Dune
Ratings2,754
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).
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.
Had to read this again for the first time since high school because you know, Josh Brolin and Jason Mamoa will be in the new film release in October.
I will say that for me, the first 3/4 of the book is much more satisfying than the final 1/4, making the reading experience a bit of a let down the second time around. So much of what happened went by too quickly and would have been best served by taking time with it, or giving way to the second in the series.
I might pick up Dune Messiah on Libby for bed time stories time, but not any time soon.
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.
You too can be the Kwisatz Haderach if you give this story a whirl. People go so bananas over Tolkien and all his faux researchy vibe, but I really think Frank Herbert gives him a run for his money. For ALL HIS MONEY.
This vision is amazing - a far future civilization as remote to us as... the past? You know what they say: the past is a foreign country. And so is this (very weird) future. The appendix itself basically changed my life (well, my intellectual life) (really, though! no joke!).
I first read Dune when I was just entering my teens - and I loved it. I can't pretend that I understood it fully, and I certainly missed many of the key themes and messages within in as I learned on later re-readings, but it's a heck of a story despite following a fairly simple outline.
The Atreides House are awarded custodianship of the desert planet Arrakis from which a mystery ‘spice' called melange comes. This spice is needed to allow ships to navigate the vastness of space, so not only is it crucially important that it continues to flow, but there is great prestige in being the House who controls it. The other Houses are understandably annoyed by House Atreides gaining this control and House Harkonnen tries to assasinate the lot of them. The son of the family, Paul Atreides, is forced to go on the run, hide among the natives and discover that he is the chosen one... Pretty formulaic, no?
On the surface, it's a political intrigue, a thriller with a man on the run for his life, and an ecological allegory that's only more timely now than it was when it was written. And yet it's justifiably a classic of the genre (Science-Fiction in case you didn't realise) published back in 1965.
He who controls the spice controls the universe.
look, look at all the work I did!
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
Blade Runner 2049
Arrival
An engaging, fascinating read, a look into a pre-Star Wars scifi world. I always love seeing genre fiction before it became hugely popular, to see what was influencing things behind the scenes. This book is absolutely amazing, and then the final sentence ruined it for me completely, and I won't be continuing.
Yes, it's gender essentialist in various ways, but I could deal with that; this book is old as anything. But then it doubled down in a way I couldn't deal with.
"Do you know so little of my son?" Jessica whispered. "See that princess standing there, so haughty and confident. They say she has pretensions of a literary nature. Let us hope she finds solace in such things; she'll have little else." A bitter laugh escaped Jessica. "Think on it, Chani: that princess will have the name, yet she'll live as less than a concubine - never to know a moment of tenderness from the man to whom she's bound. While we, Chani, we who carry the name of concubine - history will call us wives."
I just really don't have the time for that nonsense.
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 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.
I don't understand why people love this book so much. The writing's so bad it makes 50 Shades look literate
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 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 ...