Dune is a colossal book, not just by its influence on science fiction as a genre, but also its rich detail and underlying themes of survival, evolution, ecology, religion, politics, and power. For this it deserves credit, but as a story itself it failed to grip me. A minor obstacle was its pacing, often slow yet sometimes so fast across plot twist that I wondered if I accidentally skipped a page. But the biggest hurdle is that Dune feels highly cliche, which is ungrateful to say because I do realise this is the spaceship that launched all these science fiction typicalities, influencing the likes of Ender’s Game and Star Wars.
I left my hometown when I was 19. After nearly two decades in a dozen Dutch cities, Sydney and Shanghai, I’m back. I push Hasse’s stroller and see once again these streets and buildings that are old yet ever new. Everything is closer than I remember it, distances I travelled as a teenager seem now […]
‘Dit is ook China’ by Cindy Zhu Huijgen isn’t a perfect book. And yet it’s enjoyable, and when you turn the last page and close it, you’re — rather than feeling relieved — you’re just glad you read it, and you’re glad you’re a person who reads books. Before starting, I was a bit discouraged […]
In our new house, many appliances still get their power through a travel adapter. Eight years in China was long enough to not only put down roots and settle in, but also for everything we owned to end in a Chinese plug: my MacBook, the coffee machine, the rice cooker, the baby monitor. The appliances […]
In June we moved back to the Netherlands, six suitcases across 8000 kilometres, and after a brief spell at my parents’ place, we moved into our own home. This second move also involved putting down carpet, curtains, buying appliances and furniture — so that our new garage quickly filled with cardboard boxes and other packaging […]
