I’m almost embarrassed to admit that I hadn’t read the seminal sci-fi novel Dune until recently. I’ve been told Dune is to sci-fi what Lord of the Rings is to fantasy. Given Dune‘s impact, it’s not an unfair comparison. Having written a sci-fi novel myself due to be published here in just a few weeks, it felt almost sacrilegious to not have read Dune prior to my novel’s release, not to even mention its writing. Late or not, I got there eventually, and I’m glad I did.
Oh, I do have one other thing to admit. I watched the Dune movie by Denis Villeneuve prior to reading the book as well. Broke all the rules on this one. Fantastic movie though. It only heightened my desire to read the book. I’m beyond stoked for the second movie. “May thy knife chip and shatter.” I had chills when I heard that in the newest trailer. I’ll watch anything Denis directs, no questions asked, but that’s a topic for a different post.
Now then, on to Dune, which was a great read as expected! If you haven’t read it before, stop here and remedy that. There be spoilers ahead. Don’t make my mistake of waiting so long. If you have, I wonder if you’ll feel the same way as I did about some of the pacing, or more specifically the time skips. The first book of the triad known and packaged collectively as Dune, itself called Dune (confusing I know), focuses on the House of Atreides and their arrival on Arrakis, the desert planet home to the makers and doomed to be the downfall of Paul’s father. We see the manipulation of the Great Houses of the Landsraad by the Padishah Emperor through his collusion with House Harkonnen, the trap waiting to be sprung by the Baron on House Atreides. We see the preparations and motivations of the mysterious Bene Gesserit order culminating in the Kwisatz Haderach, in Paul. We see the power of manipulation and foresight in seeding prophecy. I felt the first book to set up the world and stakes well, setting the stage for Paul’s journey, but I found the following two, while compelling and satisfying in their ultimate conclusion, also incomplete in an odd way. Book two, Muad’Dib, sees Paul come to this new title as he and his Bene Gesserit mother Jessica are accepted into Fremen society. Paul, trained in the weirding way, becomes the prophecy foretold while Jessica becomes a Reverend Mother by drinking the water of life, altering the poison from a drowned maker into a mind-altering, connective drug. I thought this well done, but somehow overly fast, including Paul’s connection with his love interest Chani, perhaps too dependent on prophecy to replace connection. But then again, prophecy is what this book is all about, whether false in its origin or not. Nevertheless, I wanted more related to the machinations of House Harkonnen, beyond the few scenes of the Baron handing Arrakis to his nephew the Beast Rabban, and his grooming of Feyd-Rautha. We see more significant jumps in the third book, The Prophet, where Paul, now older, fully embraces his leadership of the Fremen without the usual defeat and death of those currently in charge. We see the potential of Arrakis as another Selusa Secundus fulfilled, a warrior culture beyond the Sardaukar come to defeat the Padishah Emperor. However, it seems like there isn’t much told between the two. We see Paul atop the Fremen, Stilgar at his side. We see him learn of the Emperor’s arrival, then almost immediately him on the cusp of victory assaulting the Emperor’s ship and subjugating the powerful Spacing Guild through his control of spice. We see the death of the Baron at the hands of Paul’s intriguing, yet perhaps under-explored, sister. At this point, we know that while Paul has incredible foresight through visions of possible futures, so much so he has trouble discerning true memories from visions of futures past, we also know much is not certain, and there are many different paths leading to the great conquest in Paul’s name he spends his life trying to avoid. I would have liked to see more of that path, of the trials and tribulations that led Paul to his success over the Emperor and defeat of Feyd-Rautha in a duel to the death, of the path that led to an Atreides on the throne. Though if my critique of Dune is merely I wanted more, perhaps that is of limited use as a critique.
I’m realizing there is, perhaps unsurprisingly, so much more to say about this book, so suffice to say this won’t be the only blog post on Dune. I’d like to dedicate one to Dune‘s influence, and how modern sci-fi and fantasy stand on the shoulders of giants to improve. Until then, I want to also mention I was impressed by the author Frank Herbert’s use of third person omniscient. I felt he did a good job deftly switching from the viewpoints of various characters often paragraph by paragraph, or even sentence by sentence. I was afraid it might be jarring, but I didn’t find it to be.
Well, that seems enough for this one; Dune was truly a great read! Until next time.
All the best,
M. Weald
P.S. I get the feeling reading the subsequent books might fill some of the aforementioned gaps, but I’ve also heard they jump off the rails a bit. Either way, I think I’m going to give them a shot.
M. Weald 