Kirjahaku

Considered by many to be unadaptable due to its length and complexity, Frank Herbert's science fiction epic Dune has made it to the screen about every two decades. David Lynch was the first director to successfully make a film adaptation in 1984, but his version of Dune was heavily criticized for numerous reasons. John Harrison's 2000 television miniseries Frank Herbert's Dune was a success for the Sci-Fi Channel and won Emmys, yet has mostly been forgotten. Meanwhile, Denis Villeneuve's 2021 film Dune: Part One won Oscars but only adapted the first two-thirds of the book, leaving viewers waiting for the conclusion. Each director expressed concern with staying faithful to the world's bestselling science fiction book while attempting to bring to life its characters, settings, and story. But in the end, how faithful were they to Frank Herbert's 1965 masterpiece? Adaptations of Dune: Frank Herbert's Story on Screen dives into this topic by analyzing each screen adaptation and its degree of faithfulness to Herbert's book. Collecting information from a wide range of sources, Kara Kennedy provides thorough background information and context for each adaptation before exploring such wide-ranging topics as the story, script, setting, costuming, characters, and more. Through this process, she uncovers the changes made during adaptation and reveals how faithful each screen adaptation is to its source material.

This book undertakes the first large-scale analysis of women’s agency in Frank Herbert’s six-book science fiction Dune series. Kara Kennedy explores how female characters in the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood—from Jessica to Darwi Odrade—secure control and influence through five avenues of embodied agency: mind-body synergy, reproduction and motherhood, voices, education and memory, and sexuality. She also discusses constraints on their agency, tensions between individual and collective action, and comparisons with other characters including the Mentats, Bene Tleilaxu, and Honored Matres. The book engages with second-wave feminist theories and historical issues to highlight how the series anticipated and paralleled developments in the women’s liberation movement. In this context, it addresses issues regarding sexual difference and solidarity, as well as women’s demand to have control over their bodies. Kennedy concludes that the series should be acknowledged as a significant contribution to the genre as part of both New Wave and feminist science fiction.

This book undertakes the first large-scale analysis of women’s agency in Frank Herbert’s six-book science fiction Dune series. Kara Kennedy explores how female characters in the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood—from Jessica to Darwi Odrade—secure control and influence through five avenues of embodied agency: mind-body synergy, reproduction and motherhood, voices, education and memory, and sexuality. She also discusses constraints on their agency, tensions between individual and collective action, and comparisons with other characters including the Mentats, Bene Tleilaxu, and Honored Matres. The book engages with second-wave feminist theories and historical issues to highlight how the series anticipated and paralleled developments in the women’s liberation movement. In this context, it addresses issues regarding sexual difference and solidarity, as well as women’s demand to have control over their bodies. Kennedy concludes that the series should be acknowledged as a significant contribution to the genre as part of both New Wave and feminist science fiction.

This book offers a critical study of Frank Herbert’s Dune (1965), the world’s bestselling science fiction novel. Kara Kennedy discusses the novel’s exploration of politics and religion, its influential ecological messages, the focus on the human mind and consciousness, the complex nature of the archetypal hero, and the depiction of women’s influence and control. In Dune, Herbert demonstrated that sophistication, complexity, and a multi-layered world with three-dimensional characters could sit comfortably within the science fiction genre. Underneath its deceptively simple storyline sits a wealth of historical and philosophical contexts and influences that make it a rich masterpiece open to multiple interpretations. Kennedy’s study shows the continuing relevance of the novel in the 21st century due to its classic themes and its concerns about the future of humanity, as well as the ongoing nature of issues such as ecological disruption and conflicts over resources and religion.