3.5/5

Honestly, I never know exactly how to start my review after finishing a nearly nine hundred pages book, but I guess I'll start by saying that I definitely enjoyed it, but was it a life-changing reading experience? Unfortunately, not for me. This book is considered a classic of the science fiction genre, Frank Herbert did an amazing, or even one of a kind job, creating the entire universe in which Dune takes place, all the characters, descriptions and practically everything in this book was simply fascinating. I really wanted to be one of those people who closes this book and is completely in love with it, and then when someone asks if they've read it say "Yeah, I love Dune, it's my favorite book." but as it turns out, I'm not that person. At least, yet. This is the first story in a six-volume series, so I hope that changes.


Like I said, I liked it, but I genuinely think I would have loved it if I hadn't watched the movies. In my opinion, the movies are even a close-to-being-perfect adaptation of the Herbert’s work and pretty much everything that happened in the book also happened in the first two films - with some small changes and a few scenes were in a different order, but it didn't change the fact that I still very much enjoyed watching both of them. Dune I and Dune II, being great adaptations, unfortunately meant that watching them before reading the book wasn't the best idea as I was bored for most of the story because I just knew what was going to happen. The first four hundred pages took me the longest to read because I watched Dune I twice, but thankfully it took me much less to finish the rest. The beginning (read the said first four hundred pages) were hard to read - which may not be much of an incentive for those planning to start I know - but the second half of the book even got me hooked. Frank's writing style may not have been entirely to my liking, the "wow, what's happening" moments didn't shock me as much as I thought they would, but the characters were amazing so I have to thank them because they are the reason for me being invested. Jessica was definitely my favorite here, followed by Paul, which I know is a boring answer, but what can I say, I liked them. They may even have become my favorite son and mother duo in books, which says a lot considering I've read a lot of stories in my life.

n  n    "If you harm my son,” she said, “you’ll have me to meet. I call you out now. I’ll carve you into a joint of—"
“Mother.” Paul stepped forward, touched her sleeve. “Perhaps if I explain to Jamis how—”
“Explain!” Jamis sneered."n  n

Finally ending my rant, because I didn't plan to write so much, which is basically still nothing, because you could talk and talk without the end about this book, but I definitely plan to continuing this series. Maybe I'll even manage to finish all six books this year, we'll see. I hope at least.


——————

maybe I'll be able to read all six books by the time the next movie comes out (2027?) we'll see (I'm already having trouble with all the names)

بعد از هشت ماه بالاخره تموم شد. اول از شادی تشکر کنم که گفت بیا بخونیم
گرچه خودش نتونست در این جهاد همراه بمونه ولی در هر صورت ازش ممنونم. اگه شروع نمی‌کردیم ممکنه بود خوندنشو خیلی عقب بندازم. شاید تا فیلم و سریال‌های آینده رو کامل ببینم، سراغش نمیومدم

چیز زیادی برای گفتن نیست که بقیه نگفته باشن
اول اینکه این توییت رو دیدم و گفتم شما هم ببینید :))

n  n

دوم هم اینکه یکی از دوستان توی این ریویوی خیلی خوبش نوشته بود از اینکه نویسنده خودش داستانشو اسپویل می‌کنه بدش میاد
خواستم بگم این برای من یه نقطه‌ی قوت بزرگ بود :)) از اینکه می‌گفت این اتفاق‌ها میفته لذت می‌بردم و انگیزه بیشتری برای خوندن پیدا می‌کردم
حقیقتش من دیگه واقعا خسته شدم از بس توی هر کتاب فانتزی یا علمی‌تخیلی جدیدتر نویسنده‌ها به هر قیمتی شده دنبال گذاشتن یه پیچش داستانی‌ان و کل تمرکزشونو می‌ذارن روی اینکه خواننده رو به اون سمت بکشونن و بعضاً خیلی زوری به نظر میاد
حس می‌کنم از بس تو همه‌ی کتابا خوندم دیگه اشباع شدم. وقتی همیشه انتظار توییست داشته باشی، دیگه بی معنی می‌شه. البته اگه خوب و زوری نباشه لذت می‌برم ولی خیلی وقته که یه توییست خوب نخوندم. (طبیعتاً این موضوع شامل ژانر معمایی نمی‌شه چون اساسش همون معما و حلشه)
من بیشتر از شخصیت‌پردازی، جهان سازی، نوع روایت داستان و.. لذت می‌برم تا شوکه شدن و این کتاب همه‌ی این‌ها رو در اختیارم گذاشت و به یکی از کتاب‌های مورد علاقه‌م تبدیل شد
ترجمه هم طبق انتظار عالی بود

Update 2 March 2024
I saw Dune 2 and the first one is nothing compared with it. Actually, most movies are nothing compared to Dune 2. Maybe Villeneuve is the real Kwisatz Haderach.

Update! Just wanted to say how much I loved the movie. Go see it. It was probably good that there was a gap between the time I read this and the movie.

Read 2015
Amazing! A masterpiece of SF with which I will probably compare all SF books that I’ll read in the future. It goes in my favorites shelf.

This is my 3rd attempt to read Dune and I am really grateful that I did not succeed the first two times I tried as I was too young to understand all the subtleties. I would have probably enjoyed it as a very well written adventure novel but nothing more. That would have been a pity as Dune is so much more than a story about space travel and epic battles between good and evil. It presents complex philosophical ideas, explores ecological issues, cultural identity and differences. Also a major theme is represented by religion and religious leadership.

The disturbing part about this book, taken in the current political context, is how easily the Fremen can be identified with an Arab nation. The spice can be seen as “oil” and the Harkonnens as evil westerners/Russians that are exploiting the natural resources without thinking about the locals and the environment. I saw that others reviewers saw this as well.

2.50 Stars. I tried, I really did but I just can’t. This was a reread for me. I read this in early high school after discovering Ender's Game in 7th grade and someone telling me if I loved that book I would love Dune. Ah no! I would take a million Andrew Wiggins before I had to read about another Paul Atreides. Anyway, in high school I found the book to be wicked dry and I could not stand Paul. After rereading this, while I do have more appreciation for the world building, it is still really slow in parts and I still don’t want anything to do with Paul/Jesus.

I wanted to reread this since I was going to watch the movie and was hoping it was just a case of 14-year-old me not liking something that adult me would. Instead, I forgot how boring the book could be in places and I had forgotten how annoying it was to have spoilers given to us at the start of each chapter (from the princess). While I did make it to the end of the book, I must admit I skimmed on multiple occasions when I started to feel sleepy.

There were some parts that really do not hold up well, but I didn’t take that into account in my rating. I can’t be surprised that a book has homophobia and sexism when it was written in the 60’s. If this book were written today, then I’d have plenty to pick apart.

I did end up seeing the new movie (I’ve watched the old movie too but remember it being so weird that I had no idea what was happening) and I actually liked the new movie better than the book. As a big time reader I feel weird saying that, but I think it solved some of the issues I had with the book. However, Paul was still Paul and the movie can’t fix that so overall I didn’t like the movie half as much as everyone else seems to. I guess I just have to lose some geek points because Dune is not for me.

1ra parte leída hace muchos años. Vuelto a leer hace algunos meses. Me bastó solo con el primer libro. No fue nunca del tipo de ciencia ficción que me ha gustado. Esta vez se me haya hecho algo más lenta y obsoleta su narrativa( mi opinión).
Es verdad que toda la info. intrínseca en sus historias y diálogos hacen de esta obra una muy completa. Una novela y seguramente saga ( al que se la lea completa) que perdurará, y de las que se continuarán sirviendo muchos escritores de ciencia ficción como parte de luz inspiracional para crear sus propios mundos. Como lo ha sido tb de alguna manera en mi caso. No obstante, para mi gusto actual demasiado muy épica y obsoleta para con el sentido de la ciencia ficción y su tecnología de nuestros tiempos.
La ciencia ficción no son solo naves voladoras, mundos conquistados o gusanos gigantes, tambien lo son sus diálogos y los conocimientos tecnológicos actuales que en ellos se describan. Ojo, una muy buena obra!!! Es solo que no me entretuvo tanto en su reelectura años después.Pero es solo mi opinión!

I’ve been sitting at this keyboard for longer than I care to admit trying to coalesce my thoughts about Dune into something coherent. You already know it’s fantastic though, right? Dune is one of those novels that is spoken of in reverential tones by seasoned reader and relative newbie alike. It’s considered by many to be THE best sci-fi novel of all time and Herbert’s son, Brian Herbert, rightfully calls it sci-fi’s equivalent to Lord of the Rings for inspiring all that came after its publication.

So, I mean, what in the name of Shai-Hulud am I supposed to add to that?

Well, I’ll begin with the story of how I came to read Dune. I’m sure that there have been ample opportunities to read the book. I can remember seeing the black-spine amidst a forest of other spines on my cousin’s bookshelf, of which I had free reign. Yet something always kept me from picking it up. It could have been my obsession with fantasy novels at that time with only the briefest allowances for sci-fi. Whatever the reason, the book continued to pop up. Its sliver of desert on a black background called to me from piles at used bookstores, the shelves of friends and relatives, and even on public transportation. All the same, I never got around to it.

Two factors finally made the difference. The first, my well-read friend (Josh Bragg in real life, but he’s on Goodreads too!) always brought it up as one of the best books he’s ever read. He also took the opportunity to remind me to read it whenever book recommendations went flying between us and, foolishly, I kept putting him off. But I’m a sucker for a great looking book and these Penguin Galaxy sci-fi collections sealed the deal for me. Their elegant cover designs, the intros by Neil Gaiman, a selection of books I’d always been meaning to read, AND Dune was on it? I was absolutely delighted to find the book under the tree on Christmas morning and tore into it in earnest.

THE TIME HAD FINALLY COME

Though it took near 200 pages to really pick up speed, the novel had me hooked from its immersive opening. Here was a world that was familiar and strange at the same time. There are elements of fantasy and religion coupled with interplanetary travel and space empires. The characters touted titles that were inscrutable at the beginning, but became part of my vocabulary before the novel’s end. The novel refused to tell me everything I needed to understand, secreting mysteries without ever outright stating them. How could I not want to know what Kwisatz Haderach meant? How could I not want to know the secrets of Arrakis?


The Layers of Dune

I was swept away by this novel that mixes sci-fi concepts of higher dimensions with political intrigue. Environmental change mixed with an unlimited cast of enthralling characters, and a drop of religious philosophy. Dune is a novel of the highest order: it combines entertainment with brilliant questions that pull from an incredible number of disciplines. Of course, if you just want to read a compelling tale of political plotting, murder, adventure, and discovery, you can totally do that too.

In the afterword, Brian Herbert notes a conversation he had with his father about the writing and structure of Dune. Frank Herbert constructed Dune so that it would be immensely dense. Herbert wanted to create a tale that could be enjoyed on the level of the central conflict: a boy becoming a man trying to reclaim his heritage against astounding odds in a world beyond imagining. Here’s an excerpt from that afterword about the layers.

Ecology is the most obvious layer, but alongside that are politics, religion, philosophy, history, human evolution, and even poetry. (Page 693 of the Penguin Galaxy Edition)

The fact that the novel can be enjoyed from any number of different readings alone makes it a novel of huge significance. Dune doesn’t force you into thinking, but it invites the interested to partake in its rich metaphor and multifaceted meaning. What’s more, Herbert makes statements about his concepts, but rarely does he offer them as the only solution (barring, perhaps, an ecological viewpoint that bemoans industrialization). I dove into different fields of thought between and during readings. I contemplated elegant ideas Herbert proposes and marveled at the structure of the plot and the boundless ideas of this world.

What a world it is! The world building here could fill a university course as Herbert establishes a world unlike any other, but totally believable. When I read about the stillsuit I was astonished by its creativity, but also how it imparted valuable information about the world of Arrakis. Though the sandworms scream for attention throughout the novel, equal care is given to the hierarchy of the Empire, the mystical Bene Gesserit religion, and the curiosities of culture. Herbert also seems to have invented a group of hallucinogenic compounds that are in equal parts trippy, interesting, and betray an interesting look at 1960s culture.

Dune drew me in and took me for a ride that I never wanted to get off.

Of course, when the ride does end, it is immensely satisfying. Dune ends leaving unanswered questions in a fashion that made me feel like I knew enough to be entirely contented. Which, of course, begs the question: will I read the other Dune novels?

Welllllllllllllllll, maybe.

It’s highly daunting to look at the entire Dune Chronicles and think that I would tackle that. Especially when Dune ends in a way that makes me so happy, and especially when the subsequent novels purportedly deliver diminishing returns. For now, I’m too overjoyed and impressed by Dune to consider returning to the world anytime soon other than to re-read the novel.

Obviously, I can’t recommend Dune enough. That’s also not a recommendation that goes to the sci-fi crowd alone. Oh no, this is a book that has great appeal to a wide variety of people. You like A Song of Ice and Fire? Perfect: you’ll love the backstabbing, the plots-within-plots, the combat, the story. You don’t read sci-fi? No worries: there’s a wealth of important themes upon which to reflect. You like sci-fi, your friends continuously recommend you read Dune, and you keep putting it off?

Goodreadians, I think you know what you need to do!

For me, Dune worked excellent. It has striking multi-pov and I have to admit it was hard to get used to that, and half the readers who will hate it, they will do so because of it extremely weird multipov where often several characters' first-person thoughts were laid out in italics. Yeah, the author did that. Yet, I have to say, it had one of the best world building that I have ever seen in a sci-fi. I have seen world building in Harry Potter, in Hobbit, in Song of Ice and Fire, in Name of the Wind, Mistborn and many other high fantasies. But never have I ever saw such rich world building with so many weird names in a science fiction world. This is truly epic. I love sci fi. If you ever find an epic sci fi that has as detailed and well planned world as this, never hesitate to recommend me.

n  Update March 2024:n Just bumping this mini-review to say I'm pleased with Villeneuve's adaptation for how he handled my Dune favourites. Feyd-Rautha has been done justice at long last, the trauma from the cringe yellow-pants Sting is over, the honour of House Harkonnen has been restored.

_______________________________

The start is one of the slowest beginnings I've found, and the writing could be much better than the rather basic prose Herbert exhibits, but the storyline and the setting are quite good once one gets past the first "book" in the this first installment of the Dune saga. I enjoyed the plot and the worldbuilding a bit more than the characters, though I did like the villains more too, and am left interested enough to want to eventually continue with the rest to see how the story of the Atreides family will pan out.

As a teenager, ‘Dune’ blew my mind. I fell into the story and loved all the grandiose ideas. Over time, I reread the novel at least a half dozen times and read the follow-on novels. Looking back over time, I idolize it a bit less, recognizing some flaws, but it will always have a special place in my literary heart. For me, it's still one of the very best.

“A beginning is a very delicate time.”

From a literary standpoint, my favorite thing is how it throws us in the middle of a universe 20,000 years in the future and makes no attempt to explain the backstory. And there is an incredibly rich backstory. There is a spacefaring Old Empire, which became corrupt and fell. There was an AI Superintelligence that enslaved mankind, only to be overthrown, itself, leaving a universe where technology is used scarcely and carefully such as human computers knows as mentats. There is the founding of the Bene Gesserit religious cult, a collection of women whose goal is to manipulate mankind towards stability and enlightenment. None of this is clearly explained in the original novel, which really pushes the reader to deep curiosity and to make many inferences. It’s this iceberg approach which gave me the most joy when reading it.

“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."

From a science fiction standpoint, it’s filled with wonderous ideas – alien creatures (sandworms), space travel, cool ornithopter craft, and of course the trippy, psychic power-inducing spice! So, despite having to infer all the intricate backstory, we do get to experience firsthand an imaginative, fully realized alien future.

“He who controls the spice, controls the universe.”

So, what are the flaws? Well, perhaps the biggest, which it shares with many epic western stories (Last of the Mohicans, The Last Samurai, Dances with Wolves, Avatar, etc.) is the ‘white savior’ trope. I think it’s a valid criticism, but in Dune, Paul embraces the Fremen culture and does not try to change them or tell them how to live. This is addressed more deeply in the follow-on novels, as well. Another is treatment of women (largely - through the Bene Gesserit) as conniving and manipulative. In addition, women are used for marriage to develop alliances. Finally, one could make a case that the book explores eugenics, possibly the most problematic issue. It’s not far off from the concerns in Star Wars with midichlorians and the Skywalker bloodline. I personally find it difficult to defend any type of eugenics as an ethical plot device.

“Irulan shall be my wife, opening the way for an Atreides to take the throne.”

However, on the positive side, the plot has some real strengths. It’s clearly anti-colonialist and pro-environmentalist long before it was cool to be those things. It questions the powers of church and state and examines the implications of culture-clash. It examines how religion affects politics, and politics affect religion. Capitalistic greed is cast in a very ugly light. One might even call it anti-western thinking. There are strong female characters with intelligence and real power. And, through its backstory, it also examines the dangers of overreliance on technology.

“The willow submits to the wind and prospers until one day it is many willows—a wall against the wind. This is the willow’s purpose.”

Despite what your jeweler will tell you, no diamond is truly flawless. ‘Dune’ remains a masterpiece, in scale, ideas, and storytelling. It’s not perfect, but it’s influential and entertaining. Five sand blown stars for this epic, complex, and well-told masterpiece.

“No more terrible disaster could befall your people than for them to fall into the hands of a Hero”

Doooooooon.

She sensed it, the nerd consciousness that she could not escape. There was the sharpened clarity, the inflow of data, the cold precision of her awareness. She sank to the floor, sitting with her back against (gyp)rock, giving herself up to it. Awareness flowed into that timeless stratum where she could view time, sensing the available paths, the winds of the future…the winds of the past…

The one-eyed vision of the past, casting back to Lawrence of Arabia, further back to the story of Muhammad and all the hero’s journeys of antiquity. The one-eyed vision of the future, probing ahead to Star Wars and The Godfather and… Beetlejuice? Yes, Beetlejuice. The one-eyed vision of the present, gazing, uh, sideways at the peyote Frank Herbert was on, at 1960s psychedelia, obsessions with altered consciousness and Eastern religions. All these combined in a trinocular vision that permitted her to see time-become-space-become-blockbuster-movies.

I am a theater of processes, she told herself. I am a prey to the imperfect vision, to the nerd consciousness and its terrible purpose.

Fear is the mind-killer…
Hope clouds observation...
But dammit I spent a bunch of time reading this book so the movie better be good.

My favourite memory of this book is when I was reading along, thoroughly hating everything, and then the book abruptly ended fifty pages before I was expecting it to because it turns out the rest of it is all appendices.

I don't even know where to begin reviewing this book, although the rant I launched into on Tumblr taught me I had many things to say. Perhaps I was doomed to dislike this book when I started at page one and discovered that its two main characters were named Paul and Jessica. Still, I moved past that; I'd heard this book was good, I was going to persevere. Then on page 20 or so Paul was obnoxious and sexist and I got frustrated. And then, it has to be said, Paul never really did anything to redeem himself for being generally obnoxious. Mostly he just oscillated between continuing to be obnoxious and being some all-seeing, all-knowing dispenser of wisdom and neither of those personas was particularly endearing.

Honestly, I was annoyed for a lot of the book that Paul had all of these special mental abilities that supposedly had never been had by men before, only women, and Paul was such an arrogant twerp anyway that I strongly disliked him being some kind of Chosen One. I felt that Frank Herbert was going to have this rule that only women can have these powers, the character of Paul should have been a woman then. But then it seems that the entire point of the plot is that he IS the first man to have this abilities - the Kwisatz Haderach or however it's supposed to be spelt - so then I guess it just annoyed me that there was this deep gender essentialism in something that should not have anything to do with gender at all (the innate abilities of the brain...).

Aside from that! This book also had approximately 9658976897579668 male characters who I couldn't tell the difference between. Towards the end there some guy named Guernsey or something turned up and supposedly he was Paul's friend from way back but I had no clue who he was and nor was I entirely sure I was supposed to. The female characters who existed seemed mostly interested in basking in the glory of Paul (probably he had a halo or something too, idk). Chani was nothing more than his love interest. That woman he won (as property) by killing Jamis was the same. Alia barely even did anything. Jessica was by far the most developed of the female characters, but even she was really disappointing because literally everyone spent the entire book talking about what a threat she posed to Paul and like, no, she didn't in any way whatsoever. PAUL HIMSELF at one point identified Jessica as his "true enemy" and well, I guess he's not all-seeing and all-knowing after all because that was LITERALLY NEVER FOLLOWED UP ON. All she did was disapprove of his relationship with Chani because she's an utter snob and disapproved of him seeing a "desert girl". Wow. I'm shaking in my boots, Jessica.

There are some defences to be made of this book - for instance, Herbert was obviously not trying to write about anything other than a deeply sexist society, so the fact that women get treated as property and evaluated in terms of their marriageability is not a flaw of the writer so much as the deeply annoying society he invented. Nonetheless, there were not enough female characters and those characters that did exist were not strong enough to counteract this. But then again, the male characters weren't very strong either, hence why I mixed them all up, so... really...

Anyway, I was dithering about whether to give this book two stars or three (mostly because I'd heard it was so good and I thought I'd judged it unfairly just because of the names-of-the-characters thing making me hostile from the off). BUT THEN I READ THE LAST PAGE.

NO JOKE, the last page is about how Paul has to marry this Princess Irulan to secure peace across the kingdoms or something but NO WORRIES because he's going to treat Princess Irulan like a worthless piece of shit forever because his true love is Chani! And Jessica is really pleased about this because she no longer hates Chani and she apparently thinks Princess Irulan deserves to live a life of misery because, y'know, she dared to be born a woman into a family that would force her into an arranged marriage and that is definitely all her fault.

Seriously, I hate you Jessica.

And basically everyone in this book, really. I guess Chani was okay, if not very well developed. Also the woman Paul won off Jamis, she was sassy, except I forgot her name so I guess not that sassy.

In conclusion...

This book is hyped beyond all proportion. I didn't understand it and it annoyed me but if you like long books with irritating and indistinguishable characters, go for your life.

(EDIT: I decided to demote this book from two stars to one star, because I actually really hated it so two stars was bizarrely generous. I don't remember anything I liked about this book. Don't read it.)

Epic and highly inventive, but not nearly as great as I remember it being. I think Herbert's writing really gets in the way of the story. He continuously tells the reader what each character is thinking through italicized internal dialogue. Sometimes uses the third person narration to do the same thing in a more elegant way. The problem is that he does both, often times for the same character in the same paragraph. It's super clunky, and took me out of the story every time.