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So I'm rereading Dune after some fifteen plus years. I am not disappointed. Let's start with: people always say "Dune's maybe more fantasy. Certainly not hard scifi." Hard scifi means very sciency. They're completely right. But there is one science Herbert was apparently a big hobbyist in: geology, or the science of planet wide ecosystems. It's so absolutely lovely the planet Dune he creates in his minds eye. The balance of drought, sand, spice and 'the makers': the sand worms. It is so uplifting to me that he lets the Fremen have control ultimately over that balance.  And that's certainly something I can use in these dark times with a climate change denier in the White House. Literary aspects. Beginning my read I was pretty turned off by how Gurney Halleck, for instance, is such a cliche, as a 'warrior poet'. On the other hand, I allow myself to be a complete sucker  for these soft things like Jessica's love for her son Paul-Mu...

Todays big spectacle movies are geared at least as much towards the Asian as the Western market. I think that makes for interesting new movies. The movie in this genre I liked best this past year was World of Warcraft (WoW). Both Star Wars Rogue One and WoW introduced the idea of there mostly not being true evil and good, just shades of grey, Rogue One ultimately just played lip service to it.  Most importantly, to me, WoW introduced a completely different kind of lore, with great depth, while Rogue One mostly did lame call backs to earlier movies ("it's a trap"). Rogue One *did* have incredible visuals and actors and acting performances (I was especially not disappointed in Ben Mendelsohn's role).  The moment where Rogue One lost me was when the Yip Man actor was introduced as a Zatoichi character (mashing together a respectively ultimate Chinese and Japanese character).