Robert Fromont @robertfromont@mastodon.nzoss.nz

Peter Opaskar of ArsTechnica has a much more entertaining take on this film:
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/10/before-the-new-version-lets-revisit-1984s-dune-the-greatest-movie-ever-made/

¡I can vote in the country where I live!

But the millennia spanned also affords a long perspective for exploring the arc of humanity; family and social norms, the distinctions that generate prejudice, and even an interesting take on privacy and surveillance.

I liked this a lot, and think it will stand a second reading.

If you were irresistibly drawn to the excruciating claustrophobic dread of The Tombs of Atuan (or even the arachnophobic nightmare of the Peruvian temple in Indiana Jones' iconic debut), you'll cower exquisitely before one of the novel's eternal protagonists: the sacred cave of Actun Tunichil Muknal.

If you wish Le Guin had leaned into the possibilities of anarchy more in The Dispossessed, or you shared the yearning for another world you found in #OctaviaButler's Earthseed, you'll love this novel's 3012CE strand. Like @pluralistic's Walkaway, this novel projects utopia risen from dystopia. Global warming has come out in the wash. All our current problems are solved. Everyone just wanders the earth, going where they want, doing what they want. But new religion gives rise to new heretics.

If you ponder #PostColonialism, #CulturalAppropriation, or you've ever been a privileged white tourist on a guided tour to an ancient place, there's something in the 2012CE strand for you. It follows the sordid misadventures of a misfit teenager on a quest to find spirituality and her place in the world.

If #UrsulaLeGuin's Birthday of the World left you yearning for more, you'll love Byrne's 1012CE strand, as teenage twin monarchs rise to power in a declining kingdom bathed in animal gods, bloody rituals, and sacred places.

If you liked Cloud Atlas's cast of characters popping up in different ages, you'll like the braided structure of this novel. In each strand, a small cast of characters face abandonment, alienation, and the yearning to escape.

I just finished reading #MonicaByrne's "The Actual Star", an #SF novel about three societies at three moments in time: a Mayan kingdom in decline in 1012CE, modern day capitalist society at the rollover of the Mayan calendar's 'long count' cycle in 2012, and 'Laviaja', a post-climate-change wanderer society of 3012CE.

Happy equinox!

@LimeSurvey rocks!

I know it was a different time and all, but if #UrsulaLeGuin could write about dark skinned wizards and humans with no gender in the sixties, I'm not sure what #FrankHerbert's excuse might be

Perhaps not surprisingly, though, Lynch's movie 80's (and thus Herbert's 60's story) have not aged well.

Diseased fat gay baddies pitched against beautiful nuclear-family goodies, wimpery women are deprecated and ignored by men stoically getting on with men's business, and it's all pretty white by the year 10191.

David Lynch's #Dune had a huge effect on me as a teenager. With a new version coming out, nostalgia spurred me to rewatch it the other day.

I know it was a box-office flop, and deeply flawed due to having to compress what should have been two movies into one.

It turns out that Spicediver's "Alternative Edition Redux" fanedit does a pretty amazing job or righting some of those wrongs, and presents a 3 hour version that I'd recommend.

Second shot!! 💉

Not sure it was a good idea to start reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy the same day the #IPCC "code red for humanity" came out.

Just ripped through #OctaviaButler's "Mind of My Mind" in a couple of days, and loved it. Body snatchers, telepathy, telekinesis, power struggles, utopia, slavery. Seems like #Sense8 owes a lot to this novel.
#SciFi

On the brink of caving in to the #WhatsApp privacy update. I already got family to move to another messenger, but it's the more distant contacts I can't influence: kids' school and parents groups, people who regularly deliver stuff, etc. I still want that contact. <sigh>