Working Daze by John Zakour and Scott Roberts for August 06, 2024

I have been reading science fiction for over 60 years, but I have never been able to slog my way through Dune.

Jay, think man! Do you REALLY want her reading about the Bene Gesserit?

And what if she likes the Harkonnen style of leadership? And decides she just has to have a Harkonnen Chair?

Your idea is duned to failure.

Just have her watch that kids show with the talking buggy.

Tell her it’s a book about shore fishing, using really big worms as bait.

“The Pumpkin Spice Must Flow.”

I know I read the first book and liked it. I think I might have tried to read the second book, but can’t remember. I’m pretty sure I have several of the novels somewhere in my collection. I saw the first movie and really enjoyed it (glad I read the book first, though). Haven’t seen the recent one yet.

Tough? You would stand a better chance at waiting for those ten thousand monkeys at ten thousand typewriters to make some Shakespeare.

Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy would be a better choice. I’ve never met a geek who doesn’t mention something from it once in a while. And she could pick up the most common references just by watching the movie.

I can understand that Rita is not exactly loved by the others. but this is too cruel! Al least let her read Ray Bradbury.

Ditto.

Better than Frank Herbert would be Cordwainer Smith.

From Wikipedia:

His universe featured creations such as:

The planet Norstrilia (Old North Australia), a semi-arid planet where an immortality drug called stroon is harvested from gigantic, virus-infected sheep each weighing more than 100 tons. Norstrilians are nominally the richest people in the galaxy and defend their immensely valuable stroon with sophisticated weapons (as shown in the story “Mother Hitton’s Littul Kittons”). However, extremely high taxes ensure that everyone on the planet lives a frugal, rural life, like the farmers of old Australia, to keep the Norstrilians tough.The punishment world Shayol (cf. Sheol), where criminals are punished by the regrowth and harvesting of their organs for transplantingPlanoforming spacecraft, which are crewed by humans telepathically linked with cats to defend against the attacks of malevolent entities in space, which are perceived by the humans as dragons, and by the cats as gigantic rats, in “The Game of Rat and Dragon”.The Underpeople, animals modified into human form and intelligence to fulfill servile roles, and treated as property. Several stories feature clandestine efforts to liberate the Underpeople and grant them civil rights. They are seen everywhere throughout regions controlled by the Instrumentality.

Names of Underpeople have a single-letter prefix based on their animal species. Thus C’Mell (“The Ballad of Lost C’Mell”) is cat-derived; D’Joan (“The Dead Lady of Clown Town”), a Joan of Arc figure, is descended from dogs; and B’dikkat (“A Planet Named Shayol”) has bovine ancestors.

Did Norstrilla and stroon inspire Dune and Spice? Obviously a very different idea of societies and of the properties of the creatures, so not really copycat. And Mother Hitton’s Little Kittens was published in the same issue of Galaxy as a Frank Herbert story.