Dune by Frank Herbert
Black Sand Dunes in Iceland
Do you ever wonder what life will look like 40,000 years from now? Will humans be living like the Jetsons cartoons, with flying cars and robot maids? Hell, most of the time I can hardly figure out what tomorrow is going to look like let alone ponder such an abstract question. Hence my solution to these open-ended questions and my limited imagination is to let the creative storytellers and directors of our time fill my head with fantasies, to cram my mundane daily life with new worlds and abnormal societies. Frank Herbert, the creative mind behind the Dune series does just that.
Welcome readers and fellow book lovers to Dune. In the far-flung future humanity has learned to live amongst the stars, expanding beyond the confines of what makes up our real-world knowledge of space. In the vast expanse that is the universe, various parties struggle for political, economic, and military power. With entire planets at risk, the conflicts for power reach a family known as Atreides. In a political ploy by an opposing faction the Atreides, led by Duke Leto, are given the task of taking over management of planet Arrakis. Arrakis is the only planet in the known universe that is capable of creating the drug known as spice. Spice is needed by every faction. Please note the word need, not want. Spice is a requirement for intergalactic space travel and functions as an addictive currency in its own right, so the strategical importance of the drug is immeasurable. In essence by sending the House of Atreides to Arrakis is to give them up to the wolves.
Dune follows the young master of the House of Atreides, Paul, as he struggles to come into his own power and seek revenge against the ones that wronged his family. By working with the native Fremen of planet Arrakis and what remains of his family Paul sets out on a path that will leave the universe shaking in their space boots.
Dune is a complicated world and was not an easy read at first. Frank Herbert creates his own universe which makes it hard for a reader to know what is going on. While Frank does seem to draw inspiration from the real world, this book is still very alien to readers. Especially difficult for me were all of the made-up words within the book itself. I would be reading a phrase or word that is important to the storyline and have zero idea what it meant. The terminology was listed in the back of the book and to know what the characters were talking about I had to periodically look something up, it sometimes felt like I was reading websters dictionary. This breaks up what I call my sweet spot, that state of mind where it is only myself and the book in my hands. Not going to sugarcoat it, having to leave my sweet spot irritated me. Yet for all the annoyances it caused I felt Dune would have been worse off without such dialect and terminology. These ridiculous and made-up words made Dune more real. It provided a sense of culture and identity to the characters within the pages. While I don’t like having my sweet spot disturbed I think the payoff of being immersed in a new world is more than worth it.
On a side note, I beg you all to read the book first before watching the movie. The magic of Dune is that you can picture and create your personal futuristic world based on Frank's fantastic storytelling. It is my belief that watching a movie before reading the book will prevent readers from flexing their imagination and bringing to life the story within their minds.
Overall I highly recommend this book. It is a culture-defining science fiction novel that nearly defined the entire genre.
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