Omar Mohamed – Google

Pros: an intricate land and political landscape; great characters with special powers; good sci fi themes eg shields and still suits. Cons: the book is 95% dialogue; the language is a bit too formulaic and pretentious; the use of Arabic words as a pretence to another language smacks of laziness; it’s hard to really like any of the characters. I was surprised when I got into the ‘meat’ of the book. When you’ve read authors who can really write with artistry you are easily let down, and in this case I was. I’ve been meaning to read Dune for years. I’m glad I did purely for the sake of being able to comment on it. The politics and landscape and interplay of personalities could be so much better and believable it’s actually disappointing because the groundwork is there for great intrigue and drama. Most annoying for me was the use of lots of Arabic words that sometimes meant the same in Arabic, and other times are actual Arabic words with a different meaning. I’m half Arab and know these words. Lisan al gaib means ‘tongue of the unseen’. This to me was just a poor and lazy choice - to juxtapose a language that is known and historic, and maybe in keeping with the Bedouin way and relates to the Fremen, and the unwary (non Arabic speaker) would think it was ingenious. It’s not. It’s very poor. You’d never see China meiville doing something as silly as that. You have to totally invent. If you copy, it would have been better to then associate them with some Arab dynasty in the future who had Arab roots. Anyway, it just looked really corny. The dialogue heavy style is a shock to the system. Literally there is no single page without about 50% dialogue in it. The book reads like a film script! I won’t be reading the appendices in the book as there would have to be a major shift in writing style for me to read the sequels, and this is one world created I’m not too interested in. Its won awards and I can possibly see why, but you cannot compare this author’s work to the quality of the works of Ursula Le Guin or a Dan Simmons or China Meiville. Leagues apart.