NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE directed by Denis Villeneuve, starring Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Jason Momoa, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Chang Chen, Charlotte Rampling, and Javier Bardem.Frank Herbert’s classic masterpiece—a triumph of the imagination and one of the bestselling science fiction novels of all time.Set on … the bestselling science fiction novels of all time.
Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, heir to a noble family tasked with ruling an inhospitable world where the only thing of value is the “spice” melange, a drug capable of extending life and enhancing consciousness. Coveted across the known universe, melange is a prize worth killing for….
When House Atreides is betrayed, the destruction of Paul’s family will set the boy on a journey toward a destiny greater than he could ever have imagined. And as he evolves into the mysterious man known as Muad’Dib, he will bring to fruition humankind’s most ancient and unattainable dream.
A stunning blend of adventure and mysticism, environmentalism and politics, Dune won the first Nebula Award, shared the Hugo Award, and formed the basis of what is undoubtedly the grandest epic in science fiction.
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DNF 30ish% (hard to determine on a audiobook)
I know this is a classic that everyone raves about loving but sadly for me this was boring. I just didn’t care about any of the characters or what was really going on in the world. I only listened to as much as I did because the audible narration was really good. Each character had its own voice and that really helped me get through what I did. But I can’t keep listening to something that I am not enjoying.
I reread this book every 2 years. I can’t describe how much this book and this series changed my life.
A must read for anyone that enjoys sci-fi’s or fantasy. Skip the movie and read the book.
A medieval society set on a desert world. The driving financial underpinning is a longevity drug called Spice.
The start of a great reading adventure. This book is good but becomes better as you read the rest of the series
The author makes the planet of Dune so real you almost feel the hot sand, thirst for the precious and valuable water, and clearly imagine the sand worms.
The best sci-fi novel ever written. Period.
I bought this when it first came out in paperback, and it really opened my eyes and expanded my imagination! Great reading!
One of the greats of science fiction. Don’t miss this book!
Better than any of the video adaptations.
Dune is among the classics of Science Fiction! There is little of worth I could add to the pages of praise it has received from wordsmiths making a living at literary criticism.
The SciFi channel mini series got me interested in the Dune saga. Frank Herbert’s writing was choppy and not easy to read compared to Herbert & Anderson’s, which really flowed. I enjoyed comparing the book to the mini series. I learned more about the saga, like Jessica’s personality was a lot more hard in the novel, and Paul’s personality went through phases from being a immature child, to an adult trying to survive, to being a god like entity. I did miss the butchering that Rabban did in the mini series. But understood more when Piter was killed off, and Hawat became the Baron’s new Mentat. It was the little things like this that made the novel so enjoyable, like the Prequel Trilogy, and the House Trilogy. I highly recommend all scifi readers to read the Dune books.
Dune was the first novel to really inspire me. Frank Herbert’s imagination in both the original novel and in its sequels created a wonderfully detailed world of competing forces that works both as a story and as a reflection of humanity and human motivations at an individual, societal and species level. The characters are serious people devoid of even a glimpse of humour, and their struggles affect the very existence of the human race.
The main premise to me is not the central importance of planetary ecology, as some maintain, but Darwinian evolution applied to society – the strongest are those who survive the most brutal, the most challenging of upbringings, those who must constantly struggle against the toughest natural or human obstacles. Such people are fearless, driven, super-human in comparison to mere mortals who are coddled and live in benign societies and environments. The latter have no chance when faced with the former, they are lambs to the slaughter – benign society creates weakness, and harsh society creates strength.
This lesson is apparent with the Fremen and the Sardaukar in the military sphere, and the Bene Gesserit and the Honored Matres in the mystical.
To end with a spoiler, and an even more important lesson one might take from the series, especially relevant to my own novel “Religion Without a God” – that consequences mean everything, that to do what seems to be the right thing, to serve justice, is not always the wisest course of action.
Paul Atreides is a decent young man who acts first to survive and then to right the injustices inflicted upon him and his family. The Baron Harkonnen is a man of evil temperament and callously and brutally authoritarian.
Paul wins and the result of his victory is such evil, such genocide, such madness across countless human worlds, that it would have been infinitely preferable for the human race that Paul had lost and the Harkonnens claimed victory. The Bene Gesserit and the Emperor supported the Harkonnens because they understood this, and they were willing to support injustice to prevent the consequences of chaos and, even worse, Jihad.
My favorite science fiction book!
The author does an amazing job of creating this new world and making it feel real. You can’t help being immersed in the families and new worlds you encounter! This is one of my favorite reads of all time!
One of the best written
Sometimes dreams come true and scatter all preconceived beliefs presented by the society we live in today.
Loved it
Having seen the movie that was based on this novel, I wanted to read it and I’m glad I did. The book brings more depth to the characters and the situations that the movie couldn’t touch on. An excellent read.
I first read this book back in junior high and have read it several times since then. The story of several great houses, all jockeying for position, may seem familiar to any GOT fans. This story was around long, long before that series was written. An epic tale of empire with players as varied and interesting as you could ask for. The unique science fiction setting, with space folding travel only available through the spice mined on the desert planet set the stage for a wonderful power struggle.
A classic science fiction story that holds up through the years.