The Dune encyclopedia

No cover

Willis E. McNelly: The Dune encyclopedia (1984, Corgi)

526 pages

English language

Published May 27, 1984 by Corgi.

ISBN:
978-0-552-99131-5
Copied ISBN!
OCLC Number:
59203036

View on OpenLibrary

4 stars (70 reviews)

2 editions

Review of 'The Dune Encyclopedia' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

The 2007 audiobook was skillfully narrated by Simon Vance, in which he changes his voice for every character. I was a bit confused when some of the other voice actors chimed for certain characters at points in the story, but then those characters went back to Vance's voice. This was a minor distraction to an altogether fascinating story, which mixed sci-fi, mysticism, politics, and action into the first book of an epic series.

Review of 'The Dune Encyclopedia' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

The 2007 audiobook was skillfully narrated by Simon Vance, in which he changes his voice for every character. I was a bit confused when some of the other voice actors chimed for certain characters at points in the story, but then those characters went back to Vance's voice. This was a minor distraction to an altogether fascinating story, which mixed sci-fi, mysticism, politics, and action into the first book of an epic series.

Review of 'The Dune Encyclopedia' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

WOW

just WOW

Dune is one of those sci-fi classics that I never read, but decided to read because it's a classic.

and WOW

Really amazing storytelling, world building and character building.

If you haven't read it, go and read it now.
They made a movie of it with a postponed theater release of 3rd quarter 2021.
Go read it!

~~~

“The mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.”

Review of 'The Dune Encyclopedia' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

This is one of those books that I have started and abandoned many times over the years. This time, though, with Goodreads to motivate me, I pushed through, and I'm glad I finished it!

The beginning of the book is very political. It begins with House Atreides moving to the desert planet Arrakis (known colloquially as Dune) to take over spice mining operations from the incumbent House Harkonnen at the behest of the Emperor. I really enjoy political intrigue and thrillers, and this stage of the book roped me in and kept me hooked.

The middle of the book concerns itself more with people (I cannot say whom for fear of giving anything away) wandering around in the desert. Many pages and chapters are dedicated to this, and to describing how these people grow and change through their experiences. This is the phase where I most often gave up and …

Review of 'The Dune Encyclopedia' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

It's probably a bit unfair to judge a story from Dune's era by the standards of modern science fiction, so take it as understood that when I complain about, for example, cliches and overused tropes, I recognize that the genre was newer back then, and what's cliche today may have been fresh when the book was written. I also grant that much of what appears in Dune has become iconic. Seemingly every desert planet in sci fi, not to mention the occasional planet with appreciable precipitation, has giant burrowing worms infesting it, to take just one example. Having said that, though, I didn't read the book in 1965, I read it in 2009, so I'm less interested in what I might have thought had I read it forty years ago than I am in what I did think reading it today.

Dune certainly deserves an important spot in the history …

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Subjects

  • Herbert, Frank, -- 1920-1986 -- Dictionaries, indexes, etc.