Dune Storybook

"The Dune Storybook" was one of my favorite reads in my younger days. It's hard now for anyone to imagine a Dune book for children, let alone based on a David Lynch movie (I doubt "Mulholland Drive" will be cleaned up for the kids) I found the story engaging and engrossing. "Dune Storybook" makes the complex Frank Herbert story accessible. It shows the breadth and depth of David Lynch's vision in bringing the epic to the screen. There's the mysterious Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, the majestic Princess Irulan, the hideous Baron Harkonnen, the beautiful Chani... as well as the great Paul Atreides. Since this is a children's book, Duke Leto and the Lady Jessica are married. The scene with Sting only in a codpiece is cut out. There's no closing line of Jessica to Chani, "We who now bear the title of concubine, history will call us wives." Still, the story remains. "Dune Storybook" shows that a complicated storyline,as well as an epic movie, can be made kid-friendly. It stands on its own. After all, there weren't children's versions of Lord of the Rings or the Matrix trilogy. As a kid, I liked the Dune Storybook. David Lynch didn't mess me up. Joan Vinge did a great job.

Frank Herbert created one of the most enduring novels time with "Dune" which repeatedly crops up on most lists for greatest science-fiction novels of the 20th century. With "Dune," Frank Herbert showed the world that science-fiction had a serious side. David Lynch's film adaptation of "Dune" may be disappointing to purists who find fault with his tampering with the plot, but nobody can fault him for creating dazzling visual images. Joan D. Vinge captures the scope and complexity of the plot with her excellent streamlined version of the screen-play and the color photos capture the other-worldly feel that the movie so succesfully created.