Seems as if they might be duned to be addicted to spice, all good old barbarians on magic mushrooms style.

Quite dusty, especially regarding how to put the different parts of this behemoth series in the big picture of sci-fi because each part (of the 3 I´ve read so far and very probably won´t restart trying to read the 4th and 5th part) presents something different. Essentially, only this, the first one, is a real science fantasy epos, while the others are mostly circulating around the characters' special skills and family problems without much meta, plot, or different settings.

Just this first milestone is big in the epic worldbuilding department and some other things I´ll try to point my primate fingers at. As unrealistic as water scarcity in such a highly developed galactic civilization seems, it´s a perfect explanation for creating the blue eyed mind mutants and the misandrist female breeding gang, that don´t ever need to kick male butts, because they preemptively avoid that situation to become real.

Real life implications and innuendos.
I don´t know if Herbert had any kind of real civilizations, cultures, or traditions in mind when he constructed the tribes, today it would probably fall under any kind of politically correct bigoted do gooder codex, but there could lie a ton of creative writing gold in exploring this question of how to implement any past or present movement, society, tradition, faith into different sci-fi subgenres. Because how the traditions, monsters, and badass special moves of the inhabitants influence the planetary and intergalactic trade and travel balance is slowly presented to the reader, while the impact of the wonderful spice expands its glow towards total domination.

Don´t take drugs except they make you superhuman
As so often, a prescription free pharmaceutical wonder cure can solve all of your problems until corporate interests come and ruin everything by using anything in their armory to get control over the precious resource of psychohistoric psi precognition power. The idea of one substance changing the whole balance of power of the galaxy is big in many sci-fi series and especially terrifying for each arrogant, high tech civilization, because an animal creating impervious shields, an immortality tonic, a mind altering super drug, etc., could enable far weaker, steampunky tribes to destroy them. Classic barbarian hordes on magic mushrooms looting Rome style.

Bene Gesserit
Who says that centuries long, epigenetic, elitist breeding programs have to be completely evil all the time? Except for the poor lovers aroused by the wrong, not arranged partner, stupid Romeo and Juliet syndrome complexes, you have to see the bigger picture and control your hormones and feelings and sacrifice some biochemical illusions to create the ÜberPsi mentat mentalist mind penetrator. However, it works with less evil too. Together with the spice, this elite mental mind control academy with the aim to finally create the ultimate space JC messiah figure to defecate rainbows, freaking galactic peace, pink unicorns, and gold, is the backbone of the whole trilogy, because impacts of both and the excessive use of it as MacGuffins and Chekhovs plot devices lead to the question:

Is this still really sci-fi or not more a high fantasy thing with some sci-fi elements?
Well, highly subjectively, yes, Dune is mostly psi fantasy dressed in futuristic clothes with some faith, tech, technobabble (rare), and trade in between, which makes it one of the most outstanding and unusual sci-fi works, I mean fantasy camouflaged as sci-fi. Tricky, one is so indoctrinated to call this thing sci-fi that it took me a reread and absorbing many reviews to realize what´s really going on. I´m really not sure about this whole thing, I´ve read a ton of sci-fi and my alien mind parasite, in a kind of perverted symbiosis with the xenovirus making me look fresher I deliberately bought for this purpose like a tapeworm therapy to lose weight (you don´t want to know what this costs on the alien bioweapons black market, the second half of my immortal soul exactly), tells me that there still would a lot of story without the sci-fi elements, while close to nothing would be there after removing fantasy, faith, drugs, and mind penetrating abilities, so, yea. I mean, even the planet itself doesn´t really has sci-fi fractions or something, the space around it is kind of empty without many sci-fi parties, cyborgs, aliens, everything substantial seen in close to any big sci-fi series. This leads me to

An unpopular and possibly controversial opinion
It could be that Herbert is, and I am just talking about the sci-fi aspect, a bit overrated or, let´s precisely define it, overhyped as a sci-fi author because he is more of a fantasy writer. This couldn´t happen in a fantasy world, because parts of the legions of readers of the genre don´t want aliens and Clarketech mixed in their magic, not to speak of the suspension of disbelief problem that often comes with sudden future tech elements in fantasy, that´s just disgusting. The other way round, as with Dune, is much easier, just put some sci-fi around fantasy and everything just rolls perfectly.

Is terraforming destroying cultural heritage or making inhabitable worlds paradises?
The ethical implications of this question are another sci-fi old school vehicle, especially if the terrible acid rain, high gravity, parasite infested, or dirty desert land is the only region where the special, red plotline device can grow and thrive. One could go so far as to ask if there are real life examples on earth, conservation vs corporate environmentalism, greenwashing and stuff (spoiler warning: conservation lost, earth is dying), and how this should be dealt with in decades, centuries, or millennia when we (I hope you are immortal too thanks to alien symbiont virus cooperation like me, if you aren´t, poor you, may I infect you? Just 20.000 of whatever your fringe financial system uses as fiat money that will be worthless as soon as natural apocalypse, mutually assured destruction, or alien invasion make it obsolete, and you get the parcel. Shipping not included.) start manipulating weather, geophysics and- chemistry, and climate of other worlds to make it sexy, tropical, tourist friendly paradises at the low cost of exterminating all alien life, but this would be a bit far fetched.

Herberts´place in the sci-fi or sci-fa hall of fame.
That´s tricky, especially because he just couldn´t keep delivering after the third part. I´ve played around with the fourth and fifth part, but had to abandon it because it escalated to too much unmotivated, philosophical drivel without a real plotline and a place in the big picture of the series, Herbert just didn´t manage to hold it all together. What made the first three parts, that they are kind of eccentric, ingenious standalones without the classic space opera series uniting plotline and style, great, kind of destroyed the rest of the series. Because he had no more vision for the meta, high sci fa elements, Herbert lost control over his own creation and just manufactured hearthless shells to sell more books.

But that doesn´t mean that the first three parts aren´t milestones of the interdisciplinary genre, exploring it in new ways no one imagined before while reaching Lem-, Clarke-, and Asimov levels of subtle, intelligent dialogues, innuendos, connotations, and character driven development. It´s something unique, special, and definitively not for anyone because of its high entry barriers that may annoy some readers, but don´t let yourself be easily deterred by that, it´s totally worth it once you´re in and high as heck and addicted forever to the wonderful, delicious spice melange.

Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...

There's a characteristically witty essay by Borges about a man who rewrites Don Quixote, many centuries after Cervantes. He publishes a novel with the same title, containing the same words in the same order. But, as Borges shows you, the different cultural context means it's a completely new book! What was once trite and commonplace is now daring and new, and vice versa. It just happens to look like Cervantes's masterpiece.

Similarly, imagine the man who was brave or stupid enough to rewrite Dune in the early 21st century. Like many people who grew up in the 60s and 70s, I read the book in my early teens. What an amazing story! Those kick-ass Fremen! All those cool, weird-sounding names and expressions they use! (They even have a useful glossary in the back). The disgusting, corrupt, slimy Harkonnens - don't you just love to hate them! When former-aristo-turned-desert-guerilla-fighter Paul Muad'Dib rides in on a sandworm at the end to fight the evil Baron and his vicious, cruel nephew, of course you're cheering for him. Who the hell wouldn't be?

So that was the Dune we know and love, but the man who rewrote it now would get a rather different reception. Oh my God! These Fremen, who obviously speak Arabic, live on a desert planet which supplies the Universe with melange, a commodity essential to the Galactic economy, and in particular to transport. Not a very subtle way to say "oil"! They are tough, uncompromising fighters, who are quite happy to use suicide bombing as a tactic. They're led by a charismatic former rich kid (OK, we get who you mean), who inspires them to rise up against the corrupt, degenerate... um, does he mean Westerners? Or only the US? And who is Baron Harkonnen intended to be? I'm racking my brains... Dubya doesn't quite seem to fit, but surely he means someone? Unless, of course, he's just a generic stereotype who stands for the immoral, sexually obsessed West. This is frightening. What did we do to make Frank al-Herbert hate us so much? You'd have people, not even necessarily right-wingers, appearing on TV to say that the book was dangerous, and should be banned: at the very least, it incites racial hatred, and openly encourages terrorism. But translations would sell brilliantly in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and a bad movie version would soon be made in Turkey.

I honestly don't think Herbert meant any of that; but today, it's almost impossible not to wonder. If anyone reading this review is planning to rewrite The Tale of Benjamin Bunny, you'd better make sure you get your timing right. Who knows how it will be interpreted five years from now?

Rating: 4* of five

UPDATE 23 November 2021: I saw the Villeneuve version. Very beige. Not a huge fan. Memo to Chalamet's people: Don't let anyone else cast him in a role where the reason he's there is his cheekbones. He's better than that.

5/18/2019 The 1984 film is free with Prime on Amazon. With a new version being filmed right now and including some serious firepower from Director Denis Villeneuve to Timothee Chalamet as Muad'dib the Kwisatz Haderach, it seemed like a good moment for a rewatch. It truly is a gorgeous film, but really not so hot on the woke front. Surprise surprise surprise says my brain in its full Gomer Pyle mode.
2/15/17: I found this 2003 mini-documentary about the 1984 film on YouTube. I wasn't wrong. The film wasn't very good. Beautiful, yes; good, not so much.
***
I first read this novel in 1975. It seems impossible that it was over 40 years ago, but the math is inescapable and time inexorable. My teenaged brain was rewired by the read. I had a standard by which to judge all future SFnal reads, and it was a high one. I was transported into a future I was utterly convinced would be the the one I'd have descendants to live in. I suppose that could yet happen. I'm a lot less convinced now that the human race's future is that long. Age might bring wisdom, I wouldn't know about that, but it sure brought me a booster shot of cynicism.

The Orange Catholic Bible, the books of the Empress Irulan, they all seemed to me so real...the cry "never to forgive, never to forget" rings louder today than it did in 1975 because I've lived through so many iterations of it by now. Us people, we love the shit out of our vicious vengeful vendettas, don't we. Frank Herbert got that right as all hell.

Trouble is, ol' Frank wasn't any kind of a writer, was he? He had flashes of good phrasemaking, he had long stretches of competent prosemongering, and then there was the rest of the ninety jillion words in the novel. Serviceable is le mot juste. And TBH I feel pretty generous putting it that way.

But then came David Lynch. Oh dear, oh dear. I'm not a worshipper of Lynch's at the best of times. I thought Blue Velvet was brummagem and boring; Twin Peaks was portentous twaddle. So the Kool-Aid passed my seat, I fear. His 1984 adaptation of Dune was downright laughable. I left the theater torn between gales of laughter and gusts of grief-stricken tears. Sting in that stupid winged underwear! KYLE MacLACHLAN as Paul Atreides!! Ludicrous, all of it, and the problems started with the butchery of so much of the novel that even the bones were scattered in no sensible pattern. Inevitable, really, as the runtime of the film was a paltry two hours and seventeen minutes. Imagine trying to wedge a 600-page magnum opus dense with world-building and replete with internal ironies and levels of meaning into the length of a good winter's nap. Didn't work so good.

SciFi Channel, gods please bless their collective hides, approved a mini-series written and directed by John Harrison in 2000. It was 4:17:07 in total. That was *almost* enough to do justice to the story. The result was infinitely superior to the Lynch version. It was a joy to watch for me, a forty-year-old cruelly wounded mess of a man, and felt like a balm to my fanboy memory of the novel. Perfect? No. Great? Yep!

Then I found it on YouTube (of course it's since been deleted) and thought I'd take a respite from reality by giving it a rewatch.

You know what? Special effects age badly. Mid-budget TV ones age really, really, really badly. The screenplay clunked a good deal. The story, however, was all there and was well done, with the prunings and bonsai sculptings well chosen and well shaped. And the story was just about as timely as anything I could've hoped to avoid!

Dune bashed me upside the temples with its portrayal of the collapse of Empire and revolution of the have-nots in a way it couldn't have 17 or 42 years ago. It felt more timely, it packed more wallop than it possibly could have in fatter times. This is my idea of good myth-making: A story that isn't finished telling us the truth yet, and doing so in a way that compels, impels, propels us to go on the journey ready or not. The idea of a Savior come to rescue us is eternally appealing, the sight of the unworthy getting their comeuppance is evergreen. It wasn't what I was seeking, wasn't escapist boom-bang-blowwie, but it was what I needed. A bit of heartening to fight again, odds be buggered.

And now I'm told that there's a new version on the way, possibly to be directed by Denis Villeneuve of Arrival fame. That's some fire-power there. A director with clout and access to Hollywood's cash box could do something special with this epic...though I'm still very concerned with the issues inevitable in adapting the story to movie length.

Isn't it interesting how every decade seems to call for a new version of the story? The 1960s had the novel; the 1970s the unmade Alejandro Jodorowsky adaptation, a perfect reflection of the decade's malaise/limitation mentality; the 1980s cheesy, overblown one-note-and-it's-the-wrong-one ethos; the 1990s void, again perfectly in keeping with the culture; the 2000s TV version, as everything shrunk in the aftermath of the floodwaters of Bush's election stealing; and now a big-budget, major-talent remake! That hasn't happened yet! And bids fair not to, in the parlous economic times ahead!

Frank Herbert's Dune is a great rewatch. The novel hasn't finished with us yet. I hope it won't any time soon.

n  n    “there is no escape — we pay for the violence of our ancestors.”n  n

a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…

dune is widely regarded as the progenitor of the (modern) sci-fi genre. mixing the political intrigue of feudalism with philosophy, environmentalism, and a classic hero’s journey, the story centers on the atreides family as they journey to one of the most fought-over planets in the galaxy: arrakis.

this desert planet is hostile in every meaning of the word: in its harsh climate and dangerous fauna, its native population of tough-as-nails fremen, and in the presence of atreides’ rival house harkonnen. all are factors that pose a risk to atreides’ control of the planet.

thanks to an omniscient narrator, we’re keenly aware of any character’s thoughts and motivations throughout the story. our main protagonists, however, are undoubtedly paul atreides, a 15-year-old boy rumored to be a child of prophecy, and lady jessica, paul’s mother, a powerful leader with superhuman abilities that she’s also taught to her son.

a lot of elements of this story will feel like known classics. we witness paul’s growth from boy to man as he accepts the mantle of leadership, and passes several tests of adulthood. not only his family and his father’s trusted lieutenants act as his teachers, but so does the planet itself. we know he’s gotta stumble and fall before he can take his rightful place as his father’s heir.

however, i was very pleasantly surprised by the level of sophistication in the themes that herbert weaves into the story: profit versus environmentalism (see also: a metaphor for oil) with a side-serving of ecology and terraforming, the possibly violent combination of mysticism/religion and politics, and the level of manipulation that’s often required to move about in a rigid world like that of dune.

it’s a constant give and take, though, which i thought permeated every single aspect of the story. one or two things are really, really cool and then whatever accompanies those things is decidedly not cool.

let’s take the characters. where paul and jessica feel like very complete, flawed, and complex characters, a lot of the others are like… it’s not even cardboard. hot air, then? i mean, we have a fat, gay, pedophile antagonist, for god’s sake. and paul’s love interest is just there for only that.

same goes for cultural aspects: the way the fremen culture is fully based on the preservation of water, working its way into language and customs and misunderstandings, is amazingly immersive. but then the rest of their ways are just a very obvious, butchered rip-off of a westernized perception of the imazigen, the indigenous people of north africa (with some buddhist-esque sayings thrown in).

then there’s the rigidity of the patriarchal aspects of the galaxy’s feudalist society: we see lady jessica defy them and play around them in a myriad of clever, powerful ways that establish her agency and her ability to function beyond any sexist female archetypes. sure, she might’ve birthed a messianic figure, but she’s a smart political advisor and she can whoop any warrior’s ass because she’s a superb fighter, too.

and yet all the other women in the story are either (1) background fodder, (2) making babies, (3) thinking about making babies so bloodlines can be manipulated in a very creepy eugenics way, or (4) servant, concubine, wife or pleasure slave.

meanwhile, paul is out there literally defying the rigid view (and conflation) of sex and gender to a point where the subtext argues he’s neither man nor woman, but all the other characters remain firmly entrenched in their subscribed roles (which is easy, here: man = battle, woman = birth).

and oh, arrakis, you were done dirty too. a hostile desert planet with something as amazing as sandworms! and spice, the product that shapes galaxy-wide profit systems and changes the very fabric of the people consuming it. and yet the book never seems to move beyond Generic Sandy Places and has a complete lack of engaging descriptions. i also can’t believe i got baited by such a cool terraforming plot and then it NEVER happened. shame on you, herbert!

see what i mean? it’s inevitable: in this book, you cannot have your cake and eat it, too. do you want to have a cool thing? sure, but you’ll also have to accept a very uncool thing alongside it. so whether you’ll enjoy this book probably depends on how well you can stomach the free bad stuff herbert is handing out alongside his interesting concepts.

but when it’s good, it’s Pretty Damn Good. the quotability of this book is off the charts. philosophically, there’s so many interesting discussions going on about identity, responsibility, revenge, defying existing systems. and unlike most reviewers out here, i actually loved the dialogue -- which is great, because that’s about 80% of the book.

(the other 20% are cursory descriptions, prophetic visions, and terrible action scenes.)

the impact of this book cannot be denied. does it have problems? yes. myriads. the orientalism and white savior stuff probably being some of the worst offenders.

did i still have an unexpectedly good time reading it, which might have been tinted by my nostalgia glasses? also yes.

i like tortured heroes and women who are so confident in themselves that they’re like, fuck you, i’m powerful enough to create the messiah so i will. i like it when bad guys get stabbed and when scientists have beautiful, romantic dreams about terraforming.

at the end of the day, this book is kinda like star wars, but with more substance. or wait, is it the other way around -- and star wars is like dune, but with less substance…? either way, both have more than enough sand.



✎ 4.0 stars.

n  History will remember us as wivesn

2021 update: Reading this at 16, at the age of Paul Atreides, was a brilliant book. Reading this at 23, is all about relating to Jessica. This has aged like fine wine and I cannot wait for the movie.

What a book. The science fiction version of Lord of the Rings, but with the politics and intrigue of Game of Thrones. I'll have to reread it again sometime.

Edit: It's 2021, the world is in flames. There is no better time to read this book. Fear is the mind killer. There's not much to say that hasn't been said about this book - masterful, artful, anthropological, ecological before its time; a character study, fleshed-out female characters and a story that will be remembered as Muad'Dib was.

P.S. Also Denis Villeneuve is going to knock this one out of the park. Arrival and Blade Runner 2049 are two of my favourite films of all time - I see no reason that Dune won't be among them.

Video review is now up!

Read for my resolution to read classical sci-fi.

One of the classics of sci-fi and the best-selling sci-fi (in paperback), Dune is about the young Paul Atreides after his father Duke Leto is given control of the desert planet Arrakis by the emperor. However, there is a traitor plotting the downfall of the Atreides family and when the betrayal is finally enacted, Duke Leto dies and Paul and his Bene Gesserit mother, Lady Jessica, are thrown into the desert wildlands of the Fremen people. There, Paul learns about the spice, Arrakis' most covenanted product, the Fremen people and their prophecy of the one to come and save them.

But is Paul really a hero?

It took me quite a bit of time to read Dune. It is a very complex novel with a lot of things going, characters with many motivations, and many warnings about hero worship and the way the environment has influence on people. Let's go ahead and focus on the elephant(s) in the room: the dialogue, the portrayal of women, and the colonialism thing.

The dialogue isn't as terrible as I thought it would be. Yes, there are some characters with weird dialogue like Piter, the Baron, Thufir Hawat, and Gurney Halleck. Everyone else was mostly fine; Lady Jessica was kind of a middle ground. The dialogue flowed a bit strange at times and the characters' mental reactions to certain statements often sounded like a computer talking. But other than that, fine.

The women of Dune. Those who have not read Dune are probably unaware that the story is partially narrated, or at least partially described, by Princess Irulan the daughter of the emperor and a Bene Gesserit. Irulan's excerpts reveal her omniscience, but also reveal how she knew Paul was not the hero everyone initially thought him to be. Lady Jessica I felt very conflicted about. She certainly could outsmart several people, especially men, as a result of her Bene Gesserit training. However, at times Lady Jessica seemed like the stereotypical overemotional motherly figure that has been featured in many stories, not just sci-fi. Jessica and Gurney have a debate on being emotional versus being very logical; an argument that readers will soon learn is not just on page. It feels kind of essentialist to make Jessica the emotional one and Gurney the logical one, that whole "women are emotional and men are logical" thing. At one point Jessica is so emotional that she fails to see that Dr. Yueh is the traitor just as he's about to tell her. On the other hand, Gurney gets so logical he fails to see how emotions play into humans' actions and decision. I don't think Jessica is the worst depiction, because she is very strong and smart, but still it feels stereotypical.

And Chani, Paul's Fremen lover. To be honest, Chani was just kind of there. She was certainly strong given her Fremen upbringing, but her impact on the story was not as much as I had been led to believe. She is certainly a motivational factor for Paul, but beyond that not much else.

Alia was probably the best female character. Innocent yet calculating in her thoughts and actions. I am so glad that Frank Herbert didn't kill her off in the final cut, though I wish we could see more of her.

The Bene Gesserit are an order of psychic witch-geneticist-nun-things who have trained many of the women in the empire. They have a breeding program to create the perfect male version, the Kwisatz Haderach--whom they believe Paul to be, or at least fit the myth of the Kwisatz Haderach into Paul--, and thus have become concubines for various male rulers, like Lady Jessica, in the empire to secure and purify the line. The Bene Gesserit are responsible for many things and events within Dune, including the desiring of the spice drug and initially planting the religion among the Fremen to control them. An all-female organization with malefic intentions was not too common back when Herbert wrote this book. The Bene Gesserit are not the primal antagonists of Dune; interestingly enough, that right goes to power-hungry and corrupted men like the Baron and his nephews and the emperor. However, the fact that the Bene Gesserit are responsible for some many things and are all women makes me question the reasons. At no point in the story are women outright described as being inherently villainous, but why the Bene Gesserit like that? Who knows?

As for the colonialism aspects of the story, Dune is actually pretty self-aware of this at times. It's clear that the empire and the Baron do not treat either the Fremen nor the planet well and the Fremen have every right to hate them. The book does not shy away from the Bene Gesserit's religious manipulation of the Fremen, even. One of the most important scenes in the book is Liet-Kynes' death. Before he dies, Liet-Kynes has a hallucination of his father who warns him that his support for turning Paul into a hero is one of the worse things he could've done for the Fremen and that Arrakis' environment influences people way more than they expect. A hero from the colonizers/settlers/offworlders--whatever you want to call them--cannot be a true hero for the natives of the planet, he will only doom them. However, Dune also at times enacts the "noble savage" archetype. The Fremen are strong and courageous, but are ultimately wildlings with a regressive and superstitious society. So close, yet so far.

Okay, anyway, an actual review.

Dune is actually one of the most poignant descents into villainy--tyranny?--I have ever read. The whole book is a warning about hero worship. Paul Atreides goes from being an inexperienced duke's son to Usul Muad'Dib, the messianic figure of the Fremen religion. According to his mother, he actually wasn't supposed to embody the religious aspects of the hero, and yet he does. Paul is literally a contradiction to every single other character's ideals and goals. He shows how logic and emotion and coexist in someone (Jessica and Gurney), how eliminating those you have deemed as failed is actually weakening yourself (the Baron), and how the religious superstitions you plant might have truth (Jessica and the Bene Gesserit), and how status of birth and breeding guarantees no certainty (again the Bene Gesserit).

Back to the environment thing. Arrakis' rigid environment has influenced everyone and everything who has touched it. The necessity of the spice, the prominence and strength of the Fremen religion, the political arrangements--everything! This went hand in hand with Paul's rise to power. The emperor and the Baron thought they knew or could control Arrakis and cause the downfall of Atreides, but instead their misunderstanding and pride only caused the birth of a (anti-)hero. Arrakis will deal with Paul later, I'm sure. But on its own.

Paul's rise was subversive. I went from expecting to fearful in such a subtle and gradual way. Dune isn't perfect. But I'll be damned if it isn't significate.