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The Mystery of the Dune Font

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Re: The Mystery of the Dune Font

#81

Post by int_19h »

themadturk wrote: post #76
andrewla wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I loved Dune, and while I don't think all the original sequels were as strong, I enjoyed them all and have reread them several times over the years. I slogged my way through the first couple of his son's work, but I read the first page of Butlerian Jihad and, for the first time in my life, threw the book against the wall and tossed it in the garbage. Inside his pyramid-shaped vessel, the cymek general Agamemnon led t…

I so wanted the Bulterian Jihad story to be good, or at least decent, because it was always the most intriguing part of the prehistory to me. Oh well.

There are strong indicators that "Jihad" was used not in a sense of armed struggle there, but more akin to a social revolution; "thinking machines" were declared a problem not because they were a physical threat a la Saberhagen's Berserkers, but because their influence on society was deemed overly negative.

Given that, a book that would cover the Jihad would probably be another philosophical treatise in the vein of God-Emperor of Dune.

Re: The Mystery of the Dune Font

#82

Post by yborg »

prepend wrote: post #56
narag wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe he meant typography die-hard fans.

Perhaps. The context made me think it was Dune fans. I would think most typography fans wouldn’t even be aware of Dune.

The book is fairly well known generally, I think. But speaking only for myself, I've been involved with amateur typesetting for some time, and at this point find myself something of a font geek, and as someone who owned the Putnam paperbacks I was immediately interested in the topic.

Re: The Mystery of the Dune Font

#83

Post by NoodleIncident »

narag wrote: post #59
prepend wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps. The context made me think it was Dune fans. I would think most typography fans wouldn’t even be aware of Dune.

To be honest, the same sentence caught my eye. I can imagine there are some fans of both Dune and Typography. But it's more probable that it's due to some effect I've been observing for a while. Not sure if it has a name, all these pieces of Internet wisdom have a name, like "Gell-Man Amnesia", "Godwin's Law"... maybe I could call it narag's effect? I mean that any YouTube channel or Instagram account, that has some…

https://xkcd.com/2501/

Munroe's Law of Average Familiarity: Even when they're trying to compensate for it, experts in anything wildly overestimate the average person's familiarity with their field.

Re: The Mystery of the Dune Font

#84

Post by duskwuff »

int_19h wrote: post #81
themadturk wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I so wanted the Bulterian Jihad story to be good, or at least decent, because it was always the most intriguing part of the prehistory to me. Oh well.

There are strong indicators that "Jihad" was used not in a sense of armed struggle there, but more akin to a social revolution; "thinking machines" were declared a problem not because they were a physical threat a la Saberhagen's Berserkers, but because their influence on society was deemed overly negative. Given that, a book that would cover the Jihad would probably be another philosophical treatise in the vein of G…

The Dune Encyclopedia had a couple of articles on the Butlerian Jihad. All of the material was invented for that work -- Frank Herbert's novels only had the barest shred of explanation of what it was -- but their theory was fairly reasonable, and were consistent with the spirit of his writing. (In summary, a hospital's "self-programming computer" terminated a Bene Gesserit woman's pregnancy; her protests ignited existing tensions against computers and high technology.)

Re: The Mystery of the Dune Font

#85

Post by duskwuff »

jonah-archive wrote: post #4
dvh wrote: post #3

I have nothing to add to the font aspect but here's fellow HNer's advice how to approach these books: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20859569

re the advice in that post -- I completely agree but I would say that if you enjoy God Emperor (I do, deeply), between that and Heretics go read _The Dune Encyclopedia_, which is a hard-to-find paperback but an easy-to-find PDF written as an in-universe encyclopedia set after God Emperor. Yes, some things in it are contradicted by the remaining two books, but it adds such a powerful structure to the extant universe i…

> Yes, some things in it are contradicted by the remaining two books

At a surface level, yes.

At a deeper level, the authors of the Encyclopedia themselves exist as researchers in the Dune universe, and can be mistaken about their findings. :)

Re: The Mystery of the Dune Font

#86

Post by nickff »

prepend wrote: post #56
narag wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe he meant typography die-hard fans.

Perhaps. The context made me think it was Dune fans. I would think most typography fans wouldn’t even be aware of Dune.

I take an interest in typography (have read a few books on the subject), and read the entire "Dune" series, but never learned about the typeface on the covers.

Re: The Mystery of the Dune Font

#87

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

nickff wrote: post #86
prepend wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps. The context made me think it was Dune fans. I would think most typography fans wouldn’t even be aware of Dune.

I take an interest in typography (have read a few books on the subject), and read the entire "Dune" series, but never learned about the typeface on the covers.

There are 18 pages of subsequent editions listed on Goodreads, with all manner of designs and aesthetics.

Someone who bought one of these very early editions when they first appeared will be in their late 60s or early 70s now.

I'm a fan of Dune and typography and I had no idea they existed.

Re: The Mystery of the Dune Font

#89

Post by legohead »

dvh wrote: post #3

I have nothing to add to the font aspect but here's fellow HNer's advice how to approach these books: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20859569

I'm in the process of reading the 6 books. Once I got spoiled and saw what the God Emperor was, I just had to know how it came to be. My first attempt at reading the series about 20 years ago died on book 3, which I never finished.

Now I'm on book 3 again. Messiah was difficult. So complicated, little (no?) action, but I do enjoy some political intrigue so I slogged through it. Book 3 is better, with really interesting parts intermixed with slow. I'm forcing myself through all the books this time.

It's just so slow reading for me. Dune 1 was so fantastic and fascinating. The other ones (so far) have such heavy, dense writing and ideas, I am constantly re-reading pages.

Re: The Mystery of the Dune Font

#90

Post by narag »

NoodleIncident wrote: post #83
narag wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, the same sentence caught my eye. I can imagine there are some fans of both Dune and Typography. But it's more probable that it's due to some effect I've been observing for a while. Not sure if it has a name, all these pieces of Internet wisdom have a name, like "Gell-Man Amnesia", "Godwin's Law"... maybe I could call it narag's effect? I mean that any YouTube channel or Instagram account, that has some…

https://xkcd.com/2501/ Munroe's Law of Average Familiarity: Even when they're trying to compensate for it, experts in anything wildly overestimate the average person's familiarity with their field.

LOL, of course... where else?
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