Blurb
Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, heir to a noble family tasked with ruling an inhospitable world where the only thing of value is the “spice” melange, a drug capable of extending life and enhancing consciousness. Coveted across the known universe, melange is a prize worth killing for…
When House Atreides is betrayed, the destruction of Paul’s family will set the boy on a journey toward a destiny greater than he could ever have imagined. And as he evolves into the mysterious man known as Muad’Dib, he will bring to fruition humankind’s most ancient and unattainable dream.
My thoughts
Dune was published in 1975 and is a cult classic and has a huge following on the science fiction community. There have been adaptations of this iconic book into movies. It is probably one of the most revered books in science fiction. If this is your first forray into the realm of science fiction it is a classic and can be difficult to get into at first. My suggestion is give it a try but don’t give up until at least a third of the book has been read. It starts getting more action packed the further in you go.
For me Dune was my first foray to science fiction over 25 years ago and while I may not have gotten further than the initial book I have reread every few years. I am on my 15 reread of the first book now and plan to push on to the other books in the series.
It is set in a distant future like most good science fiction books and is a feudal society that has many great houses which rule the galaxy. These houses don’t work well together and while many have alliances it feels more like they are for convenience and are often cut and established new ones. It leads you to have the feeling that you can’t trust the houses.
I always felt that Dune was a great book to showcase the genre to people who aren’t necessarily fans of Science Fiction. It had a lot of great items including action, betrayal, politics and of course the science part.
I have read this book many times and am impressed with the writing despite the first part of the book being slow and very full. Don’t get me wrong it’s far from a perfect book as there is slowness in some areas as well as too much in the descriptions at times but it has the feel and is a much easier read than others of the genre
For science fiction it has a perfect amount of science with the mysterious nature of the new technology as well as mysticism.
Dune had a lot including ancient religion that permeated much of the people you will meet. It’s a strong book which deals with Paul Atreides and his family.
You see a lot of dysfunction in the houses who like to war with each other or betray each other. Paul is caught in the middle and becomes what they wished they could have been. The dysfunction doesn’t really end with the individual houses but also with the family Atreides. You can see the love they have for each other but you always see a lot of issues that started what happened.
It also felt like there was a lot of bigotry in this book and you felt that the Atreides were trying to right some of the wrongs. The issue is that it felt like it was too little too late as well as it just felt like the Great Houses all had enemies instead of working together. Vendetta seemed to be a big topic in these books.
Don’t get me wrong the book is long and drawn out at times but that adds to its charm as you will get to know and come to love each of the characters that you meet.
Paul is a teenager when you meet him and he is pretty much a brat from what I thought. He is like his father in a lot of ways and respects the natives of the realm and wants to work with them and not be enemies.
The book also deals with spice which is a potent drug that is used to help in space travel. I enjoy the fact that you see the monarchy more in line with drug dealers or kingpins since it shows that not all rulers are just or fair or even have the best interest of their people in their hearts and minds.
I have seen people make comments on the names in the past that they just didn’t fit with a science fiction book set on different worlds to have standard names from our own cultures. I think this while maybe is not always great that they use mostly common names I think we need to realize that if names are to complicated people will just shorten them or not say them even close to correct. A name is important but the story is what really should matter and how the character grows.
The story itself is very good and deals with a Baron being betrayed by his Emporer. The main character goes through so much in this book that you never know if he will survive.
The mix of fantasy into the science fiction makes this more palatable to me especially as pure science style science fiction can be very hard to read.
Paul is very interesting character as you start to meet him when he is a teenager and he bad come from a privileged background. He is abused by the system that produced his mother Jessica. The Bene Gesseret which are almost space monks but are all women.
Jessica is a kind of religious order guru and she has raised Paul to be unique among his own kind. She shows dedication and love for her Baron and in turn is shown disrespect by many others who are close to him. She doesn’t let that dampen her spirit.
I really enjoyed the book and going forward I plan to read more of this series as I haven’t read the balance of these previously. I am looking forward to what is to come and just how the author ties in the balance of the series with this amazing first book
Crazy Canadian Writing 