Monthly Archives: December 2017

Read Dune Weekly Goals

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We recently announced the #ReadDune Group Read and now that we’re only a week away from starting we wanted to share the weekly target reading goals! This is a little tricky as there are so many different editions and each has its own page count. So it makes sense to do this by chapter, right? Right! Only… Frank Herbert didn’t number or name his damn chapters! The NERVE of that author! 😂

So everyone will need to keep count of the chapters they’ve read because we’re going to read a certain number each week. As this can get tricky we have another visual aide: each chapter starts with a section from fictitious history books and we’ll watch for specific chapter openings! This will (hopefully) work!

January week one we will read chapters one through fifteen and stop at the start of chapter sixteen you see pictured here! When you read “Greatness is a transitory experience.” you will have reached stopping point one. Everyone should be here by Saturday January the sixth. Next stopping point:

We will read chapters sixteen through the end of twenty-six and stop at the start of twenty-seven when you read: “At the age of fifteen, he had already learned silence.” This will be the stopping point on Saturday January the 13th. The next stopping point is fun:

That’s right! We stop at Book Three The Prophet! Frank Herbert came through for us on this split! Everyone should strive to be at The Prophet by Saturday January the twentieth.

The last week we shall read to the end of the story. With this pace we will all finish on Saturday January the twenty-seventh and then we’ll all hit play on the cheesy 80’s film adaptation and enjoy!

Read at your own pace but be aware that the conversations will include possible spoilers once we hit a Saturday goal as discussing anything from the week’s reading is fair game on a Saturday and beyond. Above all else please have fun!

Damming The Heresy Or Adding To The Flow?

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When reading a never ending series you realize the only way to reach the end is to never stop reading. That said every so often it’s good to pause and evaluate if you’re enjoying the series. Upon finishing the thirtieth book of The Horus Heresy I decided to do just that.

One of my early complaints about The Heresy was that every few books you’d get a story that didn’t advance the overall storyline. It felt like it would go sideways. This was a way of building up the series, of showing you what was happening all around the Imperium Of Man during The Heresy. The Damnation Of Pythos by David Annandale felt like one of those sideways books and I won’t lie I was a little frustrated by that at the start. Especially considering the previous book actually featured Horus and advanced the story greatly! To go from a book that’s focused on one of the central characters to the Heresy to a book that features a battered and near destroyed company of Space Marines trying to pull themselves together after being almost destroyed in events that took place in the fifth book of the series was a little like changing gears while driving without using a clutch.

However I must admit that as I read on in the book I started to see how this story fits in the overall story, and I was able to appreciate the added depth it brought to series. It’s also an amazing example of GrimDark SciFi such as you often see in the pages of a Warhammer40K book, I say that to say it felt more WH40K than Horus Heresy style and I’m happy with that. This book, whether intentionally or not, started to form more of a bridge between the events of The Horus Heresy and the events of the every day Imperium Of Man in the 40K universe. Less hope and more faith combined with inner struggles and ultimate sacrifices for gains you can’t yet see.

Thirty books into this Heresy and I’m still quite happy with this series and the directions the authors are taking it in. Truth told I’m going to be sad when I reach the end of this never ending series. I’m going to miss it because it has been such a great reading experience.

That said I’m also starting the thirty-first book right now. Because the only way to reach the end of a never ending series is to never stop reading it. Let The Heresy Continue.

Announcing The #ReadDune Group Read For Vintage SciFi Month!

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Officially announcing the #ReadDune GroupRead I’ll be hosting for #VintageSciFiMonth this January!

We’ll be using the #ReadDune hashtag to help keep track and follow along of each other’s posts and be able to enjoy more discussions on it! So break out your copies of Dune by Frank Herbert and let’s start spreading the word!

For those new to how I handle GroupReads here are some details:

Each week we have a target page/location goal in the book. We don’t discuss in detail anything that takes place in the book until we reach that Saturday Goal, and then we discuss only the sections we’ve read so far. You’ll find it works really well. The Group DMs are normally very fun and respectful, and allow for discussing shared emotional reactions, general observations, and encouragement to reach the goal. Once we’ve reached a goal we discuss things that happened in detail and have fun with it. If anyone hasn’t reached the goal they’ll need to be careful about the Group DMs on the weekends as that’s when a lot of specifics get discussed. I’ll be looking into the page counts of the common versions but it’ll probably be between 130-150 pages a week of reading.

What are Group DMs? Everyone who wants to participate will be invited into a group DM on Instagram or on Twitter (whichever social network you prefer). There’s a limit on how many can join so there’ll be a few group DMs created. I’ll be in each one to help moderate and help keep spoilers to a minimum. We’ve got several first time readers joining in so everyone needs to be conscious about posting spoilers! That’s where the page goals will come in to play.

Since we tend to have more than one Group DM I’ll also post a #ReadDune Instagram post and Twitter Post every Saturday Morning so that everyone can publicly discuss the book (up to that page goal) with everyone else easily.

Ready for the cheesy fun part? At the end of it all on either Saturday the 27th or Sunday the 28th depending on people’s schedules we’ll all hit play at the same time on the fun and cheesy 80’s movie edition of Dune and have fun watching the movie together to celebrate finishing the book!

Posting photos of your reading of Dune is highly encouraged! Please post away and use the #ReadDune hashtag and we’d love if you used the #VintageSciFiMonth hashtag too! Above all have fun! This is one of my favorite books, and I think it has a broad appeal. I’m hopeful you’ll like it, but there is no pressure to like it! If you don’t it’s really ok as I’m not the author, just a fan.

Let me know on Twitter or on Instagram if you’ll be joining in! Check out my latest post on Instagram or my pinned tweet on Twitter to respond and let me know if you’re joining!