Orange Catholic Bible...

[Shipgate]

With all the cool excerpts that Frank Herbert did of the OCB, I think it would've been excellent if before he died, he had wrote the Orange Catholic Bible. I just picture it a big tome of knowledge with cool quotes, metaphors, axioms, etc..
However, it is tantalizing just to have those few quotes here and there throughout the Dune books. It was tantalizing also when they mentioned the Butlerian Jihad from time to time. But I thought a lot of the fun was taken out of that time period when the B J prequels were written. They were still fun books though.

 

[ChanceKell]

I'm sure there are a lot of web resources that list all the OCB quotes from the Dune series, but how interesting could a sci-fi holy book be? It would be either a) too long for anyone to care (although more authentic), or b) too short to be realistic (although more Dune fans would enjoy it).

I considered (briefly) reading the prequel books, but then I read a prequel to the prequels on the Dune web site, and I didn't enjoy it at all. I might read the "ancient" Dune history (The Bulterian Jihad series), but I have no interest in reading more about Duncan or Leto I. Frank Herbert did his piece, and, despite his son's best efforts, his style can't be duplicated.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

I didn't mind the prequels much. They're fun, and are probably better than nothing.

The Dune Encyclopedia, from back in the early eighties, was probably the only 'spinoff' book that's as good as the original. It's a really, really well written/well set up 'in universe' work.