At one point it sounds like Michael Clark Duncan is voicing him and others it sounds like a sleepy Orson Welles. In other words, the voices for each character change throughout the book!!! Why? Baron Harkkonen's voice suffers the most. While far better than the original single reader audiobook (be glad you didn't spend 25 hours listening to THAT) the 2007 version is marred by the bizarre decision to have each reader read a chapter or section rather than have each reader read a character's part throughout the book. Unfortunately, the audio recording does not fulfill expectations. A fully realized and richly detailed alternate universe filled with science, religion and political intrigue. Deservedly hailed as one of the greatest stories ever told, sci-fi or otherwise. One of the all time greats marred by spotty audio The voice cast is quite good too, but the distraction of switching between them doesn't seem at all worth it. The narrator they have is quite good, and could easily have carried the whole thing. I can only assume this was due to budgetary reasons, but this begs the question of why not to simply use a single narrator for the whole thing. Regarding the performance of the audio version, I have to say that it was a truly baffling choice to only utilise a full cast for some portions of the book. But Dune at least had enough ambition and a sufficiently compelling world to warrant the time I spent there. I'm not yet sure if I'll continue with the next entries in the series I don't know if I want to justify pushing on if I'm going to be bored by those as well. Much like Tolkien, then, I guess Herbert's strengths lay more in "secondary creation" than in plotting. World-building aside, however, I must confess to getting pretty bored with the plot around the mid-point, when Paul is just mucking around in the desert with his Fremen pals. Herbert is an excellent world-builder there's lots of great anthropological detail about the people of Arrakis, and he has a very compelling way of writing about prophetic precognition, which is not only artful but also serves as a convenient workaround for preventing prophet characters from being omniscient and knowing everything that's going to happen in the story. That's the feeling I had as the book ended.Ī genre classic with a better setting than storyĭune is very ambitious, and now that I've finally read it I can see the obvious influence that it's had on lots of subsequent sci-fi and fantasy. so finally after cooking the omelette you sit down ready to tuck in before throwing up last night's curry with a good helping of vodka flavoured bile. with each egg you crack, shell ends up in the bowl.no matter how much you try it just gets worse with the end result being a complete and total yoke ( egg humour).I digress. How can I liken this experience? Have you ever tried to make an omelette while suffering with a hangover. watch out for his attempt at Chani when she first appears. there are times the primary narrator just seems to forget what voice he uses for a character.you are absolutely lost. In single scenes you can have three different voices for one character ( remembering Herbert's love of the third person or thoughts of his characters).hilariously these innermost thoughts can be a totally different actor, voice.god even accent. Its as if the budget was expended on the atmospheric sounds effects and background music and with the funds running low the studio just randomly selected bits for the voice actors while the rest was read by the narrator. As an audiobook however.this is a shambles. The performers are true to the words of the book and it will not inhibit your ability to get the genuine experience but at times it is jarring and confusing.ĭune is a remarkable epic that sits at the epicenter of the genre. The most egregious case of this was halfway through a chapter in which two key characters were talking, a small break takes place, and it returns with new narrators for these characters. Either have it read by a single narrator or have some consistency with who is reading each character. This performance is disruptive and simply not good. More confusingly a narrator for one key character, such as Leto Atreides will return later with exactly the same voice (that is to say, not altering it at all) to play a different character. The book is read mostly by a single person (altering his voice for different characters, if only slightly) but bizarrely will have characters such as Jessica and Paul be taken over by other narrators seemingly at random parts of the story with seemingly no consistency on who is 'playing'. This review however, sets to highlight that this reading of Dune is exceptionally bad. Any number of reviews will tell you the importance of Dune, the depth and detail that Frank Herbert has taken to craft a thrilling story, amazing characters and a universe that in 2015 is still unique.
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