The Fremen have a saying, “God created Arrakis to train the faithful.”
I say :”Frank Herbert created Dune to cause me to procrastinate incessantly with my nose buried in a book.”
Completionist Reading Order:
The Muad’Dib saga:
- Dune
- Paul of Dune
- Dune Messiah
- Winds of Dune
- Children of Dune
The End & Beyond:
- God Emperor of Dune
- Heretics of Dune
- Chapterhouse Dune
- Hunters of Dune
- Sandworms of Dune
Pre-History & Prequels:
- Butlerian Jihad
- Machine Crusade
- Battle of Corrin
- House Atreides
- House Harkonnen
- House Corrino
Books 1-5: The Muad’Dib Saga
When I was writing Dune. . . there was no room in my mind for concerns about the book’s success or
failure. I was concerned only with the writing. Six years of research had
preceded the day I sat down to put the story together, and the interweaving of
the many plot layers I had planned required a degree of concentration I had
never before experienced.
It was to be a story exploring the myth of the Messiah.
It was to produce another view of a human-occupied planet as an energy machine.
It was to penetrate the interlocked workings of politics and economics.
It was to be an examination of absolute prediction and its pitfalls.
It was to have an awareness drug in it and tell what could happen through
dependence on such a substance.
Potable water was to be an analog for oil and for water itself, a substance
whose supply diminishes each day.
It was to be an ecological novel, then, with many overtones, as well as a story
about people and their human concerns with human values, and I had to monitor
each of these levels at every stage in the book.There wasn’t room in my head to think about much else.- Frank Herbert 1984
Epic Science Fiction
The messianic epic of the rise and fall of Paul Atreides, and the ripples he will send throughout the entire universe amidst the backdrop of intellectual futurism. This futurism comes in the guise of old heroic epics and religious dogma; political intrigue in a distant future feudal system. The anti-tech theme ( kindjal-fights and flapping thopter wings) is unusual for science fiction, as any technology that is featured is flawed, and ends up secondary to the humanist aspect of the book. We are aware of strange advancements, but always with ominous warnings and repercussions of humans reaching their eventual potential.
- Bene Gesserit – The human body and mind, genetics & breeding
- Mentats – Living Computers, math and logicGuild – Evolution into spacefaring, limited prescience
- Guild – Evolution into spacefaring, limited prescience
- Fremen – Primal, tribal human nature at it’s most pure
- Tleilaxu – Synthetic Science and Technology
Old and New
Frank Herbert navigates his own novels with a certain prescience, weaving together insight into profound characters, political intrigue, and unfolding the epic story. The first half of each book is filled with seemingly inexplicable visions, names or references, but as you approach the crisis of the book, the visions line up and all the pieces fall into place. He spans eons from book to book, as what begins as a single drop sends ripples throughout ALL time. Frank Herbert is the prophet Muad’Dib as he tells his science fiction opus.
By contrast, Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson have Frank Herbert’s key notes: a checklist, the place of each story from one point to the next. Technically, these may be better written, but they are also safer and not as awe-inspiring. They are Guild Navigators safely plotting their course through the Dune universe.
Interquels (a word I had never heard before this series) weave their own stories (prequels, etc) into the main (original) series. Depending on your point of view, that’s either good expansion or comparable to adding Hayden Christiansen to the end of Return of the Jedi.
There is also a vague disparity of ‘classic’ 1950s-60s-style sci-fi and ‘modern’ sci-fi. The newer version flows and weaves its story more gracefully, but it’s not as profound (or dry, pun definitely intended) as the F. Herbert books, with their 117 different words for obscure events that occur in the psyche.
Overall the new books are well done and a controlled expansion to the Dune universe, the major complaints can be chalked up up to simply not holding up to the original work’s brilliance. A high bar indeed.
Coming soon:
Dune Movie Guide - David Lynch’s 1984 film & SciFi 2000 miniseries, and what it means for the upcoming movie by Pierre Morel
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