Frank Herbert’s Dune to be directed by Peter Berg and released by Paramount

Frank Herbert goes in a completely new direction with his fourth book in the Dune series, God Emperor of Dune. This novel has quite a different feel than the first three. The setting takes place 3500 years after the ending of Children of Dune. Dune’s ecological transformation is complete except for a small patch of desert. As a result of the transformation, the sandworms (and the supply of new spice) died off. Leto has almost completely transformed into a sandworm, and has taken over as leader of the galaxy. He’s been working on his “Golden Path” all this time while sitting on the last big hoard of spice. (more…)

It has been a while since I have read anything by Timothy Zahn. I loved his Star Wars Thrawn Trilogy and Hand of Thrawn Duology. I also enjoyed the Conquerors’ Trilogy. I’d like to go back and re-read those sometime in the future, but for now I’m focusing on chipping away at my collection of books I haven’t read yet. I was very pleased at how well Zahn developed the Zhirrzh in the Conquerors’ Trilogy, so I was curious to see how well he does here in Manta’s Gift.

The Qanska are not the typical aliens you would expect so see in a Sci-Fi novel. They look like huge manta rays flying through the various levels of ever thicker atmosphere in Jupiter. The vast majority of aliens that I have read about have been humanoid. The ones that are not humanoid are usually portrayed as monsters (Starship Troopers), or there is a huge communication gap. Zahn challenges this stereotype and succeeds in describing a completely unique and intelligent alien race.
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