Ix rules. I love Ix. And for some strange reason, i also really like the Tleilaxu, in a way.
One thing I really liked about how herbert I wrote about the bene tleilax is how he described everyone's visceral abhorrence of their kind--a phrase here, a line there, all small drops of the hatred that most seemed to bear for the "dirty tleilaxu". he was never really blatant about it--and if we read his personality into it, we might imagine that herbert I was against genetic enegineering--which is one reason why i don't like herbert II's books. there's no finesse in these new ones. it's blunt.
i liked the mystery of there not being any women tleilaxu. the mystery of what the axoltl tanks really were. the holiness and religion built around "god's language".
i also appreciate how herbert I balanced the mechanical geniuses of Ix against the genetic wizards of Tleilax. the Ixians didn't seem to have a religious zeal around them. they weren't despised--rather, they seemed to be merely tolerated, with a galactic don't ask, don't tell policy as to what the Ixians really put into those amazing technical boxes of theirs. i even liked the bit of humor they threw in, about the name being so old that they didn't know whether it referred to Ix being planet #9, or something else; we all know techies like saying the acronyms, too: SCO == "skoh", IEEE == "aiyee"...
and because the Ixians are technogeeks, one wonders why herbert II and anderson decided to add in a biological subclass in their bastards. why wouldn't the Ixians use robots? why wouldn't they automate as much as possible, especially if their world is largely underground.
and if we want to read herberts personality here, too, we can probably surmise that he wasn't a great fan of the breakneck pace of technology, but admits that we can't live without it.
One thing I really liked about how herbert I wrote about the bene tleilax is how he described everyone's visceral abhorrence of their kind--a phrase here, a line there, all small drops of the hatred that most seemed to bear for the "dirty tleilaxu". he was never really blatant about it--and if we read his personality into it, we might imagine that herbert I was against genetic enegineering--which is one reason why i don't like herbert II's books. there's no finesse in these new ones. it's blunt.
i liked the mystery of there not being any women tleilaxu. the mystery of what the axoltl tanks really were. the holiness and religion built around "god's language".
i also appreciate how herbert I balanced the mechanical geniuses of Ix against the genetic wizards of Tleilax. the Ixians didn't seem to have a religious zeal around them. they weren't despised--rather, they seemed to be merely tolerated, with a galactic don't ask, don't tell policy as to what the Ixians really put into those amazing technical boxes of theirs. i even liked the bit of humor they threw in, about the name being so old that they didn't know whether it referred to Ix being planet #9, or something else; we all know techies like saying the acronyms, too: SCO == "skoh", IEEE == "aiyee"...
and because the Ixians are technogeeks, one wonders why herbert II and anderson decided to add in a biological subclass in their bastards. why wouldn't the Ixians use robots? why wouldn't they automate as much as possible, especially if their world is largely underground.
and if we want to read herberts personality here, too, we can probably surmise that he wasn't a great fan of the breakneck pace of technology, but admits that we can't live without it.
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