I am in a con session with author of the Dune sequels

SuperflyTNT wrote: I think it's a little more "AI" than Brain-In-Mech, but you're 99% right.

I am 100% right:

The series explains that mankind had become entirely complacent and dependent upon thinking machines; recognizing this weakness, a group of ambitious, militant humans calling themselves the Titans use this widespread reliance on machine intelligence to seize control of the entire universe. The Titans soon make the transition into cyborgs called cymeks; through the use of specialized interfaces, their brains are installed inside giant, mobile, mechanized "bodies."

BRAINS IN MECHS. DUNE. BRAINS. MECHS. DUNE. DUNE.

Haha, point taken, but I remember one of the "House" sequels had a kind of "origin" of a guild navigator storyline (twins IIRC), I quite enjoyed stuff like that, kind of like I dont mind listening to trance music thats got mozart riffs sampled in the middle of it. Its kind of an abomination but meh, guilty pleasure. This is the non FH sequels mind, the original FH sequels were hard going when I read them but I grew to appreciate them a lot more over time.

Hope we'll get a post con report about this.

Jeb, the timeline of the "Expanded Universe" (lol) is such that the thinkng machines were the threat, not the Cymeks. The Butlerian Jihad wasn't only about the Cymeks and Titans, it was about the idea that machine logic and thinking machines were stifling the humanity of the Empire's people.

The end result was Omnius taking over, the Titans, Cymeks, and Neo-Cymeks coming into power (but, ultimately, they were the 'general' for the malignant AI), but the OC Bible's first commandment is "Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind" not "Thou shalt not put human minds into machines".

It was about A.I.

I love that you all hate the prequels but are now arguing the finer points.

I love(d) Dune. I'd read KJA's SW stuff as a teen and I loved that shit, following hot on the heels of Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy, so I was excited about some new Dune at first. I enjoyed the House prequel trilogy enough, even if I didn't like everything about them (hey, we learn why Baron Harkonnen's a fat ugly! He used to be an Adonis). Then I read the Butlerian Jihad (all three books) and that was it, I was done with those authors, without even reaching the climax that was supposed to be Dune 7 (split in 2, because that's how you make even more money). I'd already bought Road to Dune by then, and I haven't even read it over 10-12 years later. No real incentive to go back there, even if Road was mostly Frank.

They even went and wrote some filler books for between Dune and Messiah, because we all wanted to know what went on in the lives of Paul et. al. in those months between books.

That's very interesting. It's like the Dune prequel books are part of an extended article about world building. Frank Herbert created this rich, imaginative world without spelling out every single detail. And then Herbert Jr. and KJA sort of fed off of that original vision and created all of that back story, a sort of fictional methadone.

Columbob wrote: I love(d) Dune. I'd read KJA's SW stuff as a teen and I loved that shit, following hot on the heels of Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy, so I was excited about some new Dune at first. I enjoyed the House prequel trilogy enough, even if I didn't like everything about them (hey, we learn why Baron Harkonnen's a fat ugly! He used to be an Adonis). Then I read the Butlerian Jihad (all three books) and that was it, I was done with those authors, without even reaching the climax that was supposed to be Dune 7 (split in 2, because that's how you make even more money). I'd already bought Road to Dune by then, and I haven't even read it over 10-12 years later. No real incentive to go back there, even if Road was mostly Frank.

They even went and wrote some filler books for between Dune and Messiah, because we all wanted to know what went on in the lives of Paul et. al. in those months between books.

If you have The Road to Dune, you should read it. It's Frank Hebert's original manuscript for Dune. He made some subtle changes to his original manuscript that drastically improved his story. It has nothing to do with the sequels. As a writer, I found The Road to Dune instructive because those subtle changes transformed and elevated Hebert's story.