Wednesday, October 02, 2002 6:53 PM

Hari Selden is Dune but not forgotten

It is my habit to read several books at a time. Which leads to interesting discussions, remember the time that old Flem Snopes (quite a name, Bill) caught Hans Castorp crossing the River Styx?

I am reading three, count ‘em, three science fiction classics in various guises and under varied posthumous authorship. At a large retail book shop this weekend I weakened. Purchased for 30% off the cover price the latest web of Dune, The Butlerian Jihad. The beginnings of all, the Bene Gesserit, The Guild, Arrakis, the Harkonnens, the Atriedes.

Last summer I read, with growing dismay and more and more pain Frank Herbert’s entire saga. After the first and magnificent Dune, it is definitely a downhill romp traveling an ever steeper uphill path. The story line passes strange into the plain unpleasant. I picked up the Prelude to Dune novels, Brian Herbert (the son) and Kevin Anderson, breezed through House Atreides with some interest, but stopped dead after a chapter or two of House Harkonnen (not really a fault of the book, jes’ little ole me) and have House Corinno sitting on the shelf along with the raucous jeers of many a neglected volume as I move from room to room in the middle of the night. I have read with some interest the first 50 or 60 pages of this new so-called legends (Butlerian Jihad – Volume 1) trilogy.

Never satisfied with a subject that reveals way too much I moved on to the Prelude to Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Series. Strangely called by the then older and mutton chopped Doctor, Prelude to Foundation, an intimate portrait of Hari Selden in the years that he formulated “psychohistory” The three Foundation novels did not leave me panting for more on my initial perusal. My second reading was only slightly more friendly. (An aside: I was recently pleased by some of Asimov’s musings in his Guide to Shakespeare; the good Doc actually gave me some interesting information and insight). On I will to Foundation’s Edge, I think. The whole series chronology is mucked up because Isaac insists on including his Robot novels in the timeline. The three B’s of science fiction have added to the confusion, Greg Benford, Greg Bear and David Brin, each contributing a volume in the Second Foundation Trilogy, unless of course another B wants to join in for a fourth. Oh no maybe they will continue in alphabetical order..A for Asimov, B for etc…)

This strange call for synthesis in the last days of writing also affected Robert A. Heinlein, who decided to include everyone and every fiction in his last (and mostly unreadable) novels. The Beast of the Apocalypse becomes 666 to the 666th power parallel universes. Sherlock Holmes, Julius Caesar, Flem Snopes, D’Artagnan, Winston Churchill, and Isabel Archer meet Michael Valentine Smith, Lorenzo Smythe and Lazarus Long. (River World (Philip Jose Farmer) another trilogy that has swelled to five or more, was a river along whose banks everyone who ever lived resided, Mark Twain and Mussolini some of the heroes) (Is this just a science fiction trend or does it reside in Yoknapatawpha County as well?) Perhaps this is why I have enjoyed reading such a constant mélange of genre and form. Am I longing for my end synthesis?

I start my four or fifth re-reading of Stranger in a Strange Land. My first in 9th grade French class buried under the Allons Mes Amis textbook (or was that Dune?). Poor Heinlein, libertarian and gracious soul, was plagued by long haired sixties Manson looking gurus who showed up at his Colorado Springs home looking to grok and share water. Must have been a trial!

At least Stranger has no prequel or sequel although the uncut edition has been released. However by working within his later synthetic ideal, he has made the longest series of all. His “future history” is not only the bulk of all his work, but all human endeavor. I will be a long time on this reading trail.

I have all but abandoned TV. (Watch Tech TV and schmaltz romance movies on the weekends and sometimes fall asleep like a puppy dog satisfied with the ersatz ticking of his mother’s heart). I look in the weekly entertainment magazine of the newspaper longing for a movie. After I darken my seeking finger with newspaper ink pressing passionately down the list of theaters and times, I usually shrug and decide to stay home. Hollywood has been taken over by screenwriters who believe that foreshadow, special effect and subtext pass for visual and story. Misguided. Stage plays and live music cost more than my disposable income can bear. I write, but le bon dieu and I know how much satisfaction that affords.

In the third century of the greater galactic era Joe warped off to Andromeda Galaxy. He said he went out after a bag of chocolate flavored rice cakes….