I thought of Agara when I saw this; it’s a truck-component. It’s grungy. Ill tuned. Ill maintained. It is, I suspect, close to death. As an Agaran Machine image, this didn’t quite work. I’ve recently re-re-reread bits and pieces of Frank Herbert’s last Dune novel. Chapterhouse: Dune. It is the ultimate cliff-hanger; it ends at a high point in its far-reaching, far-future story. It ends in a cryptic manner, introducing us to someone and something. I was thinking of Dune as I wrote this, the first novel. Dune itself. It is an iconic work of high science fiction. It’s an adventure tale. A love story. It is well written and compelling, if a bit turgid in spots. Its turgidity is a forgivable and minor flaw…more of a reference to the day in which it was written than anything else. Dune is, ultimately, a story about ecology. Human ecology. Planetary ecology. Ideological ecology. It is rich and complex, and it features intriguing characters and organizations. It isn’t about technology and gadgets, though there are gadgets galore in the tale. I thought of Arrakis. Dune. The desert planet central to the entire Dune mythos. I thought of Fremen and their water-harvesting technologies. I’d always imagined the “behind the scenes” technology in the Dune universe to be industrial, grungy, and overtly low tech in appearance. Electronics are forbidden in the universe of Dune. I also thought of what the inner bits a spice harvester might look like. Spice, a byproduct of sand-worm metabolism is also the most valued substance in the Dune universe. It’s essentially worm castings with psychoactive qualities. It extends life and expands consciousness and is absolutely vital to space travel as it’s used by Guild Navigators as they “fold space.” The Spacing Guild, like the desert Fremen, tend to make use of clunky, ugly, very-industrial looking technology, full of knobs, levers, and pneumatic/hydraulic tubes. There’s more to Dune than I’ve gone into here: far more to Dune, than the latest Dune novels (written by Frank Herbert’s son, collaborating with Kevin J. Anderson) indicate. In fact, the most recent “prequels” to Dune are an offense to the memory of Frank Herbert and his literary legacy; they fail to capture the complexity of the Dune Universe…they fail to even approach the style in which the authentic Dune novels were written. Admittedly, the prequel novels concerning the “Great Houses” are mediocre rather than outright bad. They capture the essence of Dune, but in a Cliff’s Notes manner. The interstitial novels (taking place “between” the Dune stories) plunge deeply into bad writing, plastic characterization and a rampant use of cliché. And, needless to say, I wasn’t thinking of those novels as I examined this photo. This is not the inner workings of a spice harvester…but I suspect such a complex factory on tank treads just might have something in common with this image. I like the natural grunge, the heft, the fact that there’s more to this image than meets the eye. I only wish that Frank Herbert’s own son and his collaborator could have done the same with the disasters they’ve penned, while using the Good Mr. Herbert’s name. For those who might be interested in my review of the next-to-most recent Dune Universe novel: The Winds of Dune…I can say this: No writers were used in the production of that novel. And now that I’ve turned this into a book review, I’ll shut up now. As always, thank you for viewing, reading, and commenting, and I hope you’re all having a great weekend.