Before I start, I want to tell a little story. Back in the day when Borders had bookstores all over the place, I would often go to see what was on the shelves with friends. My friend Justin and I came up with a fun game to play with the later Dune sequels (the ones from after Frank Herbert died). We called it the "Dune check," and what we'd do was grab a Dune book off of a shelf, open it to a random page, and see if there was anything on that page that was written so weirdly that it was funny. I don't think we ever found a pair of pages that wasn't funny.
So, I was a bit skeptical going into Dune, and was pleasantly surprised to find that, while the writing is a bit clunky in places, it wasn't nearly as laughable as the later Brian Herbert books. As I've been leaning more into classic sci-fi, I thought it was worth giving Dune a real chance.
After reading it, I was impressed by the excellent and unique worldbuilding. The universe of Dune is interesting and detailed but extremely pessimistic. Herbert combines multiple religious and spiritual influences into an intriguing element of the cultural setting. He has a good sense for creating mystery and finding satisfying timing for reveals. Some of the foreshadowing is a little obvious, but the mystical elements serve as at least a partial excuse.
The "good guys" in Dune are layered and nuanced. Most of them are drawn from standard archetypes but are relatively creative combinations of such archetypes. The "bad guys" are kind of flat, but at least we get some very interesting schemes. Herbert does a great job of compartmentalizing information between different characters; many characters go through a large part of the book under very incorrect conclusions. Unfortunately, those great opportunities are generally resolved pretty simply.
The worldbuilding contains a lot of cool ideas. The culture of Dune is full of themes of dependence, honor, revenge, conservation, and political intrigue. The religion in the story has multiple influences, with most of its linguistic elements borrowed from Arabic or Islamic traditions, while the overall direction of the religion is very universalistic.
Political conflict in Dune is fought more often than not with one kind of poison or another. That political conflict also stems from the unique ecology of Arrakis: spice, sandworms, and desert living. Weaponry is a bit of a weak-point: laser guns and shields and atomics, oh my! But if lasguns cause nuclear explosions when directed at shields, why not just pull the trigger from a safe distance? It's a little slapdash if you think about it.
Behind the good ideas are quite a few mediocre ones, as well. The FTL travel monopoly is kind of hard to believe. The Empire is pessimistic and hopeless. The focus on "great men" at the expense of everyone else is plain depressing.
Herbert does a good job mixing mysteries, solutions, and long-term mysteries. Many of the things you'll wonder about early in the book are fully answered by the end, but a few get left unanswered, as well as a few more that arise through the course of the story.
The pacing has some lulls but nothing too egregious.
Something about Herbert's syntax in the first half of the book bugged me, but he either stopped doing it later on or I got used to it and didn't notice it anymore.
All in all, Dune was worth reading. It's an epic story of great movers and shakers filled with mystery, military, and mysticism. Intricate knowledge of a few characters pushes the plot forward, and Herbert does a good job of showing how different characters end up with their different perspectives.
However, as someone who finds highly pessimistic science fiction a bit boring, I'm not super enthusiastic about reading more, especially after the second book is described as the "dark side of Paul and power" at the end of this one. Maybe at some point the mood will take me, but for my time and money I'd rather get back to Foundation.
Grab a copy here if you want to give it a try.
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