Dune 1

Frank Herbert's Dune is simultaneously one of the most sublime and frustrating works of literature ever produced. I gave this novel a 5/5 rating outright for two reasons: it's my favorite novel, one I never tire of re-reading; and it's a book that should be read at least once by anyone interested in science fiction, fantasy, history, political science, economics, mysticism, or narrative. Regardless of whether or not someone actually enjoys Dune, every reader can glean something from it. That said, were it not for the latter two points, I would likely give this novel a lower rating, and here's why: Dune sacrifices storytelling for story. What in the name of Thor am I talking about? Let me explain. The world-building of Dune is outstanding, and I mean, REALLY outstanding. Tolkien can't hold a candle to Herbert's work in this regard - sure, he came up with a number of artificial languages, but from a narrative perspective that's actually one of the less productive things you can do to flesh out a setting. In Dune, every story element has relevance and connection to every other story element. The political reality of the galaxy depends on economic power, which is derived from trade, which is made possible by the Spacing Guild, who uses the spice, which exists only on Arrakis, whose administration depends upon the political climate. Paul's character is related to the mystical aspects of the story, but also brings relevance to the ecological and historical aspects. And so on, and so on. There isn't a loose thread here, no equivalent of the Fellowship of the Ring's Barrow-wights; nothing here could be removed from the whole package without substantially diminishing it. Tapping into all of these fundamental spheres of thought and creativity gives Dune the feeling of being a real history, and it gives the reader the feeling they're witnessing a change in the axis of civilization - something more subtly epic than big battles, of which we only get one (and an indirectly described one at that). That said, because Herbert is so dedicated to giving us as much material to work with as he can, in many instances this novel misses out on what might have been effective dramatic elements. An important plot point early on in the book is the supposed presence of a traitor in the midst of the Atreides, a traitor who will make the Harkonnen plot possible. Ordinarily I wouldn't mention this for spoiler concerns, but the novel basically comes out and tells you who the traitor is from the beginning, a while before it even comes into play in the events of the story. The reason this is problematic is because in a story which is so dependent upon political intrigue, it makes the decisions of the characters more powerful when we share in the mystery of the information around them. Another narrative problem is Paul himself. Though he is unquestionably the central character of the story as well as its protagonist, Paul starts off as a precocious fifteen-year-old and ends as a major player in galactic politics. In other words, he starts of as unrelatable and becomes less relatable as time goes by. In fact, several of my friends told me they stopped reading after a while because they didn't like Paul. This is an entirely fair criticism. In fact, the only character with whom a reader could form a true emotional connection would be Paul's mother, the Lady Jessica, whose problems are much more grounded in humanity. Now Paul's nature is basically vital to the fabric of the story, so it would diminish the story's complexity for him to become a more human character; but Dune would undoubtedly have been an easier reading experience had the novel chosen to focus on Jessica. This should give you a taste of what I mean. Dune isn't a novel that really engages a reader on an emotional level; because it reads so much like a history, it engages you on intellectual and thematic levels - but again, not emotionally. This is still my favorite novel, because measured against the standards of what it's trying to accomplish it succeeds beautifully; but potential readers should know what sort of undertaking they're facing when they pick this up.

Dune A book review by Nathan Poulson Written by Frank Herbert in 1959, “Dune” is an epic adventure of political betrayal, ecological brinkmanship, and messianic deliverance. It won science fiction’s highest awards—the Hugo and the Nebula—and went on to sell more than twelve million copies during Herbert’s lifetime. The mantel piece of sci-fi, Star Wars, owes many of its’ widely popular ideas to Dune. To this day, it is still acclaimed by readers and critics alike as a “science-fiction masterpiece”. I highly recommend it to all readers, as I believe it will put a new perspective on things, deepen your understanding, and excite you to the edge of your seat. Dune follows the 15 year old boy Paul Atriedies and his mother, Jessica Atriedies in the very distant future. He is an only child of the duke of the Royal house of Atriedies. The house is given the stewardship over the desert planet of Arrakis or “Dune”, which controls the most valuable resource in the universe, the spice. On the planet where water is more valuable than gold, desert sand worms that are bigger than spaceships, life is lived to the extreme. With the spice comes a longer life span, increased perception, and in some cases prediction of the future, but at the cost of being highly addictive. The Harkonens, a noble house that previously owned the planet is intent on revenge and recapturing the spice. The spacing guild, which relies on the spice for navigating their spacecraft, is also intent on preventing anyone restricting or destroying their monopoly on space travel. Paul finds himself thrown into the mystery of Dune and its fierce natives, the Fremen. They think he is the savior their prophecy speaks of - is he destined to be the great preserver of their world or a false prophet to be purged? With multiple factions fighting, deceiving, and pulling strings, you never know quite what to expect in this awesome futuristic battleground. One side I really like about Dune is that it is not just a distant sci-fi to be enjoyed, but a book to learn and understand from. I really enjoy the themes Herbert establishes in the plot; one of them including the danger of entrusting too much power to a super being. Although his themes might be very serious and almost depressing, I admire that he has the courage to end the story based in reality, instead of a unrealistic Hollywood ending with no depth. Although the plot was very engaging, at some times the writing style really dragged things down. This can be a real turn off for even patient readers as Frank ambles around in unimportant details describing made up words and the very boring thought process of the characters. This is the one thing that made this otherwise a perfect book. Even though I thought the plot was almost pulling me down, somehow I still enjoyed it through the few sparks of almost perfect harmony when the style actually worked for the story. What makes Dune so special is the pure atmosphere. You can really tell that Frank put in a lot of effort into his fictional world and society. Even though the story is set in another universe, the planets, the characters, and the motives seem very real. He had the worlds built before he set the plot on them; you can see he studied Greek and Near East history extensively to make this book really come to life. Most books have characters that you can easily relate to. With Dune, it is a little bit harder to do that. In it, you have a story that instead of a personal account, it is more like a “retelling” and it is sometimes a little harder to relate to the feelings and values of the characters. My favorite character Paul is the most distant character for most of the book. Most of this isolation comes from the fact that people look to him as an idol, even though he still has human flaws. Throughout the book Paul is the character with the most burdens, and in constant pressure that he doesn’t measure up to other’s expectation of him. “They think they have a God, but I am only a man”. In reality he is a character we can all reflect from, he just has some layers in his personality that you have to peel away to really get to the core. This book is near from perfect, but it still hits home. Frank Herbert has done a difficult thing that combines ancient myths and stories with laser guns and mind control. He was the first one to do it, and the last to do it so well. Even without its deeper meanings, this is still a great read to just casually absorb. I cannot explain to you how amazing this book really is; so experience it yourself and pick up a copy, you will be surprised to what it has to offer.

Review of the novel itself: I had planned to give this e-book to my son as part of a long-running series of introductions to the classics of science fiction that began with Heinlein juveniles when he was young. I read Dune (on paper of course) in about 1980, and thoroughly enjoyed it at the time; I've picked it up and re-read bits of it from time to time over the years--I still find I enjoy the writing and the world Herbert created, and can open this book to almost any page and just delight in re-reading for a few minutes. Of course, some of the themes seem to fit better in the 1960's than 2010's (e,g., drugs to access special mental powers), and some seem dated even for 40 years ago (e.g., gender roles and re-creation of a feudal social structure), but all in all I enjoy this work much more than other books that re-create an essentially feudal social structure in a high-tech future, and some bits I find more plausible than most modern SF (like the explanation of why there is no significant computer technology, which is a bit of a leap. But it is consistent with human nature and, unlike a lot of SF, not actively inconsistent with computing technology, information theory, etc.). I never really enjoyed the many other books set in the universe of Dune, though I did read the two that were available about 1980. But the 535 pages of paper that were the original "Dune"--those were great. Review of the eBook and art of publishing: Returning to the subject of the e-book edition, I was initially put off by the "Kindle Version Review"; but (as that reviewer pointed out) Amazon does not seem to attach reviews to specific editions, so I couldn't really tell if this review still applied to the current ebook. I got the free sample, and found almost none of the errors that others have reported; I spent the money to buy the full thing, and so far (35%, up to page 184 of 474) I've noticed very few problems ... I had Kindle search for one of egregious typos pointed out by another reader ("stulsuit", I think it was) and did not find it. All in all, the errors are few and far between (see below). In case anyone cares, the errors I've found by page 184 are several joined words and two other minor issues: * Page 4, italics are missing (this was the same in the GoogleBooks edition, suggesting that the publisher gives the same file to all ebook providers) * Page 42, two cases of joined words: arevaluable and dealingwith * Page 71, "iong" should be "long" (an interesting error, as noted below) * Page 106, hypen should be an emdash ("heavily armed-slow-pellet stunners" should be "heavily armed--slow-pellet stunners") [Rats ... in the "preview your review", I can see that my unicode emdash has been turned into a pair of hyphens. Hopefully you get the idea] * Page 176, joined words "nosign". I actually checked some of these (and a few other things) against my old paperback and the printed 40th anniversary edition (I had to visit a bricks & mortar bookstore); the above are differences between the print and eBook (e.g. the mis-print of "Harkonne" for "Harkonnen" on Page 16 is there in both paper and eBook versions). The pattern of errors suggests an interesting theory about the creation of printed books and eBooks: on page 71 of the printed 40th anniversary edition, the word "long" has a slight gap in the ink of the first letter, making it look almost like an "i" (though to a human eye, clearly still an "l" with a gap). It looks very much as if the publisher (a) prints the books from physical type rather than e.g. a phototypesetter (I'm guessing this is cheaper; possibly the type set by a machine, based on a computer file), and then (b) *scans* the printed text to produce the eBook (which seems, to me, odd almost to the point of inexplicability). Overall Summary: I'm glad I got this, and look forward to giving it to my son.

Royal intrigue, infighting among the various "Houses" of the Galactic Empire and The Spacing Guild that controls all space travel through the use of the "spice" Melange. And the only source of all Melange is on Arrakis, the planet known as Dune. At the heart of the story is young Paul Atreides son of Duke Leto and his "formal" concubine Lady Jessica. The Atreides are the ruling House on planet Caladan, a planet rich in water. But the Emperor has other plans for them; in a plot hatched between the Emperor and House Harkonnen, the Atreides House will be transferred to planet Arrakis and there, set up for failure. In this complex, finely crafted novel author Frank Herbert proves himself to be a master story teller. Filled with intricate plans, betrayals and hidden "plans within plans" this amazing novel will have you on the edge of your seat. Published in 1965 Dune went on to win both the Hugo and Nebula awards for best novel in 1966. Followed by 5 sequels and several follow up novels by Frank's son Brian, this is probably one of the best selling series of all time. In the first novel, Dune, Paul and his mother Lady Jessica, a member of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood, find themselves betrayed and alone in the desert. With Harkonnen agents hunting them and wild desert Fremen lurking in the shadows, the odds of survival are against them. I don't want to go to far into the details of the story line, that's been covered pretty well by other reviewers and this novel is something you need to experience for yourself. If you've read it before then you need no introduction. If this is your first read then go into it like I did, cold and not knowing what to expect. Herbert's writing is amazingly detailed and rich with hidden elements, his descriptive passages make you feel like you're on Arrakis. For insights on Dune's natural history, including it's geology, ecology and biology of the sand-worms read Appendix 1. In Appendix's 2 & 3 you get background on the various religions and the history of the Bene Gesserit's. Herbert provides an extensive glossary for unfamiliar terms and a break down of the various Houses of the Empire. All this supplemental material gives you some idea how much planing and forethought went into the writing of this novel. You may notice some similarity between Dune's Fremen society and our own Middle Eastern cultures, I'm sure this is not accidental and Herbert's research was extensive. Paul's greatest fear was that he could end up leading the Fremen on some kind of religious "jihad" that would sweep through the Empire and cost millions of lives. Whether you're reading Dune for the first time or just revisiting an old friend, this is a novel you don't want to miss. Like reading "20 Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" or "Lord of the Rings" you can't go wrong in reading a classic and Dune is not only a classic, it's The Classic science fiction novel. I had no technical or formatting problems with this Kindle edition. Last Ranger

Big on fantasy stories and I never got around to reading this but I've heard great things about it. When I found out they adapted this book into a film. I just knew I had to read the book as well. I'm glad I decided to do it because its a great read. There definitely some nuances from what I noticed between the book and film. The film it seems as they condensed it a little compared to the book. I definitely recommend anyone who's into sci-fi to read this book.

An amazing and all ecompassing experience. I am not a sci-fi fan, but I loved this book and I can't wait to read the remaining 5 volumes. Strategy, philosophy and deep human vulnerability are magnifcintly depicted in the novel. I could not put it down, and it left me moved, while at the same time, somehow sharper. I highly, highly recommend this book

Only through mimicry have other tales from the genre shared the thunder of this brilliant masterpiece that transcends all that came before.

Rich, complex, nuanced. Just an amazing work of literature. Read it decades ago and enjoyed it even more now. A must read.

👍

A very good hardcase version of dune. Together with Dune: Messiah of the same publisher really good. Update: children of dune also came out

Simplesmente obrigatório. Uma obra-prima que deveria ser mais conhecida. O autor Frank Herbert tem uma narrativa lenta, porém cativante; você sempre sabe que algo vai acontecer, então não fica chato. O narrador é onisciente, o que é mais comum na época dele; não se usa muito mais hoje em dia. O leitor atual prefere que estória seja contada do ponto de vista de um único personagem, pois as imagens ficam melhores na cabeça. Mas Herbert conta sua estória com maestria, cativando mesmo até os leitores mais novos. E o fato de vermos os pensamentos de todos os personagens ajuda, pois é uma estória bem política, com cada um tendo sua própria agenda (o que não funcionou bem no filme do David Lynch, diga-se de passagem. Vamos ver como Dennis Villaneuve vai fazer na adaptação dele). A jornada do protagonista, Paul Atreides, é uma jornada do anti-herói muito bem executada. Os temas de ecologia, futurismo, política, etc. também são dignos de nota. Até os nomes fictícios são ótimos. Eles soam muito bem. "Ele É o kwisatz haderach!"; "Bene gesserit" ; as famílias "Atreides" e "Harkonnen". Como não gostar desses nomes? E o sistema de magia também é muito bom. Está bem mais para hard magic do que soft magic (Brandon Sanderson), o que, mais uma vez, funciona melhor nesse tipo de estória. Espero que as pessoas leiam e falem mais dessa obra. É bem possível, por causa do novo filme.

Hace ya años que leí Dune por primera vez, y me encantó. A partir de leer Ready Player One, estoy volviendo a leer mucha ciencia ficción, con lo que valía la pena revisitar Dune. Es un libro espectacular. Personajes bien trazados, un universo interesante, una trama potente, y un desarrollo perfectamente elaborado. Junto con Fundación, es mi libro favorito de ciencia ficción, y es por algo. Además, es una caso muy claro en el que la película (ni la mini-serie) llegan a dar una idea lo más mínimanete remota de la historia que te cuenta el libro, con lo que vale mucho la pena leerlo. En cuanto a la edición, totalmente correcta. Típico ebook, que se lee perfectamente en el kindle. Un poco caro, pero muy recomendable.

Amazing good and enthralling sci-fi, although off to a slow start. Much better than the utter blackness of Iain Banks.