These were really fun. As soon as I finished one I grabbed the next. I was sorry to see them end. Unlike most incredibly detailed books it didn't take me long to "get into" the story.

Literally one of the most boring books I’ve ever tried to read

Interesting read. I felt the characters were a bit emotionally underdeveloped and the story rushed into. They were also a bit unpredictable and changed so much throughout the story it was hard to keep up with.

A great Sc-fi classic

I'm so happy that the Dune trilogy renaissance is upon us because this is such brilliant books (and movies) that take on such heavy topics while interconnecting them with each other - mythology, religion, politics, imperialism, environmentalism, and nature of power - all while set in a beautifully constructed world.

This trilogy is set in a futuristic advanced world after the great war between Man and Machines, that eliminated all computers and prohibited the creation of "a machine in the likeness of a man's mind". At the center of the trilogy is a desert planet, Arrakis, and the secret desire of its inhabitants to transform its ecology, while the natives fight to preserve and maintain the ecological balance. The source of the galaxy's interest is Melange (spice) the most valuable substance in the universe, that grants one longevity and clairvoyant powers.

One of the most important themes of the trilogy is the interrelationships between the people and the environment, and the control religion exercises in vulnerable and hopeful people. The weight of these ideas is really all placed in the first volume, like humanity's return to medieval strategies, such as feudalism, the breeding program to create a Messiah-like figure who can guide humanity towards a peaceful future, and the replacement of computers with specialized people, averting technological advancement.

The following two novels encapsulate, completely, the themes set in the first novel, showing how inevitable it is the corruption of oneself by power and how religion and myth-making can sustain power when the world it lives in is surrounded by hopelessness and fear.

What makes this trilogy, not only brilliant but extremely enriching is the constant philosophical and moral debates that occur between characters, only made possible by the clear in-depth study that Frank Herbert did on human nature. Every single one of them is flawed, propelled only by their desires and needs, even when trying to be righteous.

Every fantasy and sci-fi novel reflects the place and time that created it. Dune reflects the environmental fear, the possibilities of human potential, the altered states of consciousness, the revolution against imperialism and the exploitation created by religion.

Bastante entretenido, con una mucho mejor historia de lo que esperaba.

The theme of 'The One' that is so overly used in fantasy is applied to Herbert's highly original sci-fi setting. A few of the environmental themes still have resonance in today's world, together with the struggle over resources. I noted some parallels between the fate of Duke Leto and that of George RR Martin's Ned Stark. Some plot developments were a tad convenient whilst others were interesting.

Having read, and thoroughly enjoyed, the first two (and maybe a third – I can’t remember) Dune books as a teenager, I found myself surprisingly bored several hundred pages into this 900 page tome. A half century or so ago, Frank Herbert’s world (or universe actually) was all new and amazing to me. And there’s no denying that Herbert’s series is quite possibly the best and certainly the most ambitious science fiction project ever undertaken. It’s the sci-fi equivalent of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. But since Dune’s original publication in 1965, we’ve the Star Wars parts I through infinity and a bunch of iterations of Star Trek, along with a couple of movies, one bad one good, and that might have something to do with my ennui. Both of these franchises, but particularly Star Wars (George Lucas should be paying the Herbert estate royalties!) borrow heavily from Dune. You’ve got your mentat, Duncan Idaho (Mr. Spock), the planet Arrakis (Luke Skywalker’s home planet of Tatooine) and your big fat slob Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Jabba the Hutt), just to name a few. So as original as Dune may have been at the time, that originality has in large part been overshadowed by its many imitators.

As a consequence I found myself underwhelmed and somewhat put off by what, to me, comes off as pretentious gobbledygook. Take this description, for example: “The floor beneath her was alternate blocks of diamond wood and kabusu shell within regular borders of passaquet bones. These had been set on-end, laser cut and polished. Selected hard materials decorated the walls in stress-woven patterns which outlined the four positions of the Lion symbol claimed by the descendents of late Shaddam IV.” I mean, come on, can you visualize this room? Could Herbert? I was also put off by Dune’s chronological lapses (for want of a better term). The plot jumps forward in leaps and bounds, skipping over decades at a time, as if the novel is in a rush to get to the real story, Dune Messiah which, by contrast, has a whole lot of crap shoved into a very short period of time. About halfway through Messiah I found myself wondering whether I would rate this book 2 stars or 3.

But with Children of Dune I finally became really interested in Herbert’s story (which leads me to believe that I must have given up on the series after Messiah; I would have at the very least remembered Leto’s Spider-Man shtick). With Children I at last came to appreciate just how vast and amazingly detailed is Herbert’s universe. This (the trilogy, that is) is a big, bit book, with big, big themes and occasional extraordinary little nuggets like this: “Governments, if they endure, always tend increasingly toward aristocratic forms. No government in history has been known to evade this pattern. And as aristocracy develops, government tends more and more to act exclusively in the interests of the ruling class – whether that class be hereditary royalty, oligarchs of financial empires, or entrenched bureaucracy.” Or this: “Knowing was a barrier that prevented learning.” One has to appreciate Herbert’s genius even if not really in love with his storytelling.

First, this collection is NOT ABRIDGED as far as I can tell. I mention this because the top Amazon review claims it is, but I couldn’t find any indication in my copy that the text is abridged--plus I read Dune for the first time a few weeks ago, then reread it in this collection, and didn’t notice any missing material.

With that out of the way... how are the actual novels?  As I wrote in a previous review of the first book, I think Frank Herberts Dune is a masterwork of storytelling, world-building, and speculative sociology.  Arrakis is a staggering work of imaginative cohesion: its punishing desert environment has spawned an ecosystem of massive underground predators and scarce, precious plant life.  Its native cultural mores are defined by the scarcity of water, the cultivation of psychoactive crops, and the priority of the collective good over the individual; its politics are defined by warring colonial factions seeking to monopolize the planets precious resources.  And the entire population - colonists and natives alike - has a pathological yearning for a charismatic “spiritual” leader to give meaning to life in the wastes.  

The novel’s gripping plot and finely wrought characters are interwoven with the masterful world-building: Herbert simply introduces to Dune the nobles of House Atreides and their heir, Paul, a gifted and unusually empathetic young man who is unknowingly the product of religious indoctrination and generations of selective breeding.  Paul is a lit match flung carelessly into a lake of gasoline; the resulting pyrotechnics are as spectacular as they are inevitable.

Dune, by itself, is a perfectly satisfying standalone novel - but paired with its sequel, it is revealed as the first two acts of a three act tragedy.  Dune shows us the rise of Paul Atreides; Dune Messiah is the story of his downfall, one he predicts and accepts, struggling not to escape fate but to define his legacy.  Together, these two books feel complete, and reading them in sequence in a single volume enhances that experience.

Paul’s legacy is the subject of the third book, Children of Dune, which I found to be less satisfying.  The returning characters read as somewhat inconsistent when compared to prior characterization; the newly terraformed Arrakis is less compelling setting than the unyielding wasteland.  As Children of Dune builds up its cast and widens its scope, it inevitably starts to feel a little more like a conventional space opera, which simply wasn’t to my taste—your mileage may vary.

As for this paperback trilogy edition - well, it’s pretty chunky, almost a thousand pages, if size a dealbreaker.  They also made the weird choice of moving the first novel’s appendices to the very end of the book - it would have been helpful to include an updated, comprehensive glossary for all three novels. Read together in this volume, Herbert’s three Dune novels read more like a brilliant duology followed by a slightly underwhelming sequel; but it's a fine way to experience these stories.

I'm going to write reviews here as I finish reading each book --

DUNE (Book 1)

Oh gosh, where do I even start before I actually begin gushing with my excitement over this book getting turned into a movie. I LOVED the first book - it's iconic, and it's the best sci-fi book I've read thus far (I am new to sci-fi being more commonly affiliated with fantasy reads). This book totally blew me away as soon as I got sucked into the world that is the planet Arrakis - or more commonly known as Dune. (I can already see in my mind how amazing and epic the movie is going to be)

I have to say that I love that full attention to detail that Mr Frank Herbert gives to the book. It's one of the few books I've never really minded about flicking all the way to the terminology appendix at the back because it was so worth learning all the Imperium jargon and being able to read the book smoothly after the first few chapters. The whole desertification ecosystem is so well-studied, down to Liet-Kynes' description of how a stillsuit works in the Arrakis setting, to the most precious commodity being water - all that, with elements of political intrigue, prophetic visions of the future, deep spiritual awareness, religious fanaticism all blended into one amazingly written book. To this moment that I've finished the first one, I'm not at all sure how Herbert managed to jampack all of that detail into a coherent and well-written novel. It's all like a work of art - I understand how this book blazed the trail for well known stories like Star Wars, and the political intrigue that is reminiscent of A Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin. I've even heard mention of Isaac Asimov - though the Foundation stories are something I've yet to read.

I really can't stop raving about how good this was because I'm even more hyped up to getting to know what does happen next. There have been a lot of warnings that the next books are diminishing returns unlike this first one, though I wonder as well. Something I'll find out as soon as I've finished Dune Messiah and Children of Dune.

DUNE: MESSIAH
Spoilers on this part onwards.
I'll be honest here, I didn't love it as much as the first book, and I do understand why others term the other Dune novels as "diminishing returns". However, the story did continue with Paul's legacy as the Muad dib and the Emperor in place of the deposed Padishah Emperor in Book 1. It was interesting to see how the story would develop though this was more in the political and somewhat religious intangible way. Things seemed to be happening and not happening at the same time, and Paul's prophetic oracular nature as well as Alia's were quite confusing and colorful at times that it was a bit harder to comprehend. This book was quieter than the first to be sure, and was all about Paul's security of having an heir to the empire through Chani. The only game of thrones esque politics and backstabbing was hyped at first but to me fell flat and.... hmmm. The ending was probably meant to be a poetic fall from grace and immortalization though that was just it. Didn't understand why the Tleilaxu chose gholas to achieve a means, much less how they could have escaped Paul's visions. Interesting to see how the third will play out with Paul's heirs.

CHILDREN OF DUNE
Hmm, where do I begin with this one? I think that Frank Herbert continued in that same vein wherein fanaticism took a general forefront to the story, and it got a little more complicated with the fact that Alia was painted as the villain who got possessed, and that the twins of Paul Atreides are pre-born (this book uses the word abomination with reckless abandon, seriously). I can't say I really took a liking to the entire book. I couldn't take either of the twins seriously, and half the book was full of dull internal mumbo jumbo which are written to sound like some prophetic visions or words of wisdom from a set of twins who have bounds of inner selves and lives that live within them because their mother was addicted to the spice. Kind of fell flat for me. Including the fact that I think Idaho, Stilgar and Halleck are already quite far from their original characters. This book was too messy and incohesive and was all over the place. I think the part that most intrigued me was the paradox that, in trying to introduce water and ecology into the planet of Arrakis, Leto and Ghanima foresaw a future wherein the worms would die off and live endangered - and the spice would also be a part of that. Interesting also how things turn out that way which was quite ironic to me.

Could not get into this at all and I abandoned it. I know many people consider it a great work; it was far too much of a leap for me.

Не ожидал, что третья часть закончится на том же месте, где и фильм. Ожидал, что будет как цельное продолжение фильма, а нет, придется и другие основные части читать
3.5⭐