11/11/2024 - Dune Review

Hello! This is my review of Frank Herbert's 1965 Scifi masterpiece "Dune" I'll do a brief overview of the plot (spoiler free) then a ramble about my thoughts. Hope you enjoy!

Dune is set in some far off future of humanity, where mankind has not only conquered themselves, but also the galaxy, maybe even the universe. yet of all the planets under the imperium's control, none are more valuable than the spice world Arrakis. Here is where the spice is mined, the most valuable resource in the universe. Paul Atreides, son of the Duke Leto Atreides, and his mother Jessica, a bene gesserit witch,  are one of the 12 royal families under the parashah emperor of mankind. One day, the Atreides house is given control of Arrakis by the emperor. While settling into the new world, they are betrayed by another household, the Harkonnens. Leto is killed, and Paul and his mother flee into the desert, seeking help from the locals of the planet, the fremen to one day take Arrakis back... all the while, Paul may be more than he appears.

Overall review: 4.7/5

From here on out there will be mild to serious spoilers for dune, so read at your digression. Its gonna be a bit ramble-y as well haha, but I'll break it up into four sections: world building, the characters, the plot, and a short section on the impact of dune.

WORLD BUILDING:

The worldbuilding in dune is some of the best I have ever seen, and that is truly saying something, this is for a myrriad of reasons, but one of the biggest ones is the lack of exposition. Exposition in stories is often necessary to produce a world that feels real. It can help establish locations, history, etc. Dune has almost no exposition, the entire world is slowly unfurled to the reader through dialogue and and internal thoughts. I cannot think of a single time in the story where the plot was paused for a character to think "Ah yes, this is a spaceship, designed by the spacers guild who were founded in 19743 AD of the imperial calendar and are a secretive guild of space faring pilots" no! instead, these facts are doled out slowly and naturally. This creates two great effects. One, the world feels  truly real, characters aren't stopping conversations to throw facts that should be common knowledge out. two, the world isn't overwhelming, we get exposed to this universe slowly, and so all of its intricacies are actually quite digestible instead of being unapproachable or hard to remember. Best of all, the world building isn't just good, the world itself is also very colorful and fun. I really enjoy that some things are kept mysterious, Paul wouldn't know of the ins and outs of the spacers guild, so neither do we (well, maybe he might at the end). The blanks actually let the world be more believable instead of less, sometimes over explaining a concept creates more holes than it patches.. (looking at you harry potter). What we do know of the universe is, naturally, centered around Arrakis, I love the deep look at the Fremen, their religion, politics, culture, etc, which was seeded by the Bene Gesserit, and then became more from those very same teachings. The Muad'dib being half legend half science is really interesting. It truly plays the line between fantasy and scifi really well. I liked the world building so much that I actually read the only exposition found in the book, that being the appendix! Learning about the terminology of Dune after reading it really helped actually fill in some interesting blanks, stuff that isnt explained in the books, doesn't really have to be, but also is interesting in retrospect once you know it is super neat. It reminds me of Tolkien's work. I think the only part of this that I wish we heard more about is aliens, do they exist? clearly alien fauna does (the sand worms make that clear) but what about intelligent life. They hint at it maybe the humanity has conquered it already, but I wish they would state if it existed or not. There is plenty more I could say about the world building and how interesting it is, but basically it would boil down to: read the book!

CHARECTERS:

I probably have less to say about the characters than I do the world building, I really did like them, but the book is less interested in the characters than it is about the overall story it is telling, which is a good thing! That doesn't mean that the characters lack personality though. Similar to the world building, aside from physical appearances, there is very little exposition about what a character is like. No "this is jessica, she is strong and mighty" or "This is the noble and fierce duke Leto" the characters are personified simply from their interactions with the world. We learn that Leto is a strongly convicted man who wants the best for his family and people not because it is told to us, but because his actions reflect those traits. A similar story could be told for everyone in the book. I particularly like the characterization of the Bene Gesserit, the way they act, and their little chants and micro controlling over their own body makes them extremely interesting characters, it was always neat to see Jessica remove the fear from her body, it made events where she could not all the more nail biting. Paul himself changes over the story immensely, once his prophet powers awaken, he starts as a boy, a well trained and strong willed boy, but still a boy, but grows into a capable leader of the Fremen and more than that leader over his powers. I do wish we had seen more of that growth ourselves though, the 3 timeskips that happen during the book robs us of some of those moments of growth I think. Chani I also wish was given more time to be established, though when I say that, I'm not sure when that time would have come from, I think I just liked Chani as a character and wish we saw more of her, as she sort of became a background element. Although, the background-elementification of characters is a plot point within the story as Paul himself says "I have made worshippers from friends" as he becomes more the prophet of legend. Vladimere Von Harkonnen is so delightfully unlikable, most of the Harkonnens are, but him in particular. he is Gluttonous, violent, deceitful, scheming, I say this with true respect when I say it is a JOY to dislike him. All this to say the characters are great in dune.

PLOT:

With such fantastic world building and characters it should be no surprise when I say the story of this book is something epic. I almost don't really have a lot to say other than it's great! there is so much to love, I will admit I liked part 1 the most. I really liked the layered plot of the Atredies wondering who their betrayer was to be (damn you yueh.) but all 3 parts are great. The timeskips can also be a little bit jarring, as they aren't separated particularly well from the rest of the plot, and so I did have to go back and re read about 3 pages one when I realized I didn't understand where we were. These are minor nitpicks however, and generally I really enjoyed the story, its long but there were so many times I couldn't help but read one more damn page....... so epic... The move from hyper characters focus to more of a pulled -back overview style of writing is done very naturally, you might not even notice it by the end of the book! The final battle starts and ends in a flash, which is appropriately climactic. so yeah! overall just a fantastic story, not a lot of personal notes about it. There are a few deeper topics that I fail to mention here, but primarily the one I picked up on is criticism of religious dogma and how religion by mankind is and always will be flawed by design "there is nothing simple about religion" "it is a medium of unity" was a good line in the book for a reason, Dune stats somewhat that religion is not only flawed but also the rules of religion are a farce, we can never scribe gods word without the hubris of man, There are a few others centered around ecology and whatnot, but that may be the biggest one I picked up on.

The IMPACT of dune:

Dune is sometimes called the grandfather of modern scifi, and it isn't hard to see why. Some of you may know I'm pretty into warhammer 40k, and the sheer amount that warhammer takes from dune is staggering. I won't go into it here simply because I could write another few pages on the matter, but its impact is enormous. Even other things, like Red Rising, which I read recently (you can check out the comparatively shorter review from my page) take inspiration by way of the "blue" caste of hyper calculating human space pilots, or the scarab shields of energy that sit close on the body. Anywhere you look in modern scifi, you will see aspects of Dune.

Thanks all, I know this review is VERYYY long, but hopefully it gave a good insight on my thoughts. Next up is Crime and Punishment, and I'm also picking up the Red Rising series once more to read the next 3 books. 

cya next time,

Vamptastic