DUNE

I just finshed DUNE MESSIAH. I never read the original DUNE but I have seen the movie...a few times. I kind of felt like I was reading Jack London on crack because the text is saturated with humanism. I always find books with a humanistic slant to them morbid to read. Where's the hope? Mind you, I really like Jack London because there is a truth to his writing. Fact: wolf-dogs are better at surviving in the Yukon than men. But we come to that conclusion from vastly different view points. Jack says "Look at evolution at work. Buck knows better then to go out in a blizzard because thousands of years of ancestral instinct tell him to stay inside". I say, "God made animals to survive and thrive in the woods and Buck here is doing a pretty good job of that." While I don't discount instinct, I believe Buck's instinctual make-up comes from God rather than millions of years of genetic randomness.


The main character (Paul Muad'dib Supreme Ruler of the Universe) is prescient, he can see the future. But not only that, he can see every imaginable variation of the future. To put it simply he can see the "Butterfly Effect" and can choose his path accordingly. Unfortunately for Paul all his options are pretty crummy and he has to settle with the lesser of the evils between the end of humanity and intense physical, mental and emotional pain for himself and his loved ones. He, being the guy that he is, saves humantiy and loses everything else.

The Fremen and the Aiel have some interestingly similar qualities:

Both live in an incredibly harsh, desert, environment.
Both revere water and kill people who waste it.
Both have a complex tribal social structure.
Both are the most fierce fighters in their perspective worlds.
Both follow a saviour figure who comes to them from a far-away land, posseses awesome powers and leads them in victorious battle over people who have alot of water.
Both are regarded as wild, dangerous and fierce by off-worlders/wetlanders.
Both are the personal guard and advisors of their respective saviours.

That's just a few I could think of off the top of my head. But when I was reading the book I was thinking "Aiel" whenever the Fremen were described as a people.

Morpheus should have read about the Butlerian Jihad during the Matrix Trilogy. The Duniverse had it's share of the same problems. Thinking machines overran Earth. Earth was devistated by the use of atomics against the machines and every human on the planet either died or became a slave of the Omnius of Earth. Well, thanks to settling on other planets across the universe,(insurance, Neo!) the humans fought back winning the war, destroying the machines, cyborgs and cymeks. In the end, even calculators were banned and, thanks to genetic tampering, humans who could think like computers were trained and called Mentats and no one ever used a keyboard again.
The End

Until next time, keep an eye on your toaster.