Criticism #6 Shoulda stayed as an Appendix

The novel House Atreides depicts Pardot Kynes, Imperial Planetologist, and his journey from off worlder to Umma, Fremen Holy Man. The novel tells us that Pardot traveled to Arrakis and with a sort of Asperger's like dedication made his way into the good graces of the locals.

He rescued a handful of Fremen children from a group of Harkonnen soldiers that were going to kill them for sport. After being taken to their Sietch, the elders decide that, water debt be damned, they have to kill him. Oblivious that a man who has approached him in a lecture is his assassin, he absent mindfully tells the man to "Remove yourself." The assassin falls on his own knife and Pardot Kynes becomes a holy man.

He marries a Fremen wife, and sets the Fremen as his personal assistants. They go where he says to and takes whatever measurements he asks them to. Tragically he dies in a cave in at Plaster Basin. This story is stretched out over hundreds of pages. It's also summarized in about 5-10 pages in an appendix in the back of Dune.

BH&KJA spent an entire novel telling the EXACT SAME story that Frank Herbert summarized briefly in an entry in the Dune appendix. Absolutely nothing of significance is added to the telling. Anyone creating fiction, whatever medium, can tell you that if you can convey the same thing with less effort, then you need to do some editing. I don't think the Expanded Dune novels were ever edited.