Halo’s TV Show Is an Utter Disappointment

I’m staring at my laptop screen guiltily, realizing that this, the first post I’ve posted in months, is not to share some life achievement or to inundate you, my Above Average readers, with the superb writing skills I’ve purportedly been honing while I’ve been gone.

Instead I’m going to complain about a TV show.

But goddammit, I can’t help it.

You want to know why I’ve been so absent lately? It’s because of work. I edit, write, and assist in managing a website that focuses primarily on gaming content, and trust me when I say it’s not as fun-filled as it sounds. It takes discipline to be on top of your schedule, diplomacy to work with the various (honestly wonderful, who am I kidding) personality types in our online spaces, and dedication to be working 42-hour weeks on average. (Sometimes it’s more.)

So in my downtime, I like to take some time to actually enjoy the medium my career now orbits around. I play games and I watch TV shows related to these games.

And as you, my faithful Above Average readers, might know by now, there is no gaming franchise I adore more than Halo.

And fucking fuck, they messed it all up.

I didn’t go into the new Paramount Plus show with bitter pessimism. I went into it with eager hope. And those first three episodes had me mightily intrigued. I liked a lot of the things this Silver timeline was dishing out.

Side note: For those of you not in the know, the Halo TV series has crafted this “Silver timeline” that stands separate from the events in the games and books and assorted canon materials. It’s basically a carte blanche to work with the content of the games without having to be bound by their existing narrative.

And while I wasn’t keen on Master Chief removing his helmet (the Halo equivalent of blowing your load outside of the restaurant before you’ve even met that first date), I wasn’t uber pissed about it. I was patient. Willing to see what they were going to give me.

They gave me a heaping pile of Moa shit.

They presented this character named Kwan Ha to us in the first episode as if she would be a foil to Master Chief. Where he was a jaded, brainwashed super soldier, she would be the spirited rebel with no desire to submit to the UNSC, the one to convince him to break free.

But they basically spent two episodes together and then never saw each other again.

And while Kwan Ha’s background appeared interesting, we never got the chance to really see it aside from one flashback. You can’t expect me to care as much about a side story you did not even have the decency to fully develop when you then decides to give it its own whole episode.

That’s not to say there weren’t good moments in the show. Many of the action setpieces were awesome, and I actually really liked the characters of Cortana, Dr. Halsey, Kai, and Captain Keyes.

But you know who I grew to loathe?

Master frickin’ Chief.

Or should I say John?

I don’t know who they think the Master Chief is, but it’s definitely not the douche nozzle they gave us.

I don’t even care that they showed his face at this point! Could they at least have made him less of a jerk?

Side note: I’d also like it if they could make Master Chief a person who does not sleep with a Covenant spy. That would be nifty. That would be really swell.

He frequently makes the most irrational of decisions, leaving us fans wondering hopelessly at what his motivations are. He gets angry in almost every pivotal moment in this one episode, and it just cements him as this unlikable person. It says something about how a character has been developed when you find yourself sympathizing with the scientist who kidnapped, experimented on, and lied to him rather than him.

For instance, at one point, Master Chief removes this emotion-blocking pellet from his lower spine so he can feel his feelings better. A fellow Spartan, Kai, sees this and gets the idea to do it herself. However, when she almost happily presents him with this information, he gets mad at her and declares her unfit for combat.

HYPOCRITE, MUCH?

Look, the thing that’s so cool about Master Chief is how much he gives and does for humanity, with little to no thought for his well-being. The drive he has to finish his fights and protect humanity whatever the cost makes him a hero.

You don’t see that here in the show. At all. You get a bit of it at the ending, but it feels less like a heroic act and more like a well-there-is-literally-nothing-else-I-can-do-to-get-out-of-this-situation act.

And I get it. Master Chief as he is in the games is a larger-than-life character. It’s tough to translate that to a TV show and have him be this relatable person.

Which is why this show should not have been about Master Chief.

Master Chief could have been a prominent figure in the show, but the main character should have been someone like Kwan Ha or Miranda Keyes or a random UNSC marine. Someone just trying to get through the struggles of a human-Covenant war from a position and perspective we could understand more easily.

If any of my Above Average readers are Halo fans, do you remember Forward Unto Dawn, that little miniseries 343 Industries did to promote Halo 4? That is a perfect example of what I’m talking about.

Lasky was just a dude with an allergy trying to figure out if he wanted to stay in school or not, with an intimidating mom and an older brother everyone thought was better. And when his school got attacked by the Covenant and Chief rescued some of Lasky and his classmates, he looked friggin’ awesome and amazing, but he did not detract in any way from Lasky’s story. If anything, he enhanced it. He inspired Lasky to be a better man, a better soldier in times of crisis. When Lasky decides to be a distraction so Chief can get a better angle on a Hunter, that moment is all Lasky. You are cheering for him, even though Master Chief is being way cool and flipping around sticking plasma grenades on the Hunter.

Side note: AXIOS!

That’s what this show should have been.

Okay, I’ve moaned and complained about this little video game television show enough. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not a big deal that it sucks eggs. I got to watch the show with a friend who loves Halo as much as I do, and that made the whole thing pretty funny, even though we were both shrieking, “What?!” more than half the time an episode was on.

I feel the need to apologize for not posting much, i.e. at all, these past few weeks. It’s not been some glorious vacation or anything. Work has been work. I spend hours of my day plugged into my computer, stuck in my computer chair, doing computer things for a job that entails a lot of computer. And when I’m done, I find myself wanting to hang out as far away from my computer as I can. Sometimes I’ll go for a nice walk; sometimes I’ll flop on the couch and watch YouTube videos. Other times, I’ll turn on my Xbox and play a few games.

Side note: My Xbox is not my computer, shush. It’s an entirely different thing, not the same at all. I’m on the couch when I play.

So I’m sorry for not being around much.

Actually, heck, I don’t know why I’m apologizing. I’m not sure how many of you are still with me. I don’t even look at my stats page anymore. For all I know, I’m posting this into the void. But it was fun to write it.

And as I keep reminding myself, that’s what matters. That it’s fun. And as long as it’s fun, I’ll keep doing it.

See you in the next post, my glorious, possibly nonexistent, Above Average readers!

I rate Paramount Plus’ Halo series a my-god-it-is-below-average-it-is-so-below-average-it’s-worse-than-my-blog-and-that’s-saying-something-because-my-blog-sucks.

Were It So Easy: Halo Infinite Review

I’ve waited a long time to review a new Halo game. I didn’t have this blog back when Halo 4 and Halo 5: Guardians came out. But ever since I made one, I’ve been champing at the bit to review Halo things.

The problem is, Halo things don’t just fall from trees. It’s been seven years since Halo 5 came out. Presumably, some of those years were taken up developing Halo Infinite.

And I spent all of those years yearning for a new Halo experience.

I’ve loved Halo for a long, long time.

I’m in no way the best Halo player out there. Far from it. In fact, you could probably count me as one of the worst players. I’m too brash in multiplayer, with no skills to back it up. I don’t bother spending time learning new tricks to make myself a better player either. I am the bane of my teammates’ existence.

But god help me, I love the games. I love the feel of them, the sound of them, the story of them, everything.

The soundtrack sends me in raptures.

I used to annoy my sister all the time, asking her to replay the campaigns with me. She got so fed up with me, my mother eventually had to step in and guilt-trip her into playing with me so I wouldn’t sulk and play alone.

My closest friends have all played Halo with me couch co-op style at some point during our friendship. Even the ones who don’t play video games.

I have more Halo books on my shelves than I do Stephen King books, and if you know how much I love Stephen King, you know that’s saying something.

So when I say I was “excited” for Halo Infinite, you’ll know that’s the understatement of the year.

This past December, Halo Infinite’s campaign released. Admittedly, it started off on the wrong foot for me because it released without a co-op option, but I kept an open mind.

And now, after having played it, I can say that Halo Infinite…

…is good.

It isn’t perfect, but it is good.

And I am thoroughly okay with that.

The Story

To briefly summarize Halo’s narrative is rough. A ton of things have happened over the course of the five mainline games, six spin-offs, and the multitude of novels centered around its universe.

So I’m not even going to try to summarize everything. Rather, I’ll just let you know what you can expect from Halo Infinite’s story alone.

Halo 5 saw Cortana’s rise to power over the whole galaxy, using Forerunner technology to bring every sentient species to its knees. Master Chief and the rest of humanity have to rally what little they can muster to counterattack.

Infinite starts with the Chief and the UNSC forces interrupted in the midst of eliminating Cortana by a force of grumpy ex-Covenant known as the Banished. The leader of the Banished actually defeats Master Chief, which means six months later, Chief has to pick up the pieces of what happened while he was out of commission.

The plan to defeat Cortana worked, but the Banished now have control of Zeta Halo, one of the giant ring-shaped superweapons the Forerunners left hanging around the universe. Given the temperament of the Brute in charge of the Banished, the notion of them having such a superweapon at their disposal is terrifying.

Master Chief, along with a reluctant Pelican pilot who just wants to go home and an eager-to-please AI known as the Weapon, has to reclaim Zeta Halo inch by inch, defeat the Banished at every turn, and contend with a new foe that is lingering on the ringworld as well.

Right off the bat, you can kind of tell that Halo Infinite ignores most of the story from Halo 5: Guardians. Though it uses its predecessor’s narrative to jumpstart its plot, Infinite charts its own course when it comes to the story. Gone is the excessive amount of characters introduced in Halo 5. Infinite focuses on a smaller, core group of characters, which means the emotional journey each one takes feels more impactful.

Things are able to breathe with fewer characters. It was hard to care about Locke, Vale, Tanaka, Buck, Chief, Linda, Kelly, and Fred in Halo 5: Guardians because that’s eight people indirectly vying for attention.

In Infinite, we are happily limited to caring about Chief, the Weapon, and the Pilot. When they go through a trauma, express reservations, or crack a joke, you just feel more because they are our human connections to the world we’re exploring and the narrative we’re traversing.

Infinite also improves upon the antagonists this time around. Fuck Prometheans. The Banished are where it’s at. Damn, I have missed Brutes.

In Halo 4 and Halo 5, these Promethean warriors were your enemies, but they were basically robots. They didn’t have a “personality.”

Brutes do.

They will get angry at Chief, taunt Chief, bum-rush him when they land in nearby drop pods.

Escharum, the leader of the Banished by the time Chief wakes up from his six-month nap, also has such a presence throughout the game. He’ll leave these long-winded messages gloating over the Chief. In a weird way, Escharum is happy the Chief survived because he wants a challenge in his life.

And it’s kind of nice to have a villain who wants you around.

That’s not to say I didn’t miss characters I was introduced to in the prior two games. Lasky is briefly mentioned in audio logs, and I found myself hungering for more information about him. I seriously wanted to know if he survived the destruction of the Infinity.

Hell, even Locke was referred to in an audio log, and I found myself wishing I knew more about what he and Osiris were up to during the events of Halo Infinite.

If you were unsatisfied with Halo 5: Guardian’s story, I think Infinite will be a balm to your soul. It feels more like a “Halo story,” if that makes sense, with less exposition and more experiences than in Halo 5.

The Open World

Many were surprised to learn that Halo Infinite would have an open-world structure to its campaign. While the series has definitely dabbled with an open world in levels like The Silent Cartographer, the games have all consisted of linear mission design.

When you’re first dropped onto Zeta Halo, there is this sense of wonder. You can see mountains in the distance, lightly touched by the rising sun, and you can feel awed at the assurance that you can in fact walk (and by walk, I mean sprint/grapple) to the top of that mountain.

Infinite encourages this sense of wonder at every turn. Fall damage is completely gone. You can shuttle up and down cliffs without having to worry about spraining the Chief’s ankle. And the addition of the Grappleshot means you can scale the tallest mountainsides with a few quick thrusts.

Sprinkled throughout the map are story objectives, upgrade locations, boss fights, unlockable FOBs, hidden audio logs, and rescue missions.

When I was in the middle of playing the game, I bemusedly asked my coworker if he thought they had cluttered the game with useless side content, like in current Assassin’s Creed titles.

He said, and I quote, “Yeah, I guess they did Ubisoft [Halo], but they did it in a classy way.”

The spacing of these missions and collectibles feels right, not too cluttered, not too far out. I never groaned to myself and thought, “Oh damn, another FOB to unlock.” I had fun opening up the map for myself.

However, I have two big complaints about the way Infinite is structured.

For one thing, while what we see of Zeta Halo feels grand and gorgeous when we first step onto its surface, it quickly becomes a bit monotonous. Gone is the variety of environments that we used to see in Halo games. There are no snowy levels, desert levels, swampy levels, or city levels.

You are either on the wooded surface of the ring or in the metallic interior. Those two environments are what you will constantly see while playing Halo Infinite, and while traversing the ring never gets tiring, the setting eventually wears out its welcome.

My second complaint deals in nostalgia.

As I said earlier, I love replaying the Halo campaigns. Every so often, I’ll still say, “You know what? I want to play Truth and Reconciliation.” And I’ll pop in Halo: CE and load up that third mission.

You can’t have that in Infinite.

The open-world format means no self-contained missions, and I kind of miss the cleanliness of being able to pick out one I like and replay it. If I want to replay a moment from Halo Infinite…I’m going to have to start the campaign from scratch.

The Combat

Oh my god.

I love the way combat feels in Halo Infinite.

The physics-fun nature of it, the glory of the Grappleshot, the sheer joy of a weapons sandbox that finally feels useful again.

Halo 4 and Halo 5: Guardians suffered from a terrible weapons sandbox. Half of the weapons in those games didn’t feel fun to use, so you never bothered with them. Of the roughly twenty-five weapons in Halo Infinite, on the other hand, I think I’m not fond of only two.

My favorite weapons to use were the Sidekick (the new pistol that has replaced the Magnum from previous Halo games), the Shock Rifle (this zappy sniper rifle thing that just looks super cool), and the Heatwave (a total Dead Space plasma cutter rip-off, but I love it).

Fighting the different enemies on Zeta Halo is also more fun than dealing with the Wardern Eternal a gazillion times.

The Banished have such a personality. I already said this in the story section, but it’s true in the combat too. Brutes either rush you in this mad rage, or they relentlessly shoot you with weapons as they taunt you. Elites are more reserved, and you have to deal with their shields. Jackals now have a new way to hold their shields as they fire at you, making them surprisingly tough to get used to as an enemy type. And Grunts…

…they’re just adorable.

Halo Infinite has given Grunts the best bits of dialogue I’ve yet heard from them in a Halo game. They’re cowardly, they’re snarky, they shriek, they cackle. And someone needs to give that Grunt Propaganda Officer a raise.

One of the new ways Infinite places you in a combat scenario is through boss fights. In both open-world areas and in story moments, the Master Chief has to go up against some tough Banished baddies, and overall, it’s a fun and challenging experience.

That said, there were some moments that just utterly ticked me off.

I’m going to go right out and say it, I was not fond of the Escharum boss battle. Close quarters with a rampaging Brute holding a Gravity Hammer that practically one-shots you with a health bar that diminishes in millimeters?

Color me not interested.

I like tough fights, don’t get me wrong. But Escharum bordered a bit on the unfair and unfun. My boss fight with him devolved into me swinging from one side of a cramped room to another, shooting at him for two seconds, then repeating. I whittled his health down bit by bit, and I was grimacing the whole time.

Conclusion

I desperately missed the couch co-op element of Halo games while I was playing Infinite, not just because it’s fun to play games with friends, but because Infinite itself feels like it would reach pinnacles of greatness if you had a buddy by your side playing it with you.

It captures the wonder of the original games almost perfectly, and it maintains it for a surprising amount of time given the lack of variety in environments.

The combat has also never felt better to me. It might not be the “competitive” type of gameplay fans of Halo 5: Guardians preferred, but it feels like Halo.

Approaching encounters and enemies in Halo Infinite is different every time. I could be tackling the same objective as someone else, but we could both go about it in very different ways, which heightens the game’s replay value.

And that’s considering that it may be harder to replay Halo Infinite because that means starting from the very beginning.

But I can definitely say it will be worth it.

I rate Halo Infinite a joy-to-play-for-a-long-time-Halo-fan-and-a-massive-relief-like-I-swear-a-weight-has-dropped-from-my-shoulders-faster-than-a-Scorpion-tank-drops-on-an-unsuspecting-ODST.

Cosmically Extraordinary: The Artful Escape Review

I’m going to take this moment and say thank god for Xbox Game Pass. I’m not one to needlessly promote things, but dude, if you like video games and you own an Xbox, you need to get Xbox Game Pass. It is such a good deal.

If I didn’t have Xbox Game Pass, I never would have gotten the opportunity to play The Artful Escape.

Forgive me for sounding hoity-toity (and for sounding like Captain Obvious), but this is a game that is more than a game; it’s goddamn art. The Artful Escape is not a story that needs to be told. It’s an experience that needs to be absorbed.

I picked it up on a lark, downloading it because of its small file size and eye-catching cover art. However, going into The Artful Escape blind was a blessing, so while I am going to go over spoilers in this post, if you have any intention of playing it, I recommend stopping right here. Not knowing what to expect is a large part of its charm.

On the surface, The Artful Escape is just a 2D platformer with some light Simon-says QTEs thrown in. You move your character left or right as you travel through various areas, occasionally jumping over gaps and ridges. As for the button-pressing, you just have to remember musical patterns and input them in the correct order.

But boiling it down to these gameplay components is doing the title a grave disservice. The game as a whole is so much more than that.

You play as one Francis Vendetti, an aspiring young musician who lives under the shadow of his “Bob Dylan” uncle. Okay, so at no point does the game outright say that Johnson Vendetti (Francis’ uncle) is Bob Dylan, but just give one of his songs a listen. We all know who they were trying to emulate.

Anyways, the legend of Johnson Vendetti, folk singer extraordinaire, is immense, so it’s no wonder that Francis feels a weighted obligation to live up to his reputation. However, it’s clear Francis is yearning to forge a bold new identity for himself.

With the help of some new friends, Francis thus begins a cosmic journey to find himself.

Technically speaking, Francis starts his journey to help famed guitarist Lightman perform for the ever-discerning Glamourgonn. But even though typing that sentence was really cool, it’s beside the point.

You see, even though Francis is being teleported across the Cosmic Extraordinary, meeting zany musicians and absurdly brilliant rockstar alien cultures, zooming across mind-blowingly colorful landscapes, and emitting star-studded melodies, The Artful Escape is not about his physical journey.

It’s more about his spiritual/mental one.

Not all of us have ever hopped aboard a Cosmic Lung and performed for millions of tentacled, cheering aliens.

But all of us have felt as if we couldn’t safely be ourselves in front of people, at least at some point in our lives.

Francis’ journey to gain confidence in himself and who he wants to be is one that resonates, and what makes The Artful Escape so great is that it resonates with such unabashed style. The visuals of the game are astounding, and even though Francis states he’s out of his element, he clearly belongs with these surroundings.

Oh. And the music. The soundtrack of the game matches the out-of-this-world vibe. It is one of the best things about this indie title, and even if you don’t want to play it, you should give the whole thing a listen.

There are portions of the game where you get to choose Francis’ cosmic rockstar name and arrange his stellar get-up, and this is part of where the magic of The Artful Escape hits home.

Even though this is Francis’ adventure, and you’re along for the ride, at times the game seems to transcend this. The choices you make when you name yourself, choose your origin story, and select your outfit define who you want your Francis to be.

I named myself The Cheeky Froley, so of course I was thrilled.

And the whole thing culminates with a spectacular interstellar cosmic light show. With lasers.

It’s not every day that I’ll play a game and just…feel good about being myself. Usually I’m playing a game to be diverted or to experience someone else’s story. But Francis’ galactic adventure felt like it was mine, even though I’ve never played for the Glamourgonn, ridden on the Cosmic Lung, or hell, picked up an electric guitar in my life.

I rate The Artful Escape an outer-space-roaming-inner-journey-I-will-never-forget.

Sand, Spice, and Half a Movie: Dune Review

Let me just come right out and say it: If Dune had not gotten approved for a sequel and just remained as a single, giant half-told story, that would have been a major case of blue balls.

Hi.

It’s me, your Below Average Blogger who hasn’t posted in about a month and is belatedly talking about Dune.

But that’s okay. My Below Average Blog, my Below Average rules.

If you don’t want to read any more about Dune because you haven’t seen it yet, all you need to know is that it is very much made for Dune fans. It’s also made for fans of sci-fi films that focus on atmosphere, i.e. Blade Runner or 2001: A Space Odyssey.

That’s not to say it isn’t a fairly nifty experience for newcomers, but this is clearly the Dune movie that fans of Frank Herbert’s novel have been waiting for for decades.

Spoilers ahead!

(Even though the movie came out, like, a month ago, and god, I am so sorry for covering it so late, I shouldn’t apologize, but I can’t help feeling guilty, work has been piling up and now the holidays are here, but I still feel so ashamed for not keeping up with my blogging, guilt is my ever-present companion in life.)

I summarized the first Dune novel pretty concisely (i.e. not concisely at all) in my post about the book a few months ago. So I’m not going to waste anybody’s time in summarizing the plot here. However, you should know that the movie only covers half of what’s in the book. It covers the events from the beginning to right after Paul has his duel with Jamis.

And then it just ends.

This is by far the movie’s biggest flaw. If you were following the sinister plots of the Harkonnens and hoping to uncover the mystery of Paul’s burgeoning powers, then the manner in which this movie ends will leave you reeling. It doesn’t feel like a cliffhanger a la The Empire Strikes Back, so much as it feels like someone cut The Empire Strikes Back in half and said that the movie ends right when Luke has that vision in the tree-cave thing.

It’s strange because the movie covers so much. It has to. World-building, galactic political maneuverings, and genetic manipulation take time to properly explain to an audience. But even though the movie is jam-packed with this kind of exposition, the way it ends leaves the whole thing feeling unfinished.

The second flaw of the movie in my Below Average opinion is how little time is spent developing characters. (Yikes, doesn’t that sound like a dime-store critic’s opinion?) So much of the movie is spent showing the world, which is great, because the world of Dune is so mesmerizing, but it comes at the cost of character development.

For example, Gurney Halleck is this gruff soldier type who stands alongside Duke Leto during the move to Arrakis, but you actually don’t know much about him beyond that. In point of fact, he disappears halfway through the movie and is not seen again; you don’t even miss him when he’s gone.

‘But wait!’ the angry Dune fan might shout at me. ‘Gurney’s a side character. He’s not meant to be developed.’

All right, angry fan. What about Jessica, Paul’s mother? She’s a pretty pivotal character. Would you say you know her motivations?

Of course, if you’ve read the books, you know that Jessica is an ambitious woman who hopes to see her son become the Kwisatz Haderach. She does a lot of things most would consider unseemly in order to achieve this goal.

The movie follows this same plotline, but your understanding of what she gains from it is dramatically lessened.

And Jessica and Gurney are not the only ones who get shafted when it comes to development. Thufir Hawat, who played a prominent role in the book, is largely absent from proceedings. Dr. Yueh, a key player in the fall of House Atreides, only pops in a couple of times before this betrayal. And Rabban’s job in the film, apparently, is to just walk around menacingly without actually doing or saying much.

All of this character development is sacrificed at the altar of sci-fi world-building, and while I do miss it, I’m not actually too torn up about it. Why?

Because the world of Dune is just that fucking cool.

The intricacies of Landsraad politics, the dark training of the Sardaukar, the spice harvesting on Arrakis, the mental powers of the Bene Gesserit, these are all things that interweave to make Dune’s universe a fascinating place. And say what you will about the lack of time spent on character motivations, the clear investment in creating a riveting atmosphere is well worth it.

From the visual designs of hard-to-imagine objects from the books to the musical accompaniments to mostly silent scenes, everything in Dune harmonizes to make you feel like this place exists. It’s not just some fantasy story created in someone’s overactive mind. It’s a real place somewhere out in the unknown reaches of our universe.

And what makes the whole thing even more staggering is the fact that Dune is one of the forefathers of the sci-fi genre. Frank Herbert created concepts that might seem like par for the course these days, but you have to remember that he wrote Dune in 1965. So even though we lucky audience members are seeing Dune realized in all of its glory, we’re reaping the benefits of Herbert’s creativity.

The first half of this post might make it seem like I abhorred Dune, but I actually loved it. It’s one of those movies that makes you forget you’re watching a movie. All too often, now that I’m an adult, whenever I watch a movie, I am laser-focused on the fact that this is a narrative product that someone is trying to sell me. It has become rarer and rarer that I can truly sink back and forget that fact while sitting in a theater.

Dune immersed me more fully into its world than a sandworm immerses its prey into its mouth.

The ending left me hanging so badly because I wanted to stay immersed for a while longer.

I worry a bit that non-Dune fans will be left scratching their heads in puzzlement after the credits start rolling, wondering what on earth they just saw and if they even want to return for a sequel. But I went to go see it with two of my D&D buddies, one a die-hard Dune fan, the other a complete newcomer to the series. Both of them adored it, so I have hope.

I rate Dune a mind-blowing-sci-fi-experience-that-feels-more-immersive-and-astounding-than-a-half-finished-story-ought-to-feel-and-it’s-all-worth-it-in-the-end.

Literary Sins: Cujo Is Not About a Killer Dog

I still feel bitterly guilty that I haven’t read every single book that Stephen King has written, so yes, I’m calling it a sin that I just barely got around to reading Cujo.

I was rather hesitant to pick up Cujo, which is completely out of the norm for me when it comes to devouring Stephen King books. I read Stephen King more easily than I breathe sometimes.

But Cujo is about a dog, and I love dogs.

I was more than a little reluctant to plunk myself down and read hundreds of pages about a killer dog that terrifies a small town, which is what I thought the book was going to be about. I mean, who else thought that? “Cujo” is a name synonymous with “giant killer dog” the same way “Pennywise” is synonymous with “giant killer clown.”

Imagine my utter surprise upon finishing Cujo and realizing that the book is less about a monstrous canine creature and more about the terrifying nature of pure happenstance.

That’s right, folks. Cujo is less about the dog and more about how downright terrifying the notion is that a series of events happening in a precise manner can lead to the worst day of your life.

I haven’t felt this lied to since I finished Moby-Dick.

The big difference this time is that I’m not upset over how many whale facts that I had to suffer through.

I’m delighted.

Low-key horrified after reading the last page, but delighted with the experience overall.

If you have any intention of reading Cujo, DO NOT CONTINUE READING AFTER THIS POINT. I’m about to just deep-dive into spoiler territory. It’s the only way I can gush. But just know that I was impressed with the novel, and I would recommend it not as some kind of monster book, but more as a slice-of-life horror novel.

Cujo starts with two families: the Trentons and the Cambers.

Donna and Vic Trenton have a very young son named Tad. He’s an imaginative little tyke who is terrified of a potential monster in his closet, but a good kid nonetheless. Donna and Vic are going through a rough patch. Donna cheated on Vic with this guy named Steve Kemp. She called things off with Steve, but in a fit or revenge, Steve sent a letter to Vic (a very not-pleasant letter) making him aware of his trysts with Donna. Vic is made miserable by this information, but has to depart to New York for a meeting that could potentially save his business. Donna is left alone at home with Tad and a car that needs to be taken to a mechanic’s.

Joe Camber is a great mechanic, but a bit of a rough husband to his wife, Charity. They and their son, Brett, live in the boonies, out at the end of a country road. Charity does not want her son to end up a deadbeat mechanic at the end of a country road, so after winning the lottery (literally), she negotiates a trip to her sister’s with Joe as a way to introduce Brett to a better side of life. She buys Joe a fancy piece of equipment in exchange for allowing this, leaving Joe behind to take care of the family dog, Cujo.

What then follows is a sequence of events that leads to tragedy.

1. Cujo chases a rabbit into a cave that has some bats and gets nipped on the nose after startling them with his bark. This gives him rabies.
2. Donna’s car breaks down on a grocery shopping trip, so she decides to take it in to a mechanic that Vic recommended the next day, i.e. Joe Camber.
3. Charity and Brett leave to visit her sister, with Brett noticing that Cujo is behaving oddly the morning that they depart.
4. Joe decides to take advantage of Charity and Brett’s absence and plans to go to Atlantic City with his neighbor.
5. His neighbor, in a drunken state, is attacked by a fully rabid Cujo. He is killed.
6. When Joe goes to pick up his neighbor, he too is also killed at the neighbor’s house.
7. Tad does not want to be left alone at the house with a sitter while Donna takes the car to Joe Camber’s. He begs to go with her and she relents.
8. Just as they arrive at Camber’s garage out in the middle of nowhere, the car finally breaks down for good.
9. Cujo attacks them, but they are able to safely retreat into the vehicle. However, they are stuck there, with no one living close by for miles. (The closest neighbor is dead.)
10. Steve Kemp, Donna’s former lover, is so incredibly steamed she broke things off, he decides to confront her at her house. Seeing no one is home, he goes around breaking things and ejaculating on the bed in the strangest fit of rage I’ve ever read.
11. Donna and Tad are stuck in the car for an entire day at this point because no one knows they went there and Vic, her husband, does not think it too odd that they have not called yet. He is also consumed with thoughts about saving his business.
12. Donna hopes to wait for the mailman to come along and then honk for help, but it turns out that Joe called ahead of time to hold his mail for his pending trip to Atlantic City. She and Tad spend another day in the car. (Cujo is being preternaturally watchful of their vehicle and has attacked several times.) It is summer. It is hot. They have no food or water to last them.
13. Vic, finally nervous that his wife hasn’t called him or answered his calls, calls the police to check on their place. The cops think he is just being overly worried, but they change their tune when they get to his place and find it trashed. Vic heads home.
14. After examining the wreckage and the ejaculate, Vic knows for a fact that it was Steve Kemp who did this, and everyone assumes that Steve abducted Donna and Tad. The one thing that is odd is that her car is missing, but given the abundance of evidence that Steve was in the house, he is the prime suspect.
15. Donna tries to make a run for the house to get to the Cambers’ phone, but she is tired, dehydrated, and hungry. Cujo attacks her and is able to wound her leg and stomach before she is able to escape back into the car. Tad starts having seizures. He is having severe heatstroke.
16. The police find Kemp, and he admits to breaking in but swears he had nothing to do with kidnapping Donna or Tad. The police learn from Vic when he arrives that Camber’s garage is a place she might have gone to get the car fixed. A cop is sent there.
17. The cop arrives and sees Donna’s car. Instead of calling this in immediately, he gets out of his car first. He sees them inside, but is attacked and killed by Cujo before he can relay this information to others.
18. The next day, Vic has an epiphany after seeing that his son’s “monster words” (a paper used to protect him from the monster in the closet) are missing from his room. He connects this with the fact that Joe Camber has a really big dog at his place, and hey, maybe that’s where they are after all.
19. Donna makes one last-ditch effort to escape to the house after Tad has another seizure. She actually succeeds in killing Cujo just as Vic pulls up.
20. Vic runs over to help, but by the time he has gotten there, Tad has passed away from heatstroke. Everyone was just too late.

And…well…there you have it. That’s the basic plot to Cujo.

This is Stephen King at his finest, if you ask me. He does excel with B-movie horror and Cthulhu mythos type stuff, but I really feel like he has total mastery over the many wiles of human evil and random chance.

More than Cujo’s brutality, you fear Steve Kemp’s outbursts or Joe Camber’s grim abuse. And you also fear the just insane amount of randomness that led to Tad Trenton’s death.

As I turned every page, my jaw dropped not from shocking scenes but from the sheer suckiness of how one person’s decisions could lead to someone being stuck in a car in the middle of the country in the middle of summer with a rabid St. Bernard patrolling outside.

So many little choices led to Donna and Tad not being found in time.

And that was goddamn terrifying.

More than the poor pooch who got rabies.

I rate Cujo a chilling-book-that-is-less-about-canine-terror-and-more-about-how-random-events-can-just-fuck-you-up.

Pixar Still Surprises Me: Luca Review

Pixar has an almost unparalleled pedigree of success. I struggle to think of a franchise, brand, or company that equals Pixar when it comes to churning out quality content on a consistent basis.

Am I figuratively gobbling Pixar’s knob right now?

Maybe, but can you blame me?

Year after year, movie after movie, Pixar releases touching stories about the importance of family, getting in touch with your emotions, and the meaning of life, to name a few themes.

So whenever I hear a Pixar movie has come out, I make it a goddamn point to watch it because we all need some heartfelt stories in our lives.

Luca, Pixar’s latest film that released on Disney Plus, surprised me in many ways. While I wouldn’t rank it up there with my all-time favorites (Wall-E, Up, Toy Story 3), it was far better than I expected it to be.

Luca is a young sea monster who spends his days herding fish. His parents warn him about going up to the surface, but Luca’s imagination, curiosity, and chance meeting with a free-spirited fellow of the same age spurs him to seek adventure above the waves.

Luca and this newfound friend, Alberto, spend days on the surface, reveling in the freedom they can experience as humans. The only catch is that if water is splashed on them, they revert to sea monster form, and the people living nearby have a hankering to hunt down monsters.

But Luca and Alberto have big dreams to own a Vespa and travel the world, so they sign up for a contest that could earn them some money to pay their way to freedom. What then follows is a hilarious adventure that drives home what the real meaning of friendship is.

Even more so than the typical Pixar movie, Luca is gorgeous. I would rank it up there with Finding Nemo in just how beautiful the world looks. Plus, Luca daydreams an awful lot, which means these imaginative sequences where he touches the moon or travels the world on a Vespa are wonderfully realized. These images coupled with the stellar soundtrack make the narrative twice as uplifting as it already is on its own.

True, the story follows a predictable path, but just because you can guess what will happen next does not mean it isn’t satisfying. I mean, I still teared up regardless when conflict arose (and when it was resolved).

Luca also features plenty of Italian cultural quips that probably went right over my head. I would almost compare it to Coco in how steeped the movie is in culture. But while I could easily comprehend the humor (the true and real and accurate humor) of Miguel’s grandmother ensuring he ate more tamales than his stomach could handle, I think some of Luca’s went over my head.

And while following your dreams is a fairly tired theme narrative-wise, Luca is less about the pursuit of your dream and more about the people around you who see you reach it. Luca hammers home that true friends and family will be the support you need to accomplish anything, even if they get left behind in the process. Acceptance is also a huge part of Luca, from accepting your child’s choices in life to accepting the differences that set us apart.

When I first approached Luca, I thought I was going to get A Bug’s Life level movie, which is by no means bad. But after watching it, I would actually place Luca a step or two above that, closer to Ratatouille, after finishing it.

Side note: None of these comparisons and rankings will make any sense unless you agree with my taste in Pixar movies. I am so sorry.

I rate Luca an endearing-story-about-friendship-and-dreams-that-will-have-you-silencing-your-inner-Bruno-and-have-you-leaping-after-your-own.

Fighting Inner Demons – Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice Review

Finishing Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice presented me with a strange conflict.

On the one hand, the experience of Senua’s journey is undeniably one of the most powerful I’ve ever experienced in a video game. By far, it’s one of the most immersive game narratives out there.

But on the other hand, the combat and some of the puzzle sequences were an absolute drag.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

On my never-ending quest to try experiencing every game that Xbox Game Pass offers me without getting distracted by Risk of Rain 2 yet again, I decided to play Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice. I had heard nothing but good things about it, and the trailer for its sequel looks amazing as heck. Gritty and dark and hauntingly beautiful.

So one evening, when I had slumped off of my computer chair from work and felt marginally up for playing a new game, I booted up Senua’s Sacrifice, put on headphones (because the game specifically recommends you do so), and got a bit of coffee to see me through the evening.

Holy heckin’ heck, I did not need the coffee for long.

Story

The story follows Senua as she travels to Helheim, the Norse version of hell. Her lover was murdered during an attack on their village while she was away, so she carries his wrapped-up head on her belt with her so she can reunite it with his soul in Helheim.

Right off the bat, you start hearing voices, and these are voices that Senua hears too. Constantly, these various voices will whisper derision, praise, advice, and warnings that you have to either ignore or heed. Senua suffers from a mental illness, and these voices are a part of her daily existence.

When you use headphones, the power of these voices are doubly effective. They sound like they come from behind you, next to you, or far away. Sometimes they will shout at you to turn back. Other times they will call you an idiot.

I cannot understate how incredible these voices are utilized to put you in Senua’s shoes.

In addition to that, light from fires and such will distort your vision, and if Senua is in the dark, her fear can potentially cripple her and have you restart from a past checkpoint.

During her journey to Helheim, she battles various creatures, but you are not entirely sure which of these are real foes or which come from her own head.

Puzzles

Senua progresses through some areas by solving puzzles, many of which involve perspective. You have to find shapes and symbols in the environment, standing at the perfect spot in order to line up rock formations or tree branches.

There was this one puzzle where I had to find a symbol made of light, and the entire area was covered with them. I had to walk around for about an hour looking for the place to stand to focus them.

Later on, there is a puzzle where you have to use hearing alone to avoid enemies in the dark, and if you are not wearing headphones, expect to mess up multiple times.

I’m not overly fond of these types of puzzles where there is little to no explanation for how to solve them, but on the bright side, you have ample time to figure them out. And Senua’s Sacrifice’s environments are so gorgeous, it soothes your irritation.

Though, erm, I did have to look up this one raven puzzle online. And I can hand-to-my-heart say I would not have solved it otherwise.

Combat

When phantasmal enemies attack Senua, she pulls out her sword and you enter a combat encounter. Despite my initial, wild swings, I learned that combat should not be a frenetic affair in Senua’s Sacrifice. Instead, it should be slow and measured.

You can either strike, parry, or dodge, and you should never spam any of these buttons. You have to read what your opponent is going to do using their body language and then respond accordingly. Senua automatically locks onto targets during combat encounters, so you are always facing an enemy.

There are only a small variety of enemy types, unfortunately. Fighting them over and over again gets stale fast. In addition to that, the locking-on mechanic prevents you from easily being able to address the phantoms that appear behind you.

So even though the voices in your head will shriek, “Behind you!” there is nothing you can do to face that opponent in time.

The latter half of the game throws groups of enemies at you at the same time. This ups the difficulty of combat immensely, and I got frustrated each time tight corners, unwilling lock-ons, or ill-timed dodges made me lose a fight.

Combat was my least favorite aspect of Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and I audibly groaned every time.

However, overcoming obstacles is all part of what the game is trying to show you.

Themes

Senua’s Sacrifice covers the experience of suffering psychosis. This is based on what I’ve read about it and what the game itself states before you play it.

But that is not all that the game covers thematically. Senua is grieving for her lost love, the one person who made her feel safe in a world troubled by intolerance and shadows. Her whole journey to Helheim also has her confronting this grief and her low self-esteem.

Though you may not suffer from the same mental ills that plague Senua, her story is one that can reverberate with anyone who has felt misunderstood or alone.

It’s this more than anything that makes Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice an unforgettable game. Its ending is so moving, I don’t even want to describe what happened, which I’ll admit is a bit of a cop-out. But I think it’s something that should be experienced for yourself.

The game leans more toward a walking simulator than the action game you might have been expecting, but it accomplishes immersion in a way that only a video game can.

I rate Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice a trip-through-the-mind-that-helps-contextualize-the-struggles-some-go-through-in-a-way-that-is-simply-beautiful.

Rolling a Natural 1 – Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance Review

I’ve related my Dungeons & Dragons misadventures here before. From ill-timed invisibility to challenging monster fights, my band of D&D friends and I have gone through quite a bit together. Truly, we have run the gamut of hilarious D&D escapades a group campaigning together can go through.

However, despite my positive experiences playing around a tabletop with my friends, I haven’t really explored the world of D&D when it comes to video games. None of them really called to me, especially because my favorite aspect of Dungeons & Dragons is the downright goofiness that can occur when fails happen. (Failing in a video game the way I fail in D&D would be gutting.)

So when I found out that Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance would be available to play on Xbox Game Pass, I thought it would be nifty to grab a friend and give it a whirl. ‘Why not dabble in a D&D video game?’ I thought to myself.

It’s disappointing. That’s why.

Dark Alliance is an overall letdown, and I’ll tell you why in just a sec. I first want to admit that I only played around two sessions of the game, each of which lasted maybe a few hours. I did not complete it, and maybe the game has more to offer down the road. All I know is that it did not offer enough to make me want to continue playing it.

Dark Alliance pulls its characters and some of its story from the Forgotten Realms campaign setting. I am only loosely versed in its lore. However, noteworthy character Drizzt Do’Urden is one of the four characters you and your friends can choose to play as during missions.

If you are familiar with the gameplay structure of Left 4 Dead or Vermintide 2, you will know what to expect when booting up Dark Alliance. You and up to three friends go through these fairly linear missions, fight off monsters you find, and complete rudimentary objectives.

If you’ve played those two games I mentioned, then you know that this formula can be very successful. However, Dark Alliance messes it up in multiple ways.

For one thing, the characters feel very uninteresting. It sucks because they each have a backstory that fans of the Forgotten Realms universe will know about, but the manner in which this is conveyed to you is either through dry narration or through these one-liners the characters will occasionally speak during a mission. And the snippets of cutscenes you see at the start and end of missions don’t inform you much on the characters or the events at large.

If only the story itself was lacking, I would be fine with that. But the gameplay itself leaves a lot to be desired. I played as the character Wulfgar during one session, and Cattie-brie in the next, and no matter which I played as, it was not fun.

Any action in the game felt unresponsive. Whether I was swinging my hammer or firing my bow, there was this laggy, molasses feeling that persisted. Even picking up objects from the ground took an age and a half. And I don’t think this was input lag on my controller’s part. I would swing at a rock outcropping to get some loot, the hit would connect, and then two seconds later, the rock would crumble. It was that slow.

And the enemies were uninspired at best. They would always be clustered by some door or square-looking area, arranged like stodgy chess pieces, and sometimes they would not even react when you hit them. They’d take it, slowly turn to you, and only gradually start to attack you. This is a far cry from when I played Left 4 Dead 2, and zombies would rush at you from every which way, and certain special types would attack in a specific fashion.

In addition to that, cooperative play was unrewarding as heck. My coworker friend and I felt like our characters did not interact with each other in a meaningful way at all. They had a few abilities that could be beneficial for a group, but it did not feel like an impactful interaction.

Lastly, the bosses felt laughable. They are appreciably difficult in comparison to regular enemies, but each encounter feels similar. Do some damage, roll away, do some damage, roll away, do some damage, roll away, do some damage, roll away.

Playing Dark Alliance made me hunger for the simplistic artistry of Risk of Rain 2.

Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance was disappointing because it wasn’t fun. One of the basic tenets of D&D (for me at least) is that no matter who my DM is, who my fellow party members are, or what story is being told, the game has to be fun. Dark Alliance did not hold up to this standard.

I rate Dark Alliance a poor-representation-of-how-much-fun-D&D-can-be-and-a-sucky-game-at-launch-to-boot.

What Is the Point of Zack Snyder’s Justice League?

I get it, okay?

Sometimes, a movie comes out, and you’re not happy with the results. I have more than once been irked by a movie that got on my nerves for how awful it was. For your reading pleasure, here is what I thought of Wonder Woman 1984, here is what I thought of Cats, and here is what I thought of Alita: Battle Angel.

As you can see by these examples, I am no stranger to vitriol.

But never in my life have I thought to myself, “Hmm, that movie was so bad. I hope it is redone, made twice as long, but still retains the same plot points.”

That’s basically what Zack Snyder’s Justice League is.

When Justice League first came out, there were good bits and there were bad bits. I enjoyed the movie for what it was (a rushed attempt to capitalize on the Marvel Cinematic Universe trend of mashing up heroes in one movie) and got on with my life.

But then I started hearing whispers about how “the Snyder cut is the true vision of what the film could be” and other such stuff. I never thought anything would come of it.

And that’s right around when the Snyder cut was announced.

I like 300 and Watchmen as much as the next person, but some of Zack Snyder’s fans talk about him like he is the filmmaking equivalent of Jesus. And I just don’t understand it, especially after watching the four-hour-long version of a movie I already saw.

The plot remains largely the same. For those of you who saw Justice League, rest assured that the Snyder cut only offers a few meaningful differences. The one aspect worthy of attention in this bloated movie is Cyborg’s story. Man, this character got shafted in the first one if this was his original intended storyline. I appreciated the expansion of his history and his inclusion in moving the film along. He actually plays a more important role and gets some much deserved screentime.

However, the rest of the film felt stuffed with unnecessary chaff.

I don’t need to see someone’s disturbed expression for thirty seconds after something upsetting happens.

I don’t need to see measured stares between characters that last way longer than they should.

And I don’t need to see slow-motion walking for no goddamn reason.

I mean, criminy, a quarter of the Snyder cut is made of slo-mo scenes. I don’t even think I’m exaggerating. And it’s one thing if I saddle myself up for a stylistic movie like 300, where I am aware of what I’m getting myself into.

But it’s like Justice League tried to be both stylistic-artsy-fartsy and MCU-generated-popcorn-fluff. PICK A LANE, PEOPLE.

And don’t get me started on the “ancient lamentation music” that played nearly every time Wonder Woman was on the screen.

Snyder fans might hate me for not liking this massive movie, but I swear, I like other films he has done. It’s just…

This one feels so unnecessary. I can’t comprehend why people were so hyped for it.

And I guess maybe part of my displeasure stems from that. If people hadn’t been praising the heck out of it like it was the neatest thing since sliced bread, maybe I wouldn’t be so irritated after watching it and finding out it was as absurd as canned bread.

I rate Zack Snyder’s Justice League a zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Doing Dune Justice

Dune is an epic adventure that I’m a bit ashamed to admit I read rather late in life. While I read The Lord of the Rings when I was eight years old, I read Dune when I was already in my twenties.

With the Dune movie coming out soon, I thought it would be the perfect time to recommend this classic to my favorite Above Average readers, i.e. all of you.

Dune is a sci-fi book that combines high-tech escapades and ideas with a mystical flavor. It does so with dense political history, religious ideologies, and risky thematic overtones.

I’m usually hesitant to recommend hefty sci-fi tomes to people because there is so much diversity in the genre. Even if someone says they like it, there’s no telling what part of it they enjoy. For example, someone who enjoys a realistic tale like The Martian might not like the zany humor of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

In addition to that, sci-fi books are usually a huge time investment to read, and they’ll put forth downright weird notions that can prove difficult to swallow.

So when I say I recommend you read Dune, know that it will take a decent time investment to read it (especially if you want to read its sequels), it has an occasional bout of weirdness (like strange marital practices and cannibalistic tendencies), and it focuses on a mix of predestination, heightened mental awareness, ecological consciousness, and space politics.

The story follows the young Paul Atreides as his family moves to the desert world of Arrakis. They have been relegated there from their lush homeworld of Caladan thanks to the political maneuverings of the Emperor. Different families rule the galaxy, like a sci-fi aristocracy, together under this one Emperor, and the Emperor is not supposed to show favoritism to one family over another.

Unfortunately for the Atreides, this Emperor has decided to ally with the Harkonnen family in an attempt to eradicate them from the galaxy. (The Harkonnens and the Atreides have this epic feud going on between them.)

Paul and his family have to contend with this betrayal while trying to survive on Arrakis. While Arrakis is a dry dump of a place, it is home to a valuable spice that is worth a lot to the ruling families of the galaxy, including the unaffiliated Guild, who needs the spice for their trade.

Arrakis has a population of native Fremen who protect and harvest the spice, but the Fremen are hiding a secret that Paul must uncover if he hopes to have the Atreides line survive. Not only does he have to deal with this, he has to contend with these amazing mental powers bestowed on him by his mother’s Bene Gesserit training. (Think something like telepathy plus hyper-analytical thinking, bordering on precognition.)

The whole book culminates with a revolution on a planetary scale.

I’m rather fond of sci-fi stories that don’t hold your hand. Dune is that kind of book. While it does come with a helpful glossary at the end, it does not do much to introduce you slowly to its world. It just dumps you into it and you have to get used to using context clues to figure out what’s going on.

I have to be in the mood to read these kinds of books, so be sure you’re up to it yourself if you pick up Dune.

The book strikes an awful middle ground with its female characters. Most of the ones you meet are all incredibly powerful in their own way, especially those who have been trained as Bene Gesserit. This group of women has intense skills when it comes to controlling their minds and their bodies, so much so that they can easily manipulate other people.

However, even the most powerful female is subservient to men. Influential Bene Gesserit exist to serve male leaders. The most prominent female character is Paul’s mother, and she is a concubine to Paul’s father because he has to remain marriageable if he wants to continue to negotiate with other ruling families. The whole system of every society we encounter in Dune is patriarchal in nature. This is something I sincerely hope they change in the new movie.

In addition to that, it sometimes seems like emotional moments, moments that would make for a deeply impactful, character-development kind of scene, are just skipped. For instance, there is a death of a person whom you would assume is very close to Paul, and in the book, you don’t even see it. It’s told to you that it happened.

These leaps in time can be confusing if you’re trying to follow the emotional beats of the story, but Dune seems to prefer to focus a hell of a lot more on the aspects of fate and precognition that it sets forth from the very beginning of the novel.

But when it comes to detailing mental processes, Dune excels. There is nothing I like more than reading through Paul’s thoughts before he makes any decision. It makes you believe in the power of positive thinking, if that makes sense.

I rate Dune a decent-read-that-was-groundbreaking-in-its-day-for-its-ecological-themes-and-is-still-fantastic-even-though-it-is-showing-its-age.