Dune

Staff Pick

I'm sure other Powell's employees have chosen Dune as a staff pick, and for good reason: It's a science fiction classic. It is densely written and almost prophetic in nature. The spice, and the desert wars over it, sound so very much like our current situation regarding oil in the Middle East. Tinged with the supernatural, filled with believable characters, and laced with the very spice it is about, this book is an unparalleled work of science fiction. Herbert manages to create a whole new and possible galaxy. The only thing holding Dune back from "graduating" to the literature sections of bookstores is that it is too much a science fiction novel, though I feel it is as well written as any piece of great literature. I recommend this to any and all readers (even those who despise science fiction). I believe it should fall into the same category as 1984, The Great Gatsby, or To Kill a Mockingbird: a classic.
Recommended by Hobie, Powell's City of Books

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inasrullah, December 16, 2012 (view all comments by inasrullah)
I read Dune for the first time in high school back in 1982, and it left an indelible and magical imprint on me. I gobbled the book up in three days and then proceeded through the entire series at the time. Now after thirty years, I have come back to re-read Dune, but with a completely different perspective - perhaps that is the point of age - and while the magic is gone, it is still a tremendous book. In fact the book is damn near prescient. The books asks me to consider some interesting and worrisome phenomenon. At the level of geopolitics, we root for Paul Muad'Dib as the youth born of privilege immersed into a desert culture of ascetism, and rails against an empire married to corporate rapaciousness, and then sets to conquer it through a Jihad. At the time the book was written, people claimed the book was loosely based on the life of Prophet Muhammed, which - as a Muslim made me feel proud - seems pretty obvious. Now 30 years later, we witnessed the emergence of Usama Bin Laden, his reign of terror, our War on Terror and his ultimate demise, and Dune means something different. It asks me to root for our protagonist Paul, who actually mirrors the life and times of UBL; recall UBL was the very rich son of a Yemeni Industrialist, eschews his life of privilege for one of asceticism and adopts an extreme anti-Imperial and anti-Western (corporate) ideology. He creates a following of extremists bent on over-throwing the US and its interests - much like Paul finally taking on Emperor Shaddam IV. Obviously, I believe UBL was an abomination and a scourge on humanity and I glad he got what he deserved. But the similarities to me are remarkable. In reality we root for our Emperor, CHOAM, and our Sardakaur troops as they fought in Iraq and Afganistan, hoping they would kill UBL, but was he Paul? What does Paul actually stand for in Dune? How is that different from now?

But Dune is also about humanity's evolutionary future, and what the human mind will become. In the Dune universe, the multi-generational selective breeding of the Bene Gesserit creates the Kwisatz Haderach - the male counterpart to a reverend mother - who can look into the past through humanity's germline to see the long view of history, and has the ability to see through time into the future. Paul represents the full potential of the human mind. Seeing physical reality as the past, present and future as one - like Einstein's block universe - Paul ties it all together. Humanity has achieved the omega point. Humanity has reached God-hood. Again, reading Dune 30 years later since I was a teenager, so much has happened that makes Dune seem prescient. At the time Dune was written, there was no real biotechnology (at least it was still embryonic) - PCR, cell line modelling, genetically engineered mammals, gene based therapy, anti-body therapy - and so we did not know that every human being can be traced back genetically through genes found in mitochondria of women only. We did not have in essence, Tleilaxu tanks to clone humans from genetic remnants (we are still not quite there yet for more ethical reasons than anything else, but the technology is there) and stem cell therapy was unknown. Yet Dune speaks to it through its story telling. Some of its ideas may seem antiquated now thirty years later, but so much more of it is truly prescient.

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leslieluvzbooks, August 4, 2012 (view all comments by leslieluvzbooks)
An extremely intense book! Herbert's masterpiece makes you feel like you're reading a tale from ancient history, so thorough are his details, from the locations of the planets to the description of the kinds of clothes they wear, based on the climate they live in! An adventure that will leave you awestruck and pensive for a long time afterwards!

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dial m for moniker, September 22, 2011 (view all comments by dial m for moniker)
This is the first, and one of the only, sci-fi books I've read. It was given to me, along with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, by a friend from H.S. who told me that both books were absolutely essential reading. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed Dune. It's got spice.

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Product Details

ISBN:

9780441172719

Author:

Herbert, Frank

Publisher:

ACE Charter

Author:

Various

Author:

Frank

Author:

Herbert

Location:

New York :

Subject:

General

Subject:

Fiction

Subject:

Science Fiction - General

Subject:

Dune (imaginary place)

Subject:

Science / General

Subject:

Science fiction

Subject:

Dune (Imaginary place) -- Fiction.

Subject:

Science Fiction and Fantasy-A to Z

Copyright:

1996

Edition Description:

MM Picture Book

Series:

Dune

Series Volume:

01

Publication Date:

19900931

Binding:

MASS MARKET

Grade Level:

from 12

Language:

English

Illustrations:

Y

Pages:

896

Dimensions:

6.88x4.20x.90 in. .56 lbs.

Age Level:

from 18