Dune books? No, thank you!
Jun. 18th, 2011 01:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
katikatAs you may have noticed, I've fallen in love with the two Dune mini-series - well mostly with Children of Dune but you can't really have one without the other, right? They are great on their own, but what makes them special is this:
The thing is... As much as I like them and as much as I would love to learn more about Leto and Ghani, I won't read the books. Not after I found out what a homophobe Frank Herbert had been - seriously, kicking out his own son for being gay? Classy. I'm just not one of those people who can separate the work and its creator. I just can't.
That's why I'm so happy that Children of Dune is - apparently - really different than the book, starting with Ghani and Leto as teenagers, not little kids. Sure, the main events are the same but after I read what the book's about, I realized that if it weren't for James McAvoy and Jessica Brooks, if they had kept Leto and Ghani as kids... The mini-series just wouldn't have done it for me. I realized that it's not the mini-series itself, it's them, these two actors and their chemistry that's the be all and end all of it for me.
I just don't understand why so many sci-fi writers are homophobic. Orson Scott Card, Anne McCaffrey and now Frank Herbert. And I bet there are dozens and dozens of others. Shouldn't sci-fi be about spreading the wings of your imagination? About discovering new frontiers? But these authors, instead of going forward, are real throwbacks, spreading prejudice instead of tolerance, setting boundaries instead of crushing them. Sad. Really, really sad.
The thing is... As much as I like them and as much as I would love to learn more about Leto and Ghani, I won't read the books. Not after I found out what a homophobe Frank Herbert had been - seriously, kicking out his own son for being gay? Classy. I'm just not one of those people who can separate the work and its creator. I just can't.
That's why I'm so happy that Children of Dune is - apparently - really different than the book, starting with Ghani and Leto as teenagers, not little kids. Sure, the main events are the same but after I read what the book's about, I realized that if it weren't for James McAvoy and Jessica Brooks, if they had kept Leto and Ghani as kids... The mini-series just wouldn't have done it for me. I realized that it's not the mini-series itself, it's them, these two actors and their chemistry that's the be all and end all of it for me.
I just don't understand why so many sci-fi writers are homophobic. Orson Scott Card, Anne McCaffrey and now Frank Herbert. And I bet there are dozens and dozens of others. Shouldn't sci-fi be about spreading the wings of your imagination? About discovering new frontiers? But these authors, instead of going forward, are real throwbacks, spreading prejudice instead of tolerance, setting boundaries instead of crushing them. Sad. Really, really sad.
