Dune: A Whisper of Caladan Seas (2021)

Dune: A Whisper of Caladan Seas (2021)

Authors: Brian Herbert + Kevin J. Anderson | Illustrator: Jakub Rebelka | Page Count: 41

"There is a power in memories... in stories."

An overpriced comic book adapted from the first ever DUNE universe tie-in short story from the combined incompetence of Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson.

It purports to be issue No. 1, but it's really just a one-shot. It's just more publisher lies. BOOM!' Studios did the same with the Blood of the Sardaukar one-shot, too.

It's set in the year 10, 191 at the Battle of Arrakeen, which occurred in Frank Herbert's first DUNE novel.

A contingent of Atreides guards get trapped in an Arrakis cave during the conflict, and slowly begin running out of food, air, hope, or anything interesting to say.

The leader of the group is Sergeant Hoh Vitt, a storyteller from a long line of storytellers, who, it's alleged, has the ability to spin a yarn that's so all-consuming and influential to men's minds that it's considered a powerful and dangerous skill.

As the Harkonnen troops bombard the Atreides' residence on the surface of Dune, the trapped guards turn to their leader to ease their minds with tales of Caladan, their homeland.

I suspect the goal of the writers was to draw the reader into the narrative too, to make them feel the transportive nature of the sergeant's tale, in addition to the hopelessness of their immediate situation, thus creating a kind of two-layered tragedy tinged with bitter-sweetness.

If that was the intent, then it fails to achieve it. The story returns too often to the cave-in situation, dwelling on how the men got into their predicament instead of providing crucial contrast to their woes by depicting life outside of it, and thus destroying the usefulness of the set-up with unnecessary reminders, repetitive dialogue, and amateur structuring.

A better approach could've been to use the location as setting only, as a platform from which to tell a more expansive story, not dwell on how the men got into the situation in the first place and return to it in the middle section when it wasn't interesting and was no longer needed. In a ongoing series such repetition has a place, but in a 41 page book it's entirely superfluous.

Many of the failings highlight a fundamental misunderstanding of the comic book format by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson (who did the adaptation themselves). Comics are a medium in which storytelling is shared among author(s) and artist(s), and once properly established location reminders are the kind of thing that's best achieved visually; i.e., by the artist.

It's similar to film-making, wherein visual triggers exist to lessen the need for repeated exposition about location and differing timelines. The final product might actually have benefitted by having someone more familiar with the comic book format overseeing the adaptation. Although, I've not read the original short story it was based on, so maybe the necessary pathos just wasn't there to begin with. I strongly suspect that was the case.

The interior art feels rushed and lacks in detail at times, particularly the human figures, but it's still the very best part of the book, and the colouring helps offset its shortcomings elsewhere. The deep reds of a warring Dune are like blood on sand, while the luminous blues and greens of Caladan are like an azure utopia, in comparison. The scene depicting Arrakeen buildings in flames is reminiscent of paintings of Rome burning or the cover of Celtic Frost's Into the Pandemonium (1987) album, which is itself a very small part of Hieronymus Bosch's magnificent The Garden of Earthly Delights triptych. (On a more relevant note, it wouldn't look out of place in the early issues of Judge Dredd Megazine [Vol 01], but that's a pretty exclusive comparison.)

I very much liked how the listeners contribute their memories to the overall enchantment being created by Sergeant Hoh Vit, but, alas, the shitty writing of Herbert and Anderson lurks beneath the good intentions at all times, like a diseased worm under uneven sands.

To end, I agree wholeheartedly with the words written in the quote used above, but you won't find the power alluded to in the text, unfortunately.