Dune, #1
Hardcover, 720 pages
French language
Published Oct. 1, 2020 by ROBERT LAFFONT.
Dune is a 1965 science-fiction novel by American author Frank Herbert, originally published as two separate serials in Analog magazine. It tied with Roger Zelazny's This Immortal for the Hugo Award in 1966, and it won the inaugural Nebula Award for Best Novel. It is the first installment of the Dune saga; in 2003, it was cited as the world's best-selling science fiction novel.Dune is set in the distant future amidst a feudal interstellar society in which various noble houses control planetary fiefs. It tells the story of young Paul Atreides, whose family accepts the stewardship of the planet Arrakis. While the planet is an inhospitable and sparsely populated desert wasteland, it is the only source of melange, or "the spice," a drug that extends life and enhances mental abilities. Melange is also necessary for space navigation, which requires a kind of multidimensional awareness and foresight that only the drug …
Dune is a 1965 science-fiction novel by American author Frank Herbert, originally published as two separate serials in Analog magazine. It tied with Roger Zelazny's This Immortal for the Hugo Award in 1966, and it won the inaugural Nebula Award for Best Novel. It is the first installment of the Dune saga; in 2003, it was cited as the world's best-selling science fiction novel.Dune is set in the distant future amidst a feudal interstellar society in which various noble houses control planetary fiefs. It tells the story of young Paul Atreides, whose family accepts the stewardship of the planet Arrakis. While the planet is an inhospitable and sparsely populated desert wasteland, it is the only source of melange, or "the spice," a drug that extends life and enhances mental abilities. Melange is also necessary for space navigation, which requires a kind of multidimensional awareness and foresight that only the drug provides. As melange can only be produced on Arrakis, control of the planet is thus a coveted and dangerous undertaking. The story explores the multi-layered interactions of politics, religion, ecology, technology, and human emotion, as the factions of the empire confront each other in a struggle for the control of Arrakis and its spice.Herbert wrote five sequels: Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune, and Chapterhouse: Dune. Adaptations of the novel have been notoriously difficult and complicated. In the 1970s, cult filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky attempted to make a film based on the novel. After spending almost three years in development, the project was cancelled due to a constantly growing budget. In 1984, a film adaptation, directed by David Lynch, was released to negative reaction. A third film adaptation directed by Denis Villeneuve is scheduled to be released on October 1, 2021. The book was also adapted into the 2000 Sci-Fi Channel miniseries Frank Herbert's Dune and its 2003 sequel Frank Herbert's Children of Dune (which combines the events of Dune Messiah and Children of Dune), a series of computer games, a board game, songs, and a series of follow-ups, including prequels and sequels, that were co-written by Kevin J. Anderson and the author's son, Brian Herbert, starting in 1999.Since 2009, the names of planets from the Dune novels have been adopted for the real-life nomenclature of plains and other features on Saturn's moon Titan.
Second read since high school. So much more to extract. Great dance of cumulative religions and politicking with a nice fight here and there. Never finished the series but I've got a new goal now.
I think was in my early teens the first time I read this, and this time I felt like I'd never read it. Some historical and emotional perspective added hugely to my appreciation, especially the central theme of societal addiction to natural resources.
At some point I realized that this is the second book I've read recently that cast only "evil" characters as homosexuals. Coincidence?
Nearly perfect sci-fi.
The world Herbert created was not particularly to my liking, but it impressed me for two reasons: its thoroughness and its lack of similarity to Tolkien's Middle Earth, which seems to be difficult for most world-creators to escape. It's been a long time since I read this, but that's what I remember being most impressed by.
A sci-fi masterpiece. Any description I think of for this makes it sound lame; politics, legends, treachery, action, everything is here. Herbert crafts a living, breathing universe that still sounds amazingly plausible, despite the fact that it was written over 40 years ago.
A must for any sci-fi fan.
Easily one of my favorites, and I read it at least once a year (sometimes more). If you only read one sci-fi book in your entire life, read this one.
There hardly seems to be a point in reviewing a book that's universally recognized as a classic, even outside of the science-fiction genre.
Yet...
I first picked Dune up when I was ten. I was bright (what, you expected me to say I was stupid? Come on!) and in love with science fiction. I'd recently read Asimov's Foundation trilogy, and Dune had been highly praised.
Before very long, I found myself crying and threw the book across the room. It was the first time that something like that had happened to me: the book was simply too hard. I was angry at Frank Herbert for years, and refused to read any of his stuff.
But eventually I read a parody of Dune called National Lampoon's Doon. It wickedly skewered Herbert's complex writing style and dense plots. And yet somehow reading it gave me the urge to try …
There hardly seems to be a point in reviewing a book that's universally recognized as a classic, even outside of the science-fiction genre.
Yet...
I first picked Dune up when I was ten. I was bright (what, you expected me to say I was stupid? Come on!) and in love with science fiction. I'd recently read Asimov's Foundation trilogy, and Dune had been highly praised.
Before very long, I found myself crying and threw the book across the room. It was the first time that something like that had happened to me: the book was simply too hard. I was angry at Frank Herbert for years, and refused to read any of his stuff.
But eventually I read a parody of Dune called National Lampoon's Doon. It wickedly skewered Herbert's complex writing style and dense plots. And yet somehow reading it gave me the urge to try Dune again.
It's indisputably a classic. Herbert wrote on a level that almost no one else had reached, or has reached since: most of his works require hard thinking on the part of the reader. This was incredibly layered, complex stuff. At the same time, it was gripping and hard to put down; Herbert's gift is undeniable.
The story of Paul Atreides, son of a Duke who has been betrayed by his Emperor, is extremely memorable. Arrakis, the Desert Planet, is a setting like no other - Herbert led the way in creating an alien planet that had a fully-realized ecology (Dune could be considered to be science fiction's version of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring). The sociology is advanced and adult, alien as the far future should be and yet plausible. The metaphysics are uniquely challenging and thought-provoking.
The only criticisms that I could make of Dune are that it lacks a certain human warmth. The characters are, somehow, cold; they are sympathetic, but not entirely reachable, if that makes sense. They tend somewhat towards extremes, with a whiff of two-dimensionality. Baron Harkonnen and the rest of the Harkonnens are simply evil, without the slightest hint of redeeming qualities - or, indeed, any other human qualities at all. The Atreides are not necessarily their mirror image, but again, they seem almost idealized. For me, this lays a distancing effect on Dune; I enjoy it, I respect it, I re-read it often...but I do not love it.
Herbert's Whipping Star is much less well-known than Dune, but the protagonist, Jorj X. McKie, is far more accessible; he's funnier and more rounded, with an endearing set of flaws. The book, too, has considerably more humor than Dune. Even though it's not the classic that Dune is, for me Whipping Star is a more enjoyable book.
While I'm at it, I should note that Frank Herbert wrote five sequels to Dune; while the series varied slightly in quality, all the sequels are well worth reading. Not so the additional sequels and prequels by Frank's son, Brian Herbert. They are in every way the utter opposite of Frank Herbert's style: dull, flat, simplistic, and an outright insult to the intelligence of the reader. Brian Herbert was abetted in his cannibalization of his father's brilliant lifework by a hack named Kevin Anderson. I can only suppose that neither of them is capable of realizing just how contemptible their exploitation of one of science fiction's greatest authors is.
