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A review by thetome
Dune: The Graphic Novel, Book 1 by Kevin J. Anderson, Frank Herbert, Brian Herbert
4.0
The Short Answer
A faithful and competent retelling of the classic sci-fi novel Dune. While never quiet reaching the heights of its source material it is an excellent read in its own way. Worth reading if you want to revisit Dune without reading the entire mammoth novel, and an excellent entryway into try Dune if you've been unable to get into the dense novel.
The Long Answer
This was a great trip into Dune. I was initially hesitant as graphic novel adaptations of books can be very hit and miss. For the most part this book succeeds at being a fantastic read and a fantastic rendering of Frank Herbert's words.
The book starts off a bit weak, something that the original novel suffered from as well. Interestingly its weakness is precisely the opposite of the weakness in the original book. The original book starts off by being incredibly dense. It throws a lot of information at you way to quickly. On a reread this becomes a strength as it fleshes out much of the universe, but it makes the book very hard to get into on a first read. The graphic novel, on the other hand, trims away all the fat allowing for a much smoother entrance into the universe. However so much fat is trimmed that much of the introduction looses its depth, and would often be hard to properly understand without having read the book first.
Thankfully this problem is short lived. Much like the source material, everything falls into place and becomes engaging around the time everyone arrives on the planet of Dune itself. From that point on the book moves briskly, but manages to convey an excellent story of political intrigue. It's amazing how well it works in a visual medium seeing as almost all the truly interesting visuals happen in the upcoming volumes. Here we only get a hint of sandworms and Fremen, and virtually no action to speak of. This puts a lot of work on the art to carry the story and make the characters engaging.
Thankfully the artwork is mostly up to the task. While this isn't my favorite art style, it is technically excellent. The characters are all distinct and easy to identify and the world is exceptionally detailed. I wasn't always convinced of the emotions the characters were feeling, and occasionally the humans feel a bit stiff, but this is rarely a huge drawback. My biggest complaint was that many sequences felt to dark and muddy. A very limited palette is used in a number of places. This creates sequences of low contrast where a lot of the intricate details in the art all blend together. This makes some panels harder to decipher than they should be, and many details are easy to miss.
If I had to guess this art probably looks fantastic on a computer monitor or an iPad, but printed onto paper the loss of backlighting hurts the art a bit. This is a shame because it's such a nice book. The paper quality is excellent, the printing is crisp, and the overall presentation is top notch. I just wish I didn't constantly feel like I needed to turn up the light in order to see all the art properly.
Despite these complaints I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Definitely recommend to anyone who enjoys Dune or is looking for an easy way to sample Dune without going into the huge dense novel of the original. Just always remember, the original is still better.
A faithful and competent retelling of the classic sci-fi novel Dune. While never quiet reaching the heights of its source material it is an excellent read in its own way. Worth reading if you want to revisit Dune without reading the entire mammoth novel, and an excellent entryway into try Dune if you've been unable to get into the dense novel.
The Long Answer
This was a great trip into Dune. I was initially hesitant as graphic novel adaptations of books can be very hit and miss. For the most part this book succeeds at being a fantastic read and a fantastic rendering of Frank Herbert's words.
The book starts off a bit weak, something that the original novel suffered from as well. Interestingly its weakness is precisely the opposite of the weakness in the original book. The original book starts off by being incredibly dense. It throws a lot of information at you way to quickly. On a reread this becomes a strength as it fleshes out much of the universe, but it makes the book very hard to get into on a first read. The graphic novel, on the other hand, trims away all the fat allowing for a much smoother entrance into the universe. However so much fat is trimmed that much of the introduction looses its depth, and would often be hard to properly understand without having read the book first.
Thankfully this problem is short lived. Much like the source material, everything falls into place and becomes engaging around the time everyone arrives on the planet of Dune itself. From that point on the book moves briskly, but manages to convey an excellent story of political intrigue. It's amazing how well it works in a visual medium seeing as almost all the truly interesting visuals happen in the upcoming volumes. Here we only get a hint of sandworms and Fremen, and virtually no action to speak of. This puts a lot of work on the art to carry the story and make the characters engaging.
Thankfully the artwork is mostly up to the task. While this isn't my favorite art style, it is technically excellent. The characters are all distinct and easy to identify and the world is exceptionally detailed. I wasn't always convinced of the emotions the characters were feeling, and occasionally the humans feel a bit stiff, but this is rarely a huge drawback. My biggest complaint was that many sequences felt to dark and muddy. A very limited palette is used in a number of places. This creates sequences of low contrast where a lot of the intricate details in the art all blend together. This makes some panels harder to decipher than they should be, and many details are easy to miss.
If I had to guess this art probably looks fantastic on a computer monitor or an iPad, but printed onto paper the loss of backlighting hurts the art a bit. This is a shame because it's such a nice book. The paper quality is excellent, the printing is crisp, and the overall presentation is top notch. I just wish I didn't constantly feel like I needed to turn up the light in order to see all the art properly.
Despite these complaints I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Definitely recommend to anyone who enjoys Dune or is looking for an easy way to sample Dune without going into the huge dense novel of the original. Just always remember, the original is still better.