PLAYING IN THE DUNES

Playing in the Dunes.

I HAVE been off line now for a few weeks. How boring to write it and how boring to read it. The new modern dilemma. A deviation in the path of the blog, for sure. I have been writing, obviously, since this is the fifteenth of unpublished essays that I will upload when I have the time and inclination to get off my lazy ass and walk a block and a half to an internet cafe.

The last week, I have been reading and painting more than writing. The connection to the people who comment on my blogs is missed, and I think that aided me in my slow drift into painting and reading. I read the five hundred pages or so in a Frank Herbert book about the Dune universe, a later effort that carries the story on into esoteric and ever deeper complexity, involving Bene Gesserts trying to save the universe, (which ends up being Why Leto 2, the worm, during his 3500 year rule, allowed the congregation of near-white-witches to continue existing and doing universe wide genetic experiments to get a messiah.. When they do get him-- the first in Maud dib, and then, in a more poignant and lonely way, his son Leto II, who allows himself to become basically immortal, by becoming mostly Sand Worm, so he can stave off the obliteration of humankind. The sacrifices that it takes for Leto to live out this life is made particularly appealing because he knows his future, and realizes that the best part of his life is over. That he has become purely a tool of history.


Leto II saw that in one possible future humanity will become extinct, unless he is able to save them by one possible future, which they refer to as the Golden Path. HE takes this moral responsibility as well as he can, though he doesn't kid himself into some delusion to better deal with his plight -- a luxury afforded to the worshipers in the dynasty around him. He was very humbled and worried and desperately saddened by the bloody tactics that were required to follow the Golden Path to the survival of Humanity. I urge anyone who has even a passing interest on how science fiction is used to deal with topics in the 'real world,' need look no further than these books and their introductions... but at least you should see the two sci-fi channel mini-series...

The book I just read takes place three thousand years after Leto's death. What he predicted is coming true, and the main characters in the novel are discovering as much, s the plot carries on through intrigue, a war with a bastardized version of the Ben Gesserit that is coming back from what Leto set up, and numerous other juicy little subplots.


So, that is something of a book review that never names a book, which merely tries to entice you to enter a world that has given me a lot of solace over the years.


Seal from me and you will be cursed in such a way that your hands turn into worthless, jelly fish like appendages that sting your intimates. Or sued or something bad like that...