Dune
Ratings2,572
Average rating4.3
“The mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.”
I still consider this to be the best book I've ever read. I love science fiction and this timeless story is incredibly powerful.
THIS WAS AN ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT READ!
I also think that this book is like a litmus test of sorts - whatever themes you pick up on reflect a lot about you. It has something that appeals to everyone.
Also, fair warning, it is a bit dense for the first 150 or so pages but this is one of those books that you MUST reread, just because it's so much better every time you do so and you find something new every read!
It's spelled like
⊃ ∪
∩ ⊂
on the back of my copy and that's sick. Airplanes that flap their wings are pretty cool too I guess.
If you're looking at the reviews it's likely that you're interested in sci-fi and have probably heard of this book already. I will add my voice to the cacophony of voices insisting that “you've got to read this book.” It's phenomenal.
It's already the best book I read this year (and we're still in April).
I actually really enjoyed the first novel in this massive series. Though, it's not for everyone, I found the world, characters, and politics to be extremely interesting. I'll admit that plenty of characters could have been fleshed out a bit more, or just had more of a character arc, but the complexities apparent throughout the novel kept me coming back for more. To be specific, the world and mindset of certain characters such as Paul added a lot to an interesting premise.
To be fair, I'm a huge fan of stories that have an immersive world. However, I still believe Dune did this almost perfectly. The only real complaint I'd have is centered around the ending, which was quite a bit rushed and abrupt.
Despite a few issues, you might as well consider me a huge fan of the Dune series already. Excited to see where it goes from here.
9/10
Spoilers for the ending of Dune
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Paul could have had more internal dialogue. I understand that Paul was unable to just break down or show emotions in the midst of a battle, especially after consuming the Water of Life, but at least give him some internal struggle over his son's death. Moreover, he doesn't even get his revenge on the Baron. I honestly wish the author at least let Paul and the Baron have an interaction near the end of the story, before he fights Feyd. Speaking of Feyd, it felt too soon for him to fight Paul. To me, he felt a bit underdeveloped. They could have had him live and fight Paul in a later novel. Nevertheless, this did not take away from the journey that was Dune.
Dune is a powerful work, but I often see emphasis only on the political/intrigue side of things. on the rivalry between the great houses and the game o thrones aspect. But for me, this was a minor part of the book and series' appeal. Dune is a spiritual work to me, the underlying theme, the one that makes it such a powerful work and series, is the evolution of consciousness. It is the ultimate story of self-improvement, and the challenges and problems which can attend “success.”
The focus on ethics, integrity, loyalty, honesty etc, these give the book and series it's depth, but it's done in a non-preachy way. Frank Herbert was deliberate in this aspect of his writing. he talked to his son about it, telling him that the story was important, and any value beyond that had to be added supplementally, not as the focus. And in this he succeeded admirably. There is much wisdom and value in Dune and the series, if we look past the excellent story. A book that adds to us while entertaining. Highly recommended. Few books achieve this lofty ideal.
Si este libro no hace entrar a la gente en la. Ciencia Ficción, nada lo hará.... Libro tan bien escrito, se toma su tiempo, si detalle en cada personaje y ecosistema qué de verdad te lo crees. Sientes lo que ellos sienten respecto al desierto. Entiendes sus costumbres y las tomas propias.
El misticismo qué te induce a lo Mesaico de la historia te atrapa de tal manera, que las páginas de hacen cortas conforme van pasando.
I don't understand why people love this book so much. The writing's so bad it makes 50 Shades look literate
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 of the genre, but the copy of the novel I read proclaims itself, via a cover blurb, “Science fiction's supreme masterpiece”, which is going a bit far. I expect more than “eh, it got a number of things right, largely by doing them first, and the things it got wrong it got wrong in ways that used to be less tiresome” from a “supreme masterpiece”. It's probably worth mentioning here that I'd expect “Science fiction's supreme masterpiece” to be more firmly entrenched in the realm of science fiction. Dune is far enough to the “soft” side of the science fiction continuum that, like many other works (Star Wars, for example) it can be more fairly characterized as a fantasy where the superpowers are attributed to technology instead of magic.
The story is a scrapyard of tired, played out science fiction and fantasy tropes. In short, it's the tale of a deposed royal heir who flees to the wilderness, goes native with the noble savages living therein, learning their survival skills while imparting to them his civilized leadership, and eventually claims his throne, thus fulfilling a prophecy and achieving his special destiny. This all takes place against the background of one of my least favorite lazy stock settings, Feudalism in Space. The protagonist's noble house is uniformly upstanding and heroic, while the antagonist house that ousts them is uniformly evil and treacherous. The ultimate driving factor behind the plot is humanity's “racial memory” which somehow “knows” that the human race is stagnant and “wants” to further its evolution. Ugh.
The characters are poorly developed caricatures, particularly the protagonist. Paul-Maud'Dib is less a character than he is a collection of powers and abilities. He has no real weaknesses or character flaws. He's an insurmountable fighter, universally acknowledged as able to defeat any member of the Fremen, who are in turn universally acknowledged to be better than the Emperor's crack Sardaukar, who are universally acknowledged to be better than anyone else. He's also a wise leader, respected by the Fremen, and able to outwit his chief rivals, the Emperor, and the Bene Gesserit. From the age of fifteen, he is already taking charge of his mother, who is not only an adult but a trained Bene Gesserit, with all the mental and physical discipline inherent in that, and defeating Fremen in single combat. He has every superpower that canonically exists, having been not only trained as a Bene Gesserit, but also as a Mentat, not to mention combat training from the very best professional soliders. To top it all off, he is the prophesied Kwizatz Haderach, making him the only man with the genetic memory superpower normally restricted to Bene Gesserit Reverend Mothers. By the age of, I believe, 19 he has displaced the Emperor and sits on the throne. I got a 77 out of a possible 100 by filling in an online Mary Sue test using Paul as a template, and this without knowing whether he and Frank Herbert share any interests (unlikely...I suspect Paul doesn't have any interests beyond reclaiming thrones and developing new powers).
Among all the other worn out tropes, I found myself scoffing at the Fremen's role as transparent stand-ins for a Lawrence of Arabia style view of Arab Muslims, noble savages awaiting the civilized leadership whose lack is all that prevents them from rising up and ousting one colonial power in favor of another, ostensibly more enlightened, colonial power. The scoffing rose to the level of actual offense, however, when I reached the scene in which the Fremen Reverend Mother refers to “our Sunni ancestors”, and realization set in that the Fremen are not merely the clumsy equivalent of Space Muslims, they are literally Space Muslims, in the Space Desert, controlling access to the Critical Space Resource. Further, these Space Muslims aren't even allowed to be Muslims. Rather than anything which might be recognizable as Space Islam, their religion has two identifiable aspects. First, a dream of ecological salvation given to them by a colonial scientist whom they, naturally, accept into their society and revere as a leader. Second, and more offensively, a prophecy artificially grafted onto their culture by the Bene Gesserit that, like something out of the wettest of T.E. Lawrence's wet dreams, predisposes them to give aid and comfort to a colonial who will someday appear to lead them. Again, I realize that 1965 was a different time, hell, Orientalism hadn't even been written yet, but the implications of the treatment of the Fremen in the story are unpleasant to say the least.
Overall, I'd give it two giant worms out of a possible five. The plot, while hackneyed, was almost entertaining enough to carry the cardboard characters and it has a number of interesting concepts which are, unfortunately dragged down by the unfortunate implication that colonialism is great, as long as you're from the right colonial power.
The first two books in the collection are decent, but save yourselves some time and don't read the rest. To say is was a struggle to finish would be an understatement.
Just lost interest. Written in such a convoluted manner and I never really got a hang of what was happening.
I haven't been that wowed by some classical sci-fi book in a long time. This book was really good, just overall really good. I now understand how Dune has such a big fan group. The only Dune I knew before this was the David Lynch movie and it was fantastic abstract. And this book is just so amazing ... and now I want to see Dune again ...
One of my favourite books of all time! The story, the universe, the philosophy (+ great artwork in the polish edition) are all there. Masterful world building including religions, history, ecology, technology, cultures and more. Such a shame that the following books in the series don't live up to this one. This is a truly unique book.
Dune is good! It's complicated because there are some parts that are so wild and I'll say it - bad! - like massive hatred of fat people, women don't really get to do much, weird racism, too much invented language to be accessible, strange abbreviations, but on the whole it is really compelling. And for a book written 60ish years ago it can be really readable!
Di planet Arrakis, kisah seorang pemuda bernama Paul Atreides bermula. Ayah Paul ditunjuk oleh Imperium sebagai penguasa di planet gurun tersebut yang juga dikenal dengan nama Dune itu. Meski bukan merupakan tempat yang nyaman untuk tinggal, Arrakis punya rempah berharga yang diperebutkan di seluruh jagat raya.
Namun, ini adalah perangkap politik, karena Klan Harkonnen berencana merebut kembali kekuasaan mereka dengan cara licik. Maka ketika Klan Atreides dikhianati, kehancuran keluarganya membuat Paul harus menempuh perjalanan menjemput takdir menuju padang pasir.
Cerita ini berlangsung di masa depan yang jauh di planet padang pasir bernama Arrakis, yang juga dikenal sebagai Dune. Planet ini menjadi pusat dari politik dan perebutan kekuasaan karena menjadi sumber utama melange atau rempah, zat yang sangat berharga dan memungkinkan perjalanan antar bintang serta memperpanjang umur manusia.
Paul Atreides, yang telah dilatih dalam berbagai ilmu bela diri, strategi politik, dan kemampuan mistis Bene Gesserit dari ibunya, Lady Jessica, menghadapi takdirnya sebagai “Kwisatz Haderach” yang diramalkan, seorang mesias yang akan membawa perubahan besar.
Untuk sebuah karya klasik versi terjemahan Indonesia sangat mudah diikuti. Untuk seleraku perpindahan POV antarkarakter agak membingungkan, itulah kenapa aku memberi 4 bintang. Ini bukan hanya sebuah karya fantasi atau fiksi ilmiah saja namun juga kental dengan intrik politik dan strategi.