I finished reading Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert and started reading It by Stephen King 3/4/2026

general stuff

I decided that breaking up each post into seperate parts would make it easier for me to stay on topic. I'll just write about random stuff that happens to be going in "general stuff." I'm still steadfast in reading the Dune series, as you can tell by the title I just finished the sequel Dune Messiah, and am currently reading It. I find that when I read the days seem to go by a lot slower. I mean this in a good way. Whenever I sit down to read it seems like afterwards I have a lot more time on my hands, everything slows down, I feel like I can do more in a lot less time. Does everyone feel this way? Anyways, I also am thinking about picking up drawing. It's something I've wanted to learn to do for a while but I have never come around to start practicing. I might add an art section to this website to store all my sketches, as I do have a digital tablet for drawing.

Today I ate sushi and had a milkshake, didn't really do much else other than stay at home. I am on break after all. I am just dreading the day when I have to go back to school and get myself back together. When I go back to school I'll have a harder time reading. Whenever I have homework to do, even if it is already finished, I find it hard to enjoy myself afterwards because of an underlying fear of not being proactive. This break is really my only reprieve for the semester. Thankfully, there's not much time left for this semester so I should be on summer break pretty soon, then I can invest time into whatever I want without any stress.

It

It has been pretty good so far. I am about 70 pages in. The book is aronud 1000 pages so I have barely made a dent. So far, Georgie has had his arm ripped off, Stanley Uris has killed himself, Rich and Ben have been introduced and were called by Mike to come back to Derry. Also, two gay guys got beat up by teenage thugs, with one of them being thrown into a river and eaten by Pennywise. Of course, this is a broad summary, there's a lot more nuance if you read the book, which I recommend you do. Stephen King has a way of describing a character and making you care for them that not many authors have done. For example, the two gay guys who were beaten had an entire backstory written for them, which makes their fate all the more heartbreaking when you know they both had a story and a life with one another. Another thing is the flagrant use of slurs. About every homophobic or antisemitic slur has been exhausted already in the first 70 pages, and it paints a picture for the social climate at the time the story takes place in. It's too early to call but I think the book will go over the hate that society harbors, and maybe It will be a sort of manifestation of that. Like how racism, antisemitism, homophobia, transphobia, is all too common now especially on social media, and no one seems to bat an eye to it. You can read the craziest most disgusting thing on Twitter (or X I guess), and just shrug it off like nothing. Maybe the story is about the normalization of these things in society (though this book was written before the time of social media and all that).

Dune Messiah

Dune Messiah follows Paul after he takes over as emperor. This is 12 years after the events of the first Dune book, and there is currently a universe-wide Jihad in Paul's (or Muad'ib) name. To no one's surprise there is a conspiracy to overthrow Paul as emperor, for the Bene Gesserit to regain control of the genetic line, to relieve Paul's control of the CHOAM company, and to end the Jihad. The Bene Gesserit Mohiam, a guild navigator, and a Face Dancer (guy who can shapeshift into other people), are a part in this conspiracy (including some of the Fremen Naibs). Both Alia (Paul's sister) and Paul now have the power of complete prescience. Due to some sci-fi bs after drinking raw liquid spice, Paul can see the memories of all of his ancestors, and with this information he can predict every possible future-- Alia can also do this. I can't really describe everything that happens as it is kind of hard to explain and you should really read the book yourself.

Rather than cover the issues with religious fanaticism and how there's no real good or bad side in government, Dune Messiah focused more on how prescience can control your life. Since Paul could predict the future, he knew a ton of terrible, tragic things were going to happen, and there was nothing he could do to avoid them without causing mass suffering. Paul even has his eyes burned out of their sockets and can still see because the future vision allows him to "predict" what is happening around him without needing eyes. If you knew someone you loved was going to die in the future and there was absolutely nothing you could do about it, how could you live with that knowledge? Paul's powers are treated more like a curse than something super cool or awesome in the book. Excited to see where the series goes from here, since we lost a lot of main characters. That's all I have to say for today, I don't know when I'll start practicing drawing so we'll see.

I have been reading the book series Dune by Frank Herbert 3/2/2026

During the past couple weeks I have taken to reading. I happened to have the 3 hunger games books and was like "hey I should read these since I have them lying around." Don't know who I got them from but I think they were from christmas.

Couldn't bring myself to finish the series though. I got to the third book before I became way more interested in Dune. Dune came under my radar after the first movie and a friend I had who was super into the series (he read the first 4 in the series), and while I was wasting away in archaeology class I got the wild hair to go find a free pdf and start reading it in class. When I was in class I read Dune, when I was at home I read the Hunger Games. Perhaps I shouldn't have read the series at the same time so I could more easily complete the Hunger Games, but by the time I was half way through Dune I couldn't bring myself to quit just to finish a trilogy with a predictable ending.

I read Dune voraciously the second I got home from classes. I finished the first book in about a week. Dune is probably one of the best pieces of science fiction I've read, and that says a lot. It simultaneously has some of the most innovative and crazy concepts while also executing them flawlessly and not seeming pretenious or forced. The idea of a future where humans have to use their minds for everything -- (yes i will use em dashes) from computations, troop counts, anything requiring complex calculations. A universe where humanity has become *more* human. Due to the Butlarian Jihad, all the "thinking machines" were destroyed, which explains that lack of computers in the world of Dune. It was such a breath of fresh air especially in this rotting dead corpse of an internet where slop pervaids every website. Every character, even ones who are considered dumb by the standards of the Dune world, are still leagues more intellgient then the humans of today. Like Baron Harkonnen (the main villain of the first book), a brutal tyrannical ruler who acts upon impulse and convenience, is still pretty damn smart compared to a modern politician.

Highly recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of philosophy or that space politics genre. Reading this book has revealed how far my brain has degenerated over the years. Maybe you can see it in my writing; I have a hard time paying attention to anything for more than 10 seconds. Between my two ears is a deep muddy puddle. Whenever a thought forms it quickly dissolves. You can imagine this makes reading difficult. I would start reading a paragraph, finish it, and not know what I just read. It's incredibly frustrating. This can't be ADHD, I haven't been diagnosed. It must be my affliction towards short-form content on TikTok or YouTube shorts. I don't even enjoy YouTube shorts that much yet I can't pull myself away for like half and hour once I'm on.

In Dune, a good 50% of the book is just characters inner-monologuing and to a far greater extent than like any anime. This is something I am struggling with as well. I feel like my mind wanders to much, my brain talks about too many things. One of my greatest fears is losing my mind and every day that concern grows. There's so many more things I could be writing right now but my own attention span prevents me from writing about one thing at a time to cover the topics comprehensively. To be fair, I am writing this at 2:45 AM. I can give more insight on to my thoughts about Dune in a more forward manner tomorrow. Goodbye.