Comment by mjburgess
5 hours ago
I dislike the ending, at least of v2. In it, the author basically gives a fleshed out (christian, neoplatonist) metaphysics to the world he's created which basically amounts to: heaven exists, humans win against the devil, etc. And the ending itself is a self-conscious version of an ascension narrative. It's a very 90deg turn ending to a book otherwise more interested in a world in which heaven is never accessible.
The last 2 chapters made me not want to recommend the book. I’m so divided about it because the book started of incredibly strong.
This has been my feeling on Dune book 4 - God Emperor of Dune. While it contains several great banger quotes, it leans way more conservative than the previous books to the point that it was difficult to finish. "Oh no, female warriors kissing! ICK!!" and Leto's whole "Humanity _NEEDS_ me as GOD EMPEROR because this IS JUST THE ONLY WAYYY!" are just some examples.
Book 1-3 of Dune are masterpieces IMO. Book 4 was still good although I didn’t enjoy it as much as the trilogy. But I still consider it part of the same overall “Leto/Paul arc”.
Book 5-6 were okay, but didn’t live up to expectations.
To go on more of a tangent, I really thought these books would be impossible to turn into films, but the Villeneuve films are good so far!
I think you may have missed the point of GEoD
Did I lose chapters or is v1 horribly different? It was so psychologically defeating I was in a very weird malaise for a week.
Some were edited out for more linear structure, some were dropped due to copyright.
I enjoyed both versions, though the ending in v1 is somewhat crumpled
I don't think this is much of a spoiler: in Ra (same author) you get just what you're looking for and, ironically, that's with another revised ending. Even with the christianic subtext, which is at times manifest. I've read both and the writing is overall superior. As it should be, antimemetics is his first work I think? Writers have historically become good from mere practise.
It's the strongest possible memetic weapon humans would have - I think it's entirely consistent with the meta-nature of the book, especially the self-conscious part.
If the take is religion is itself the weapon and the depiction given is mere evidence of that, OK, that's at least avoids the ending being totally awful. HOWEVER
The book spends much of its time saying the transcendent cannot even be represented, to people, to us the read -- then just represents it, and in a tawdry christian way.
I think the violation of that norm, as well as the ending being played straight -- with literally a long paragraph explaining with ideaspace is... that's a fourth-wall break into christianity imv
Which makes the whole book read as, "the issue with humans is our physical bodies in a fallen world which are limited. just die, go to heaven, then you can know/represent/understand everything. Yay! Death!"
OK. Just kinda naff.
It reads as a religious person who accidentally wrote a good sci-fi book then hurridly, at the end, reminds us all that its really a parable with a Noble Message that in Death all things are trascended.
I read the book and at no time did I think "Christianity". It seems like motivated reasoning on your part. At no time did the book ever preach, or was even moralistic.
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> metaphysics to the world he's created which basically amounts to: heaven exists, humans win against the devil, etc. And the ending itself is a self-conscious version of an ascension narrative. It's a very 90deg turn ending to a book otherwise more interested in a world in which heaven is never accessible.
FWIW, this just seems to be what’s popular now. Pretty regularly now, I’ll see social media posts and memes mocking [media franchise X] for being anything other than that very basic good vs evil plot with clean resolution, as if these people didn’t have plenty of Marvel slop to consume.
I will say this is tangential to the culture war, but seems to exist outside of it too.