Jaime Portillo De la O’s Reviews > Dune > Status Update

Dune's religious influences results are a clear example of syncretism.

World building through the appendix can make the visual adaptations close to the book, for once.

The author's life & career is admirable. He drew from countless experiences for his self-contained world building, and he met The Alan Watts.

I'm just a few pages from finishing the book:
It seems there's a continuation as they arrive to the Spice planet.

Phrase: Perfectly organized research produces nothing new.

The Appendix shows an earth-like desert ecosystem. It makes sense a deep understanding of applied geology for their campaigns, and survival. An intro to religion shows the author took earth names, only to give them a whole different meaning.

Being close to finish the plot chapters of the book (I checked in advance, which is a recommended reading tip for non-fiction books, else it is an insider peek)

Saying the novel's world is a solid empire is an understatement (I found out through monologue) where the rulers have the best of both worlds: Ancient knowledge, and the will to conquer even further.

The scene is crude, the action is fast.

Extra comments:

Paul shows a decisive leadership style. He says some arcane phrases (perhaps as a memory sting, perhaps as an insider understanding in their world) , but his behavior seems congruent.

The girl seems to be a secondary character, so far.

(With just one hundred pages left on my digital document version) I'm really happy, and wish the book never ended, even if I get to read some time, every so often.

The personal lives of the star character we know through the movie is having a sort of new generation dialogue with his counterpart. As much of the chronology of the house of Atreides gives a background to this moment


Pag 455 until page 474. Ask chatGPT a summary of.

I'm truly eager to upload Dune to an AI with a prompt very close to: Give me the ordered facts of the novel from the very beginning, whether by summarizing a part or providing a chronology-like sentence.

Also: List out of the ordinary dialogues or monologues such as those that aren't transactional. Maybe I can improve these prompts through AI.

Many action scenes just happened since the last update.

A familiar scene with a little girl is introduced. She seems like a modern little girl, not European children just a few hundreds of years ago where they were considered by their parents as little adults.

The culture of the different worlds comes up as a means to an end. Ex. The seemingly simple religion of the Fremen, their understanding of natural phenomena, and so on.

The main characters are chewing over their impressions on other people. They seem to forget about themselves. The novel's facts are jointed by these thoughts, remembrances, rules of thumb, generalizations...