He disfrutado con este libro exactamente lo mismo (o más) que la primera vez que lo leí.
Las aventuras de Paul Atreides, destinado a ser un auténtico mesías y salvador de Arrakis, me han vuelto a emocionar y sorprender.
Simplemente este libro tiene todo lo que me gusta:
-Personajes muy carismáticos (destacando OBVIO Jessicca, la princesa Irulan, el barón Harkonnen y Alia)
-Un worldbulding original y muy bien desarrollado (Desde la creación de Arrakis y los Fremen con su cultura tan particular, compleja y creíble, al universo galáctico, esos Harkonnen tan romanos decadentes, esas Bene Gesserit pérfidas y maravillosas)
-Una trama que crece y no se estanca nunca (llena de giros, sorpresas, acción... pero no falta de pensamientos metafísicos)
-Juegos de poder (intrigas palaciegas y trepidantes movimientos políticos)
-Una intención final crítica (sobre la manipulación religiosa, la figura del mesias, el ecologismo..)

Vamos, este libro para mi sigue siendo un buen ejemplo de lo que es una historia bien contada, original, entretenida y que consigue al mismo tiempo darte que pensar y dejar poso.

Sin duda voy a seguir con la saga, esta vez sí, el universo que crea Herbert es tan rico e interesante que no puedo quedarme así (aunque el final de este libro es completamente cerrado).

*2nd read - in 2020 I gave this 4 stars. What a DAMN FOOL I was! Total masterpiece of the genre and I think I have spice in my blood now.

Dune, widely considered to be the greatest and most important Science-Fiction novel ever. I haven’t really read, well, any sci-fi before so kicking my foray off with this entry was a great way to start.

“Fear is the mind-killer.”

We follow a select few Point of Views who are all associated in one way or another, with the desert planet Arrakis, also known as Dune. On Arrakis there is an extreme lack of moisture, a blood-feud between families, a spice called Melange which is invaluable to it’s owner, a tribal society and giant, fearsome, terrifying Sandworms. There is a lot to the history and current affairs of the galaxy and Frank Herbert does an excellent job of exploring many avenues of interest throughout this intriguing planet.

“The mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.”

The Atreides family are the protagonists, all round good guys, with fantastic characters such as Duke Leto, Gurney Halleck, Duncan Idaho, Jessica a ‘Bene Dessert’ concubine and her son Paul Atreides, the heir to the family. There are lots of well crafted relationships within this faction. The blurb of Dune tells us that the family are betrayed and destroyed, and considering it takes quite a few pages to get to that point I’d have much preferred to have been able to figure it out for myself. The opposing faction, the Harkonnen’s are as well crafted as the Atreides, if not even more enjoyable. The slimy and devious Baron Vladmir is a fantastic antagonist. He brutally plots, is clever and there is no evil act that he is not willing to commit to see the downfall of his nemesis Atreides.

“The mind commands the body and it obeys. The mind orders itself and meets resistance.”

I really enjoy my read of Dune. The prose is very strong, and the descriptions of the world of Arrakis are beautiful. It is science fiction but really not in your face with the science of it all, but it feels very real. Very realistic to the point I forgot it was indeed a sci-fi book. Herbert is a well-rounded storyteller with enough detail of characters, their inhibitions and description, as well as consistent plotting and intrigue. Unfortunately I found Paul, the main character to be the weakest of the cast. I disliked just how much we were in his head and how he was pretty much perfect, but it was written in the 60s and I understand that what modern books I read are trying to steer clear of that approach.

“Try looking into that place where you dare not look! You'll find me there, staring out at you!”

Still, Dune is a remarkable story and will keep you on the edge of your seat (in your ornithopter). There is so much depth to Dune, the world and its characters. Impressive is the word, really. I would recommend it to to anyone, it covers different preferences and will tick a lot of boxes for lots of people.

“Survival is the ability to swim in strange water.”

4/5 - a remarkable story written with a distinct style and depth. The characters are individual and intriguing. There is heartbreak, destruction, giant worms, epic duels and a marauding terrifying baby. There are some fantastic quotes too. I am very much looking forward to the film.

– 2.5 stars

So this is one of the greatest sci-fi books of all time huh interesting



I read the first 5 chapters of Dune (didn't understand shit), went to watch Dune in the cinema and then read the rest of the book and I have to say thank god for the movie. The movie made the world of Dune so much more tangible & digestable. The book throws you right into the lion's den with all these characters, places & terminology coupled with the flower writing style of Frank Herbert made it hard to follow the story.
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“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

n
This is suppose to be a review for the book ,but I can't help but compare it to the movie adaption and for once I actually find the movie better. Paul, Lady Jessica, the Duke and most of House Atreidis were so much more likeable in the movie (maybe that's the Timothée Chalamet effect

"Dune" is full of great ideas, many of which have been copied by other sci-fi books and movies. The most notable copycat is Star Wars. As I read "Dune", I was amazed by how much of the story was directly lifted by the Star Wars movies.

Of course, "Dune" is much darker than Star Wars and more epic in scope. The world-building is very well done, and Frank Herbert does a brilliant job addressing the philosophical and practical implications of trusting the fate of a world to a single messiah-type figure. Do the ends justify the means? Herbert leaves this as an open question.

Why only four stars? I subtracted one star because of the clunky writing style, which is a barrier for fully enjoying this work. This may be sacrilege, but I think this is a case where collaborative writing would have improved the work. With Frank Herbert as the ideas guy paired with someone who is devoted solely to writing, I think "Dune" could have risen to even greater heights.

I don't need to write a full review of this because it's Dune; literally what else can I say about it that hasn't already been said?

What I can say is that as someone who doesn't read a lot of sci-fi/high fantasy, I found this a lot easier to read than I expected! Particularly because I watched the 2021 film (Part One) before reading this so I had a visual reference as well as general understanding of the various factions/politics at play which really helped. As well as the terminology and concepts the book explores.

That made the first 55% or so of the book fly by as more of a 'refresher' since the movie pretty faithfully adapts that portion of the story. Of course in the book you get a bit more detail and character depth which I loved.

I'm a sucker for themes of politics and religion, fate and humanity (animals vs humans), and more that was explored through this exciting and fast-paced story. The dialogue was great. I loved the epigraphs at the start of each chapter. All in all, I am shocked but happy with how much I loved this!

60 pages in and then i DNFed. world building is literally shit in this book.
i wanted to read this book just in case i accidentally bumped into Timothée or Zendaya but i really tried being ✨that bitch✨ but ✨that bitch✨ was not trying to be me. horrible, unreadable, and should be illegal
but think about it, if this book was written by a woman i just know i’d be able to actually read it cover to cover. never again

My new favorite sci-fi

Inevitably, everybody seems to be revisiting Dune in some way or the other.

I don’t have too much to add to all the discussion, other than to remind anybody who is interested that the book was initially published in the 1960s (and by a publishing company printing automotive manuals, no less, since nobody else seemed interested).

The rest is history, of course.

Dune has since gone on to become one of the highest selling Science Fiction novels of all time, and has received numerous critical accolades over the decades. Chances are that just about all of your favourite Space Operas (in whichever form or format) would never have existed if it had not been for this book.

Dune has aged extremely well, possibly because of the way it skirts the subject of A.I. (or computer technology). It’s worth noting that this was not an omission on the author’s behalf. Without going into spoilers, “thinking machines” are prohibited in the Dune universe (there is a reason for this, but I won’t waste your time with details).

Or, it could just be because Herbert was such a fine writer.

As a side note, there are those that push the boundaries of the above prohibition, so there are some technologies that make appearances as the series progresses.

The 2021 film obviously shows a lot (it is gorgeous to look at for the most part) but it tells very little. This can be either good or bad, depending on your bent as a movie-goer, but if you are a reader, you owe it to yourself to read this book (even if it is just to give you the right to critique). There is so much more going on beneath the surface.

Herbert explores a number of themes, and the book is as poignant as it is exciting. It’s remarkable that all the events taking place here is accounted for in one book.

Recommended.
All the stars.
Favourites.

I never wrote much of a review for Dune – since I had read it before the Goodreads era – but…
Original “review” below:

This is such a magical book for me. I’m not even going to attempt to write an objective review. I simply don’t have the words.

Yes, this rating is based on emotion and on how this book affected me and my reading evolution over the years. And, frankly, that’s the best way to gauge it, anyway.

Long live the King!

$1.99 Kindle sale, June 12, 2017, for this epic, classic science fiction novel. It's a lifelong favorite of mine, one of the reasons I'm a science fiction fan. Here's my personal Dune odyssey:

My dad was also a fan of SF and, as a young teen and a hardcore bookworm, I used to regularly raid his book collection. (I also found the stack of naughtier SF books that he kept in his closet, but that's another story.) I was probably 13 the first time I tried to read Dune. I was enthralled by the scene where young Paul Atreides has to stick his hand in the Box of Pain, with the poisonous gom jabbar needle being held at his neck by an old Bene Gesserit crone, ready to kill him if he pulls out his hand. And then I quickly came to a stumbling halt with the book. I tried again when I was about 14: same result. I was just too young for it.

With some trepidation I pulled Dune off the shelf again when I was 15 or 16 (I don't know why I was so stubborn with this book! maybe it was all the glowing blurbs on the cover). And THIS time I got over the hump and was swept away into the incredibly intense world of Arrakis, the desert world that is the sole source of the Spice, the vividly imagined giant desert worms, strange cultures and peoples, betrayal and corruption, love, destiny, and a duke's son who is trying to find his place and, oh, by the way, stay alive. Whew!

My highest recommendation! Seriously, go read this if you haven't. (But feel free to skip the sequels; they were afterthoughts.)

[UPDATED]
I reread Dune for the first time in several decades and immensely enjoyed it. I also went back to watch the original cult feature film by David Lynch and had quite mixed feelings - while it was close to the overall aesthetic that Frank Herbert describes with the gorgeous desert sets and the terrifying worms, the parts of the story that were necessarily culled out was disturbing (that and the woeful special effects at the time trying (and IMHO failing) to visualize the personal shields that the characters wear in hand-to-hand combat).

For those who are just discovering Dune for the first time, it is essentially a messianic story on a desert planet (think of Jesus or perhaps Mohammed on Tatooine) in a universe dominated by a cartel (the Guild also known as CHOAM) with a monopoly on a drug (called mélange) derived from a rare material (spice) available only on the desert planet Arrakis (Dune). This drug is so powerful that it allows the Guild (and later Maud'dib) to leverage space-time singularities to defy the speed of light and travel anywhere in the universe. Overlaid on this foundation, the epic battle of the feudal houses of the noble Atreides and the evil Harkkonen houses rages, the betrayal of the former by the latter explicitly endorsed by the Emperor (himself an almost impuissant pawn of the Guild as well). All that to say that the fabric of the story is multilayered and as complex and complete a universe as you will find in George RR Martin or Dan Simmons.

There are several enhanced human species running around: the Mentats who have been cerebrally enhanced to be able to calculate like supercomputers (computers themselves having been banned!) and each then uses their predictive analytics for their assigned Dukes (or the Emperor) and the Bene Gesserit cult who are a sort of quasi-religious non-celibate nuns who have honed perception and language to the point of having developed nearly superpower-level strengths of persuasion which are almost universally feared and vilified as sorcery in the rest of the universe. Paul Atreides, heir to the throne, is born to Jessica, a Bene Gesserit, possessed some of these powers and when the family moves to Arrakis (part of the aforementioned Harkkonen plot) from their home planet Caladon, he appears to the native Freeman population as perhaps a fulfillment of their messianic prophecies and hopes.

In perhaps the most critical departure from the book, the Lynch movie does not really show Paul questioning the awesome power that he possesses and his assumption of the mantle as the Arrakis Messiah, the Maud'dib (something that the 2021 film by Denis Villeneuve does thankfully address). In the book, one aspect that I loved was how Paul struggled with this messianic destiny and did everything he could to subvert it. One of the unique gifts he received, presumably as the rare and unique offspring of a Bene Gesserit, was the ability to see possible outcomes (like a Mentat) and thus he could take decisions based on the most likely foreseen outcome. It made for great reading.

The other great thing about Dune is the aesthetic of this desert planet with impossibly huge worms under the surface who are mysteriously connected to spice and pose a danger to all creatures in the desert except for the Freeman. The still suit which recycles body water in the deep desert was brilliant as was the ever-present obsession with "water debt" of the Freemen. I really felt like I was walking unevenly (must not attract the worms!) through the sand with Jessica and Paul before their fateful encounter with the Freemen.

Dune is a well-deserved classic for all the reasons I mentioned above and probably much more that I missed. I have read it twice and gotten almost entirely different things out of it each time. I have since read all the canonical Frank Herbert books in the series and enjoyed it all immensely.

[UPDATE] I am looking forward to Denis Villeneuve's Dune in October 2021. The previews I have seen so far seem to be quite coherent with respect to the book. I was a fan of Lynch's Dune and am curious to see what Villeneuve does with this one. Feel free to comment below.
[UPDATE] Villeneuve’s 2021 film covers half of the book and does a fantastic job as both an homage to Herbert’s book and Lynch’s film. The casting, costumes, CGI, and script are all top-notch. Dune lovers have every reason here for rejoicing. One key difference from the Lynch film is that we do not see the Guild Navigators, so we can hope that they show up in the second half!
[UPDATE 2024]
I loved the 2nd DV adaptation especially the use of color and black and white as well as character arcs. There were a few deviations from the original, but nothing as idiosyncratic as Lynch’s rain on Arakis
In 1984. I can’t wait to see what he does with Dune Messiah.

Fino's Dune Reviews
Dune
Dune Messiah
Children of Dune
God Emperor of Dune
Heretics of Dune
Chapterhouse: Dune

Nope. Sorry I don't get it.

I was able to finish it by listening to the audiobook but I was bored throughout the whole 21h.

So many descriptions... anyone else found the way Paul's mom describing him kinda weird?

And let's not even mention how many times I laughed at the main female character being called Jessica.

I'm sure I'll get plenty of comments telling me it's a classic and it brought so much to the genre... At the end of the day, my rating is always based on my enjoyment.

DNF at 50%

I can't continue. I give up.