Felipe

I've been fan of Neil Gaiman ever since I read Sandman a couple of years ago. I'm always fascinated by his way of tying the themes of his work to the fantasy genre and how, with a few words, achieves images that stay with you. I strongly believe he's one of the best writers we have working today, and after reading a lot of his books and comics I can say that Coraline is one of his bests.

Gaiman has a language in this novel that radiates his style and charisma and uses it to put you in the perspective of a nine year old girl and makes you think and react like her. I've never seen someone describe childhood like this, it's like being a child who wanted to explore and play all day again.

The themes of this book are ones that everyone can feel identified and he portrays them in a way that every person, no matter their age, can comprehend. At the same time, he uses those themes to develop his characters achieving a very particular and lovable cast (especially the protagonist Coraline), but who also has a depth and complexity within them.

But Coraline is a horror book and one that never shies away of that. The novel chooses which moments lean over to these aspect and does it in an excelent way, always taking into account the themes and with the reason for what it's doing, achieving horrofic scenes at the same time that visualy and conceptualy shocking but, some how, that still work for every audience.

Setting up themes and situations since the first page to bring them up again later in the book, developing his plot and set of characters with a prose that puts you in the skin of a girl to small for her age trying to learn what means to be brave and the the value of things, Neil Gaiman achieved a work like no other.

I started reading Dune in preparation for the up coming adaptation by Denis Villeneuve. I had heard a lot of good things about it but I was never a fan of the science fiction genre so I wasn't drawn to it.
That was until a read Frank Herbert's masterpiece.

Dune tells the story of Paul Atreides, a young boy that, along with his family, travel to a planet call Arrakis, also know as Dune. Here, Paul's journey becomes one of growth and adaptation, understanding a different culture and becoming a leader.
But Frank Herbert's work subverts expectations of what a hero's journey is and uses it in favor of the overall theme of the book.

With a particular development of his protagonist, along side of the universe and cultures of his world, Herbert achieves an unique and deep worldbuilding as I only seen a few times.
He uses his main characters in a way that lets you in on the mental process of their desitions, telling you what they are thinking, even in conversations between them. This makes for some of the best parts of the books and I could only wish he did it more often.

At the beginning it can be difficult to understand all the information it contains, mainly because Herbert doesn't stop to explain more than the necessary for the particular scene and even then there're times when one can feel lost, but that feeling fades with the more you read.

But the most important part of Dune is the plot, the story. And Frank Herbert doesn't let anything get in the way of what his trying to tell. Dune goes to the point, everything in the book is for the story to move fowards, even with this unique universe to explore.
This sometimes can make the development of some side characters a little flat but being a saga I hope that this gets better deeper in the subsequent books, but it is a point that I have to highlight.

In conclusion, I think Dune is an unique and interesting book with a very good prose that Herbert utilize to develop his characters and universe. Sometimes it can get a little bit confusing and some characters feel flat but everything else in the book makes up for it.
I only hope that it can improves on his not so high points and expand this world and characters in the rest of the saga.
I wasn't a science fiction fan but once I got hook to Dune I couldn't let it go and I can't wait to read Dune Messiah and beyond.

Children of Dune is the thirth book on the Dune saga, Frank Herbert's masterpiece.
The story occurs 9 years after the events of Messiah. Paul Atreides went into the desert and left Alia, his sister, in charge of Arrakeen until, his two children, Leto and Ghanima grow up and be ready to take command.

With this as a base, Herbert takes us into a journey of self introspective, political manipulations, religion and understanding of the past to learn from it. All of this while, obviously, still takling the most present theme on all the saga, distrust of power figures.

This themes are all introduced in the very beginning and continue to be expanded through the conflict of our characters and the story. This leads to a very well manage set of characters that expand and develop in a very particular way throughthout the book while managing a very consistent pacing that doesn't feel rush or slow in any moment, but one that flows with what the story needs.
And, as we already seen with the previous two books, Frank Herbet always puts the story first, and what story he made.

Full of conspiracies, different cultures and religious groups, the story of Dune continues to impress and astonish with its ideas and concepts while at the same time, executing them in a perfect way. All of it feels like a chess match, with every move happening at the appropriate time while still surprising in the right way. The characters also fall into this structure, serving a specific purpose but with personal conflics involve that helps to develop every single one of them, making a very complex set of characters and with who we can sympathize.

There is almost nothing bad I could say about this book, it even “fix” some development problems the previous two had but if I'm push to say something it would be that this isn't for everyone. Children of Dune requieres of the reader to buy into some ideas and concepts that they can feel “to much” for some people, but they are also the strongest points of the books and Herbert uses them to developt its main themes.

So, to conclude, Children of Dune is a fantastic book, with a great planned story and very well-written and develop characters that always has in mind its themes and one that, if we buy into it, we will be astonish with the level of complexity and ideas it presents.
This books proves that Dune is a saga as no other and one that still, after three books, leaves us excited for the next one.
I can't wait to start God Emperor of Dune

God Emperor of Dune could be considered the start of a new triology in the Dune saga. Tho it follows some of the previous characters introduced in prior books, the changes in the way that it approaches themes and structure, as well as in universe, makes this a completly different expirience that some how still resembles the original material.

The book follows Leto, now transform into the image of a worm, and God Emperor of the universe while it converses with Duncan Idaho and new characters about free will and different themes (sometimes connected and most of the time without any real purpose for the plot).
The story will have some tangents where it describe in-universe politics and religion but most of the time it would be throught exposition delivered by Leto that at least expands his character (sometimes). But I think this is the biggest problem with the book, not the quantity of conversations and dialogues it has (previous books managed this almost perfectly) but the way that it treats them. It doesn't follow any real structure for it story and that translate into conversations without any real point in them that also don't evolve the characters.
This makes you feel that the book doesn't progress at most points, which it's a shame, since the parts where it concentrates in the plot are really interesting.
This is where the character of Duncan shines, since the plot advances through him most of the times, and that allows to develop even more than before.
The rest of the characters aren't very memorable (apart for one or two) and the story doesn't focus enough for them to be.
I can't really talk more about of the book, since it doesn't have any consistent plot most of the times and serves more for a way to expand ideas. The times it has it really work but also don't come close to the previous books since those use their time and conversations to develop their themes and give weight to it.

Tho God Emperor of Dune isn't really terrible and it gives you an interesting read for Dune fans, it was really a disapointment for the way the saga was going.
Parts of it saves it (Duncan for example) but not enought for my to outweight the others.

Let's see how it works within the context of the “next triology”. Into Heretits of Dune.

The masterpiece of Katsuhiro Otomo continues.
Vol.2 expands what it was set in the first one but at the same time still carries the same problems that we saw before.
In this second volume we discover more about the military conspiracy that was introduce to use earlier, what whould be the roll of Tetsuo and the other childrens and who is Akira. Also, we continue following Kaneda and Kei while they try to found out what's happening. And this are without question the best parts of the manga. Trying to figure out what's going on and tying what little information they give us makes this a more complete reading that the first volume. With more information on the conspiracys we can understand a lot more about the themes but without going to much in depth yet.
As the mistery grows in complexity and give us more to be exited about what's to come, the characters don't. We don't see a lot of depth neither in their relatonships or personalites. While they maintain the charismatic dialogue and expresion, this doesn't help to create a real conection with the reader and instead work more as a way to show us what's happening.

Akira Vol.2 is a very enjoyable reading and of course the amazing artwork continues, with excelent us of light and perspective to create depth, but suffers with its cast of characters as they are not the most complex ones.