Guest post written by author Christopher Hinz
Christopher Hinz is the author of several science fiction books. Liege-Killer won the Compton Crook Award for best first novel and was nominated for the John W. Campbell Award for best new writer. He has written screenplays and a graphic novel, scripted comics for DC and Marvel, and has worked as a newspaper reporter and technical administrator of a small TV station.
Four days separate the release of the new movie version of Dune by Warner Brothers and Legendary Entertainment (10/22/21), and the publication of my own updated and “remastered” Paratwa Trilogy by Angry Robot Books (10/26/21). If you’re thinking this is a barefaced attempt to link my own modest efforts to a famous and illustrious work in order to boost sales, I’ll go so far as to admit to being capitalistic. Yet allow me to relate the backstory, which in my mind forever connects these two fictional universes at a fundamental level.
All writers can cite their influences, and sometimes it comes down to single book that had a profound impact. For me, that book was Dune, which I discovered as a young adolescent browsing the latest science fiction paperbacks on the mezzanine of Pomeroy’s department store in downtown Reading, Pennsylvania. In those pre-Internet days, and knowing less than a handful of individuals even remotely interested in genre fiction, I wouldn’t have had a clue about the book’s escalating fame were it not for publisher Ace’s helpful cover proclamation: “Winner of the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award for Best Science Fiction Novel of the Year!”
Still, I was only vaguely familiar with those two awards and had never heard of author Frank Herbert. I also recall being surprised at the book’s thickness, which dwarfed pretty much everything on the racks as well as in my growing collection at home. Nevertheless, unintimidated by the tiny print and lengthy page count, and intrigued by the enticing awards notice, I plopped down the better part of an allowance for that week’s SF fix. Taking the bus home with prize in hand, I felt sure I was in for an electrifying read, something evocative of early faves such as A. E. Van Vogt and E. E. “Doc” Smith. Shortly thereafter, lying in bed – a favorite reading posture then as now – I eagerly started in. And after about 25 pages, I was struck by the monumental insight that Dune was…
…Boring!
C’mon, where were the fiendish aliens and mind-bending technologies, staples to which I was accustomed? Where was the straightforward action and the take-charge hero with his trusty blaster? Dune seemed relentlessly complex, with so many people, places and things to keep track of, and that was just the opening chapters. Plus, the text overflowed with hard-to-pronounce names like Muad’Dib and Kwisatz Haderach. And then there was all that religious stuff – Reverend Mothers and Orange Catholic bibles – not at all appealing to my sensibilities, as at the time I sought to escape from, not immersion in, Sunday church-type requirements. OK, the novel did offer a few interesting bits, such as the way young Paul Atreides kept his cool and survived the painful test of the gom jabbar. But was I going to have to plod through an encyclopedia of a book just to uncover a few such highlights?
I was not. Dune was one of the first pleasure reads – very likely the first – that I decided wasn’t worth finishing. Consigned to my bedroom shelf, it remained in limbo for a least several months, a bulging behemoth whose mere presence served to taunt (Can’t handle the big boy stuff, huh kiddo?). Finally, unable to resist, or maybe succumbing to one of those occasional maturity spurts common in the land of teen, I decided to give Arrakis, desert planet, home of the nomadic Fremen, giant sandworms and psychotropic spice, another chance. And this time…
…Electrifying!
Transfixed by Dune’s scope the second time around (Finally got it, huh kiddo?), this neural blast of a novel hit all the right notes. Frank Herbert had somehow melded a multiplicity of disparate elements into a symphonic masterpiece. Awed then as now, I promptly declared Dune to be the best SF novel ever written, sentiments since echoed by perhaps a few million others. And, reflecting my equally growing passion for movies, I couldn’t wait for Hollywood to bring it to the screen.
No movie was immediately forthcoming; it took well over a decade for David Lynch’s 1984 cinematic take on Dune to arrive in theaters. The movie turned out to be reasonably enjoyable and impressive at times, and I can’t say I was disappointed. Nevertheless, its two-hour, seventeen-minute running time couldn’t hope to capture the intricacies of Herbert’s creation, and the shortcuts necessary to squeeze the story into such a compact frame made it apparent that a visual-media adaptation worthy of the novel’s exceptional qualities was yet to come. When the three-part miniseries arrived in 2000 on Syfy (then known as the Sci-Fi Channel), its more suitable length enabled closer parallels with Dune’s subtle and complex character interactions. Yet the miniseries also revealed the limitations of its TV budget, at times coming across as clunky, and with special effects impressive for a small-screen project, yet underwhelming when compared to that era’s cinematic state of the art.
In the years between those film and television efforts came my first published novel, Liege-Killer, Book One of The Paratwa Trilogy, followed shortly thereafter by Books Two and Three, Ash Ock and The Paratwa. From the trilogy’s inception, I knew my tale would feature an intricate plot with multiple points of view, and what better structural template and stylistic flourishes to employ than those used by Herbert in Dune. I also loved the way he was able to have scenes resonate back and forth across the breadth of the tale, producing holistic effects grander than the sum of their parts. His masterpiece opened my mind to new levels of creative methodology and provided a storytelling pinnacle worthy of ascent.
Which brings us back to this October and the release of the remastered trilogy, coinciding with the third attempt at translating Dune to the screen (delayed a year because of Covid). Although the new film covers only the first half of the novel, it hopefully will prove successful so that Dune: Part Two, currently in pre-production, is given a green light. But whatever the fate of the second movie, a more gifted filmmaker than Denis Villeneuve could not have been found to shepherd Herbert’s classic.
Among Villeneuve’s triumphs are a pair of terrific SF films, Arrival and Blade Runner 2049. The former, an all-time personal favorite in any genre, based on Ted Chiang’s novella, “Story of Your Life,” received numerous accolades and awards, including eight Oscar nominations. The latter movie, a sequel to Ridley Scott’s 1982 Blade Runner, itself adapted from Philip K. Dick’s original novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, also received a surfeit of praise and awards. Both flicks serve to spotlight a director with a keen eye and a deep understanding of storytelling.
And so as I eagerly await the final weeks of October with dual-pronged exhilaration, I can’t help but think back to my adolescent self, perusing those SF paperbacks, and how a single novel had outsized consequences on my development as a writer. Although I couldn’t say with absolute conviction that there never would have been a Paratwa universe without Dune, I’m convinced the trilogy could not have achieved its level of success had not the maestro of deep desert wisdom revealed a path toward greater enlightenment.
