Happy Birthday, Frank Herbert and R. L. Stine

[filkertom]

Herbert in 1920, Stine in 1943.

Any favorite works by either? I admit to being completely unfamiliar with Stine's work; just never got around to 'em. I also admit to not being a fan of the Dune series. The first book of the series, though, I must have read fifty times, and I've completely destroyed two paperback copies from wearing them out.

Comments

[cktraveler.livejournal.com]

I've tried to read R.L. Stine a few times, and never got more than a few pages in. Painful.

There are young adult books I can read and enjoy even now (I re-read The Westing Game for the eighth time only a few weeks ago) but Stine's ain't among them.

[bastian1967.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed the Dune series but as for a favourite Herbert novel, I would have to say Hellstrom's Hive

[allandaros.livejournal.com]

I quite agree with you regarding the Dune series. I mean...Paul's kid becomes a sandworm. Er, WHAT?

I actually picked up a book of some Herbert short stories, and they are pretty awesome. Reads like spiffy Golden Age SF so far.

[brithistorian.livejournal.com]

The first Herbert book I read was God-Emperor of Dune - our local library had one Herbert book, and someone picked that one! Still, it gave me enough knowledge of the world to be able to actually understand the Alan Smithee Dune movie when it came out. Which then inspired me to go read Dune (which I was kind of turned off of after reading God-Emperor) and I was blown away. I still haven't read any of the other books in the series, either his or his son's.

I've never read any R.L. Stine, but my 11-year-old son has read a bunch of them and liked them. Stine and Rowling are his two favorite fiction authors (not that he's a big fiction reader - last time we went to the library, his books of choice were two chemistry books; the time before that, it was refrigeration technology).

Herbert & Stine

[real-yoyogod.livejournal.com]

I liked Dune. The only book by Stine I ever read was Superstitious, which was supposedly written for adults. That was a terrible, terrible book.

[peachtales.livejournal.com]

I love Dune, but none of the other Herbert books ever really got me interested. I pick up one at the library every once in a while, or read at the book store, but they are just not anywhere near the same quality IMO.
Stine never hooked me, but my little sister enjoyed them a lot when she was a kid.

[elisabeth.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm the odd one out, here, being a fully-fledged fan of the Dune series. I'm still missing one of the big compendiums that's been released, but I have all of the rest of them; even the hardcovers are starting to show serious wear and tear from frequent use. My favorite Herbert novel, though is The Santaroga Barrier (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Santaroga_Barrier) [link goes to Wiki]. It first fell into my hands on my 8th birthday, and there's been a copy in one form or another in my collection ever since.

Stine... just never impressed me. Not bad, necessarily, but the books never managed to get my attention.

[animator55.livejournal.com]

I read Dune for the first time when I was in 4th Grade, when my dad gave me one of his old copies. (I still have his near mint condition first edition hardcover). I have nearly all of Frank Herbert's novels, I'm only missing maybe 5. He still remains to be my favorite author.

As for R.L. Stine, I remember reading some Goosebumps as a kid, and liking the ones about the Ventriloquist Dummy coming alive, though that was probably due to already having seen "Child's Play" and it reminded me of Chucky. He wrote at least three of those books.

[wormquartet.livejournal.com]

R.L. Stine used to write funny kids' books under the name "Jovial Bob Stine." They were goofy as all getout and I loved them when I was a young'un.

I don't know if any of these are available anymore, but "Don't Stand In The Soup" was probably my favorite.

-=ShoEboX=-

[purpleranger.livejournal.com]

I read the original DUNE once. I thought it was dry as Arrakkis (sp?) itself.

[galicola.livejournal.com]

what you said, and I never even attemted to read the Dune prequels.

I read Dune in the original english, and in the excellent hebrew translation of Emanuel Lottem (Israel's top SF translator). Some even say that Lottem's translation is better than the original. I just think that it's as good as the original (something which is hard to say of most translations).

[nightmarewriter.livejournal.com]

Dune, I could never get into, but I really liked a couple of his other books: The Dosadi Experiment and The Whipping Star. They're related, and talk about strange social issues.

Haven't read them in like 15 years, but what I remember is that in Dosadi, people were put on a hell hole to toughen them up, and they ended up surprising the experimentors (and turning the tables?).

A side thing in Dosadi was that Stars were sentient people, and in Whipping Star, a guy hires a star to Incorporate into flesh so he could get his kicks by whipping her, and a lot of the book is about concerned people trying to get her to stop because it was wrong, and she was having a real hard time understanding that.

Need to dig those out and re-read them.