Frank herbert

Dune: Prophecy is much worse than you will believe possible

Do you remember that nagging sense of mild disappointment as you sat through Dune 2? You’d been impressed by Dune: bit of a recondite plot if you hadn’t read the book but great to look at, with an austere art-house aesthetic, like Star Wars for people with an IQ. But then the sequel sold out. It turned a minor character from the book into the heroine of a stereotypical Hollywood romance, which not even the excitement of the sandworm-riding scenes could quite redeem. No disrespect to Brian Aldiss,but I think of ‘Brian’as a sort of joke name Anyway its latest screen incarnation, Dune: Prophecy, is worse, much worse. To give

How to snare your reader: the secret of a good blurb

It sounds disingenuous, not to say dis-respectful, but as a writer of 40 books, give or take, I never read blurbs. I can’t bear to. I love stories and am terrified of them being spoiled. There is no obvious twist or murderer so clearly signposted that I will ever try to guess them as I read. I never look at the end first. One of the great joys of books (and of life, more or less the same thing) is being happily surprised. I did accidentally read the blurb of Karen Jay Fowler’s superb We are All Completely Beside Ourselves, which gave away the (gorgeous) twist in the first line.