Lit WI: "Spice Planet" instead of "Dune"

The Vulture

Banned
While writing Dune, Frank Herbert was under a lot of pressure from his publisher to quickly turn out a 20,000 word manuscript that when then be edited by his publisher and then printed. The original manuscript is barely like Dune as we know it: no Fremen, no religious, political, or ecological questions raised.

Had Herbert succumbed to his publisher's pressures and published a heavily edited shorter version of Dune (entitled Spice Planet) we would have been deprived of one of the most famous and influential works of science fiction ever written, as well as the resultant Chronicles. What would be the effect on literature?
 
Probably wouldn't be anywhere near as memorable as it is in OTL, hell some people would probably think it was some spice-related cookbook. :p

Though they could've sued the Spice Girls, and save the world from the horrors of that movie they made. x.x
 
Much like the novel Yeast Lords: The Bronco Years seen in the movie Gentleman Bronco (2009), it would be hard to take the novel seriously outside of the science-fiction genre clique. Ten points if anyone catches the "Yeast Lords" reference...
 
Spice planet? Pfff. Sounds like some fifties B-movie or 30s pulp novel. As others have said, welcome to obscurity.
 
Having read it (which, one might suspect, might give one slightly more grounding to judge its merits than merely the name), it is actually a fairly okay novel. Quite different from Dune, but not all that bad. Less emphasis on religion, somewhat less emphasis on the enviroment, more emphasis on drug abuse, addiction and, to a degree, aristocratic corruption.
 
To tell the truth I just don't GET Dune.
Its an alright book but...I wouldn't see it as being up there with all the fuss it gets.
But I for one would be very very sad at the first Dune pc game not being made.
 
If Dino de Laurentis ever made a film version of Spice Planet, I would that a lot of the OTL film version of Dune (albeit without making it corny) would be done.
 
In the long run the effects on the developement on RTS games might be much more significant than the effects on literature. No Dune 2 in TTL.
 
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