Tohu Bohu

Whenever I reread Dune, I am surprised by how much happens before Paul becomes the all-knowing and all-powerful and not-very-interesting fulfillment of prophecy. There’s a lot of book before he even gets to Dune, for one thing, and then there’s a fair amount of book before the Baron strikes, and then there’s some more book before he gets to the Fremen, and a little more book yet before he gets to the sietch. Yes, during this time he’s acquiring ultimate power and knowledge, but he doesn’t have it yet, so there’s still some interest in how he’s going to get out of the various plot problems.

You’d think that eventually, YHB would remember what the book is actually like. No. A month or so after reading it, I’m convinced that it’s the prime example of how bad an overwhelmingly powerful hero is for a book. Which in some ways it is, although since it takes several hundred pages to get to that point, there are undoubtedly far better examples.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.