machines that they display publicly as though they were cartoon baddies. They smack of Anderson's heavy hand- his Star Wars work is laden with villains whose exaggerated cosmetic deformities herald their evil nature. The Tlielaxu are strangely akin to the solitary Suk doctor who makes an appearance midway through the novel in a completely pointless and jarring scene where he refuses to see ailing Emperor Elrood until he has been shown a room full of gems and treasures. What stings here is not the ideas behind these characters but the thoroughly joyless, dull,and childish way in which they are presented to us. Are there good points among the bad? Thankfully, yes.House Atreides moves between about seven major plots and viewpoints, and some of them can't help but be interesting. Isolated setpieces are intriguing and majestic. Early in the novel, a young Rabban Harkonnen and a manly crew of bravos head out into the wastelands of Arrakis on a sandworm hunt that would have done Hemingway proud. Leto Atreides, a likeable and tragic character who anchors the better portions of the book, is the star of a tense standoff late in the story where a split-second decision puts the fate of House Atreides in the balance and forever separates the boy from the man. Other stories are hit and miss. Imperial Planetologist Pardot Kynes explores the ecological mysteries of Arrakis and meets the enigmatic Fremen in a fascinating subplot, but whenever the story turns to the inner workings of the Bene Gesserit it drags leadenly. Young Duncan Idaho's killer instincts are sharpened on a flight that takes him from the heart of Harkonnen cruelty to a new home among the Atreides, but interruptions in his story to revisit others will elicit groans of disappointment in the reader. Dune: House Atreides is a mixed bag where the truly awful is as rare as the truly excellent, and the disappointingly mediocre fleshes out the bulk of the text. Atmospheric details are awry- holograms, energy knives, and other anachronisms seem out of place with the technology of Dune. The quotes which open each chapter are either taken from genuine Frank Herbert works or are as bland and unmemorable as tapioca. Intrigue is shallow and half-formed, much like the characters who spawn it. Readers will be made to wade through this morass for the occasional gems of style and setting. At the end of this novel, I felt a melancholy disappointment rather than a more active anger, since the multi-million dollar marketing machine is already churning away, lighting the path for another two prequels even while the first is whisked to the 30% discount bin in bookstores across North America. Nothing can be done at this point, dear readers, but to hope that the lackluster reception this novel has received will convince its co-authors to try harder next time. Two strong sequels might still redeem this series, and make the first seem better in their context. Is Dune: House Atreides an interesting way to spend an empty weekend? I give a guarded affirmative. Is it worth purchasing in hardcover? Certainly not, unless you're a rabid Dune collector with deep pockets. Is it as enlightening in the fine points of courtly intrigue as its predecessors? Not by any means. Perhaps most importantly, could you do better yourself, creating your own rules using a generic system and running a historical roleplaying game set in the Dune universe? Definitely. If you're looking for the real thing, look for Frank Herbert's original masterpiece, now appearing in a new edition with striking cover art. If you want to read the prequel, borrow a copy or wait for the paperback. You're not missing out in the meantime. Long live the fighters! Style: 2 (Needs Work) Substance: 3 (Average)