My first reading of Dune was before college, and I've long considered it a "favourite" even as, typical of me, I recalled only broad aspects of character and plot. Re-reading decades later, I was reminded of that first reading's faint surprise at some timeskips and major developments pushed offstage -- anticipating, for example, that the Fremen revolt would have been covered in detail only to find it covered in a few pages, glancingly, and then done. (Wait, wasn't the Sardaukar-Fremen war what the entire book was leading up to?!)

For this reading, my intent was to inhabit the world more than travel alongside the characters. I wanted to better appreciate Herbert's universe and sociopolitical setting, confident the plot would be entertaining enough. I began with the Appendices to better grasp the universe as I read through: not merely Arrakis, which I generally recall Herbert handling well in the course of the novel, but for his spacefaring civilization and the political machinations within it. I also looked into various secondary sources, from interviews to commentary. *

Dune always had the conceit of being written as by an historian: most obviously, chapter epigraphs from fictional books summarizing encounters at a remove and in the past-tense. This framing provided the space opera equivalent of an epic, and remained just as effective this reading. What I missed the first time, though, was how this careful storytelling calls attention to Herbert's thematic arc, less overt than the narrative arc but equally important to his story, and how his worldbuilding is in service of his themes as much as of his plot. Perhaps the most obvious instance is Herbert's use of a desert prophet (notably common to three religions of our own civilization, he observed) as a plot point around which to structure his themes.

No more terrible disaster could befall your people than for them to fall into the hands of a Hero. [276]

Herbert brings together (at least) two broad themes in Dune.

That heroes are painful for a society and that superheroes are a catastrophe.
Herbert is on record as assuming mortals are fallible by definition, and that several factors compound this foundational problem: leaders reinforce their shortcomings by assuming a myth of infallibility and deflecting criticism as a means of maintaining their roles; power structures coalesce around leaders and are co-opted by corrupt actors; noble intent never is sufficient to avoid these problems, and may in fact merely direct social pain toward the least deserving; and, followers are as culpable as leaders.

Systems take over and grind on and on.
Human-made systems amplify the mistakes of human individuals. Human projects with the largest scale psycho-socially are religious: "messianic convulsions." Ecological projects have potential for taking politico-economic projects to a global scale, and the largest of these would be terraforming a planet.

Paul Atreides / Muad'Dib is a different character viewed from this lens, a well-intended and perhaps ideal candidate for community-minded leader, and yet by the end of this volume, seemingly on a different path than he planned. And, an unexpected result of following the thematic rather than plot developments was insight into those puzzling offstage events: they would have been interesting novelistically, no doubt, but would merely delay the thematic developments Herbert was keen to address. That the novel holds up under both readings is a testament to Herbert's avoidance of mere proselytising. "(Otherwise, who will read your pot of message?)"

As I hoped, this approach made for a very different reading experience, but happily one no less enjoyable. I see there is ample enough material remaining for a third reading, but first I will continue through Herbert's original trilogy: though he wrote six Dune books, he conceived originally of "a long novel, the whole trilogy as one book." I want to see where his thematic arc leads.

* Dune initially was serialized in Analog, and comparisons with the revised novel revealed interesting omissions. Herbert also discussed his preoccupations leading to the story in interviews ("Dune Genesis", OMNI 1980 is of special interest) and in liner notes and "connective text" to recorded readings ("Sandworms of Dune", which Herbert recorded for Caedmon 1978). ( )

I really enjoyed the Dune movies released recently so I decided to start reading the novels. The first novel was really good. For those who only seen the movies, this book start exactly where the Book Part one starts and ends where Dune part 2 ends. This book is an excellent starter novel for a series; the world is introduced without too much annoying exposition, a reasonable ammonut of characters are introduced and there's character development in most characters, but especially with Paul Atreites.

Two aspects I want to highlight are the way that Herbert handles the supernatural aspects of the world (truth seeing, prescience) and the messianic aspects of Pauls mission/character. These two aspects interract a lot in the book and both aspects are perfectly handled.

Overall, an excellent book! ( )

I first read Dune at about the age of ten in the late 1970s. Because of its enormous influence on science fiction literature, not even counting direct adaptations into other media, I have never been permitted to forget it. But I suspected that after the intervening decades I had probably misremembered much, and I have now finished a fresh re-reading of the novel. (My plan is to continue with the sequels this year.)

This book offers absolutely ferocious world-building of the sort to justify the existence of the term. That said, I was not always wowed by the prose. Some of the character diction seemed needlessly affected. I did like the poetry, of which there is a great deal--a feature not much reflected in the screen adaptations to which I have been exposed. I am always fond of speculative fiction that can provide and exploit liturgy, which this book does very well.

When I first read Dune, its attention to ecological issues was celebrated, while its anti-imperialist politics were comparatively underplayed. Now, I suspect that the relative weights of these features in public consciousness may have been reversed. And there is some irony in the more pressing message for each readership being the one less noticed by them. Although, of course, both are important and ultimately inseperable.

As a schoolboy, I read the descriptions of mystical and psychopharmaceutical states in Dune and understood them as proper to exceptional people in an exotic world. Now, after my own psychedelic and contemplative experiences, much about them strikes me as authentic and common. I am left with a chicken-and-egg conundrum: did the novel give me mental scaffolding that helped to flavor or even determine my own later adventures, or did the author simply draw on experiences and insights congruent to mine?

From here on out, I will share thoughts on this widely-acknowledged standard of its genre, first published generations ago, where I won't scuple to flag "spoilers." Caveat lector.

Within the projected history, it is peculiar that the value of Arrakis' export can be so thoroughly mischaracterized to the reader--and presumably to the interstellar civilization--as "the geriatric spice, melange" (5). For how many centuries were even the governing planetary elites supposed to have been kept in the dark about the spice's crucial function for the Spacing Guild and the Bene Gesserit? I guess if it had been overproduced to serve its relatively unimportant medical use, that might be credible.

I enjoyed the two long Villeneuve-directed films adapting this book, and the sort of largely non-culpable omissions they made demonstrate how enormously much the novel contains of plot and character. In the films, there is no scheme to frame Jessica as the traitor, Thufir Hawat doesn't die, Count Fenring does not appear, Leto II is never born, Alia is kept in utero, &c. I have to admit that the casting of these movies was so truly fine that I was happy to use my own mental images of the actors in 'scenes' from the book that were never on the screen. (Liet-Kynes is of course an exception because of the way Villeneuve contradicted the text in that case. I did like her in the movie, and my reading head-cinema picked up Lynch's Max van Sydow for him in the book.)

The 2005 edition I read featured a short afterword by Herbert's son Brian, who has since gone on to write more than a dozen books set in his father's imagined universe. The afterword is largely biographical, and its discussion of the novel didn't show any sort of insight that might excite me to read Brian Herbert's fictional contributions.

I’ve been meaning to read this book for over a decade, and I finally made it a priority a few weeks ago (mainly cause of the new movie). I found it to be every bit as epic, engrossing, compelling, and confusing as I expected.

As with any good sci-fi epic, there are many layers to this story. But the world building that author Frank Herbert has done is some of the most complex I’ve come across in awhile (a lot of it thanks to the numerous philosophical/sociological musings, ideologies, and histories). This was a SLOW read for me as there was a lot to process and mule over.

That being said, I LOVED it! All of it. Even when it started to wane some around the middle I couldn’t stop reading. Other than the multiple storylines and characters, I really enjoyed the writing. Herbert does a fantastic job of putting you in the mind of various characters, and the way characters would have whole conversations just through facial expressions and body language was very interesting. And of course I enjoyed the spice planet, giant sand worms, mind powers, brutal villains, and all the sci-fi paraphernalia.

After reading DUNE I can see why it would be exceptionally challenging to translate well on the silver screen. I haven’t seen the David Lynch version, but I did go see the recent Denis Villeneuve release. I was a big fan (I’m a fan of all his movies) and I especially loved the sound and cinematography. But I can also see why my wife, who hasn’t read the book, was confused for a lot of the film. It asks the viewer to do a lot of heavy lifting. ( )

Representation: It’s complicated.
Trigger warnings: Military violence and war themes, death and murder of a parent, grief and loss depiction
Score: Nine out of ten.

Dune by Frank Herbert was enjoyable and almost perfect.

It starts with Paul, part of the noble House Atreides. There is a powerful substance called spice, or melange, but it is only on Arrakis, which is the planet where Paul lives. Later, he is alone after he fled until he meets the Fremen, but Paul sets out to reclaim Arrakis for House Atreides.

Dune resembles a slab of pages as there are 520 pages of story followed by 50 pages of appendices and 570 pages in all. The pacing is lengthy to focus on Paul's character and how he developed.

The worldbuilding was enjoyable as Herbert thought it out well. Additionally, the writing style, which included descriptions of Arrakis, was intriguing and descriptive but not overwhelming. The appendices explain everything, such as the history behind the world of Dune, the novel, leaving behind no unanswered questions. Herbert covers aspects such as specific words used or why there is no AI in the far future.

Thus, Dune is a unique take on the sci-fi genre, as it is not overloaded with AI or spaceships, but feels medieval given the feudal systems. The only advanced technologies were spice mining machines and handheld weapons, and there were galactic empires but not in the form of massive corporations.

Some characters are memorable, such as Paul, because of his journey to recapture Arrakis. Others were likable such as Chani, but some characters were a blur, such as Paul's parents, as they were side characters that had little page time.

There is action at the beginning, whereas the middle is slower, and the conclusion is engaging.

( )