I haven't talked much in the last few months about the books that I'm reading. That's because
I'm still making my way through the Dune series. Actually, I should say I'm making my way through the multiple series of
Dune. The
Dune serieses? There are the original six
Dune books written by Frank Herbert, which ended with
Chapterhouse: Dune. Then after Herbert's death, his son Brian wrote a 3-book prequel which was set in the time period immediately before the events of the original
Dune book, and another 3-book prequel which takes place thousands of years before
Dune. Finally, Brian Herbert finished work on the final two books of the original
Dune series, which was left incomplete when Frank Herbert died. Make sense? I'll have to ask you to pay attention because there will be a quiz later. Anyway, I enjoy these long book series for the same reason I enjoy 4-hour overblown epic movies; even if they're done poorly, you can still get into them because you have time to get to know the characters and their interrelationships and back-stories and their motivations and their good sides and bad sides. I guess maybe my biggest pet peeve with fiction is overly simplistic storytelling that treats the reader/viewer as a moron and doesn't bother to do anything except connect the dots. Epic multi-part adventures have it built in automatically that that won't happen because nothing that has so much going on can be simplistic. Anyway, I finished the last book of the original series,
Chapterhouse: Dune, a month or two ago, and it was probably my favorite book of them all. In the first few books of
Dune, Herbert got preoccupied with the angst of the
Atreidies, a family who suddenly found themselves in possession of ultimate power, brought on by the ability to not only predict the future, but to be able to predict every future that is possible based on the different actions they may choose. Because of this power, they are able to become emperors and, eventually, authoritarian tyrants. But they quickly find that all actions they choose will result in dreadfully flawed futures. They also find that knowing the course of future events makes life in the here and now dull and tedious. It's actually profound, in a way, but Herbert really isn't very skilled with dealing with people's inner lives, so, for me, the Atreidies mainly come off as whiny complainers who can't stand having the responsibilities that come with their great gifts but also can't stand giving up the perks that come with their gifts and who also think they're better than everyone else, to boot. But the last "gifted" Atreidies, the tyrant Leto II, dies at the end of the fourth book, and the final two books in the original series deal with the rivalry of the
Bene Gesserit and the
Bene Tleilax. The "Bene" in the names means that they are orders of some kind, like monastic orders or Freemasons. The Bene Gesserit, often called "witches" by characters in the books, are an all-woman order whose original goal was to use genetic manipulation to eventually create a superhuman whose mental abilities allow him to bridge all of space and time. They call this messiah the
Kwisatz Haderach, and they unexpectedly achieve their goal of creating the Kwisatz Haderach with
Paul Atreidies in the first
Dune book. Unfortunately for them, Paul turns on the Bene Gesserit, and generally treats them with disdain and contempt during his rule. After their failure with Paul Atreidies, the Bene Gesserit continue their genetic manipulations to try to propagate the best qualities in the human genetic line, but they are careful not to create another Kwisatz Haderach. In addition to their genetic experiments, the sisters of the Bene Gesserit work on perfecting their mental and physical abilities, requiring rigorous physical and mental training for all acolytes who wish to join the order. They are the ultimate diplomats of the universe, so in control of their bodies that they can suppress all signs of emotion in themselves and so observant that they can read, from the tiniest facial movements or muscle reactions, the thoughts of others. They also have the ability to use their Voice to compel people to obey their commands. Whenever they do this, the books always refer to it as "Voice" with a capital V, or "the Voice". They are also known as the best hand-to-hand fighters in the known universe, and in a universe where killing your negotiating partner is considered an acceptable way to broker an agreement, hand-to-hand fighting skill is crucial for diplomats. The Bene Gesserit are well-respected in the universe for generally adopting a neutral stance in regards to the petty squabbles between the ruling noble families. One of the major tenets of the sisterhood is to never fall in love and to never form emotional attachments with other people, so they are generally regarded as free from the emotional influences that may unduly sway normal people. The Bene Tleilax, unlike the respected Bene Gesserit, are disdained by everyone in the universe. They are an all-male sect who isolate themselves from all others. Though human, they are short and unhealthy-looking, with gray skin and sharp, pointy teeth. They smell bad and are uncouth in their manners. Like the Bene Gesserit, they are known to experiment with genetic manipulation. But because they keep their society closed off from everyone, and because nobody has ever seen a female Bene Tleilax, everyone assumes that they do some ghastly laboratory experiments to ensure the continuation of their despised race. It's worth pointing out here that the Bene Gesserit are not a society, as such. They have sex with (non-Bene Gesserit) men and become pregnant. Often their daughters are placed in the Bene Gesserit training program, but sometimes they're not. And sometimes the daughter of a non-Bene Gesserit woman is given the Bene Gesserit training. So, in that sense, the Bene Gesserit order can be joined by everyone (or at least every female) who has the potential to succeed in the rigorous training. Bene Tleilax, on the other hand, fraternize with non-Bene Tleilax only for the purposes of business. A non-Bene Tleilax cannot join the Bene Tleilax and cannot in any way associate with them except for the purposes of business. It is revealed in the later books that the Bene Tleilax are actually an order of religious zealots who believe their destiny is to eventually conquer the known universe in the name of
Shai' hulud, literally the strange sandworm creature of Arrakis, the planet commonly known as Dune, from where the books get their names. However, Shai' hulud has symbolic meaning, as the sandworms are believed to contain the spirit of the tyrant Leto II, who during his lifetime was revered as a god, and has continued to be revered as a god by the Bene Tleilax. The Shai' hulud are also the source of the mysterious spice
melange, which gave humans the ability to "fold space" and undertake interstellar travel. The Bene Gesserit suspect that the Bene Tleilax have secret destructive plans, and undertake various political maneuvers to prevent these plans from coming to fruition. In the meantime, however, a vicious order of females known as the
Honored Matres has returned from the Scattering, an event that took place after the death of the Tyrant, when a great famine occured and many people left the known universe to try to find habitable planets elsewhere. The Honored Matres have a lot in common with the Bene Gesserit, except rather than being diplomats they are conquerors. They destroy most of the planets of the known universe, including Dune, enslave men with their seemingly black-art sexual abilities (Bene Gesserit have the same abilities, but view having such control over others as being dangerous and, in the long run, counterproductive), and eventually destroy the Bene Tleilax, leaving the Bene Gesserit as the last holdout. The final novel ends with the destruction of the Bene Gesserit, but with the transformation of the Bene Gesserit home planet, Wallach IX, into Dune, to ensure the continued existence of the sandworm, Shai' hulud. Several people manage to escape the Honored Matres on a space ship known as a
no-ship (meaning a ship that cannot be seen by any radar or any mental projection superabilities). These people include a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother, Sheeana, who is the only person in the universe with the ability to talk to and control Shai' hulud, and Duncan Idaho, who was an original adviser of Paul Atreidies thousands of years earlier and who was regenerated in a Bene Tleilax
axotyl tank.
Chapterhouse: Dune ends with the escape of the no-ship from Wallach IX. The most interesting thing for me about the last few books in this series is how much they are about bureaucracy and diplomacy. While the Bene Gesserit and Bene Tleilax have the ability to be ruthless warriors, they accomplish their goals most effectively through diplomatic manipulation and subterfuge. The Honored Matres symbolize the death of diplomacy, which means the death of culture and society. Ironically, however, it is hinted that the Honored Matres were mid-level civil servants themselves, in the Scattering, who served under the rule of other ruthless autocrats. It was only by using bureaucratic manipulations to make themselves indispensible to these autocrats, and then turning on the autocrats and escaping, that the Honored Matres were able to free themselves. Also interesting in the books is the gender politics, which are hardly mentioned and hardly obvious as a theme, but are obvious in the fact that the main organizations, the Bene Gesserit, the Bene Tleilax, and the Honored Matres, are either all-male or all-female. There are other examinations of gender in the earlier books. The Tyrant's army, the
Fish Speakers, is all-female, because the Tyrant believed that males were incapable of performing the duties of the army without becoming corrupted and eventually turning on the civilian population. Also, the Kwisatz Haderach could only be a male. Females who have the same abilities as the Kwisatz Haderach are known as
Abominations. Abominations are believed to be unable to contain the evil temptations of the power they are given and will eventually destroy themselves and everyone around them. So, like I said, there is a richness there that you don't get from non-epic fiction. I'm working my way through the
Dune prequels now, though I think I'll take a break from them when I go to Peru and read Thomas Pynchon's
Against the Day, which is a very long and, I expect, very complicated book, appropriate for long plane trips.
I got back from Peru yesterday. The trip was amazing! I don't know if I can say enough about it, every day was a new wonder. The weather was beautiful; we didn't see a single raindrop the whole time we were there. The group I was with was just the greatest, which is a bit of a surprise. I feel like I've become a curmudgeon, with only a small tolerance for people, so it was nice to feel happy and comfortable around people again. Anyway, I'm still busy with unpacking and washing clothes and catching up on bills right now, but hopefully sometime in the next few days I can start giving details about the trip. In the meantime, what you see above is a picture of Machu Picchu that I took. The mountain in the background overlooking the city is 
