The most important thing Dune did for me is something people don’t talk about enough. Frank Herbert wrote a philosophical science fiction novel that broke into the mainstream.
The ideas that later became clichés were never the point. They were just the surface. Beneath them, Herbert was starting conversations about power, faith, ecology, what it means to be human.
If it weren’t for this book, I’m not sure I’d have had the courage to write the way I do.
On the surface this is true. But the depth of the story is in the philosophical and religious exploration. One of the most important parts of the story is that Paul is not a messiah and Jessica manipulated the situation to make it appear that he was.
I read it in 1968 and it still stands out as so astonishingly memorable I loved it and generally don’t care to read sci-fi but for all the reasons you mentioned and then some it’s in a class of it’s own. You’ve inspired me to reread it after all these years thanks!
The most important thing Dune did for me is something people don’t talk about enough. Frank Herbert wrote a philosophical science fiction novel that broke into the mainstream.
The ideas that later became clichés were never the point. They were just the surface. Beneath them, Herbert was starting conversations about power, faith, ecology, what it means to be human.
If it weren’t for this book, I’m not sure I’d have had the courage to write the way I do.
If you ask me, Dune is more of a space opera crafted for entertainment—closer to something like Hamilton—than a truly serious work of fiction.
On the surface this is true. But the depth of the story is in the philosophical and religious exploration. One of the most important parts of the story is that Paul is not a messiah and Jessica manipulated the situation to make it appear that he was.
I read it in 1968 and it still stands out as so astonishingly memorable I loved it and generally don’t care to read sci-fi but for all the reasons you mentioned and then some it’s in a class of it’s own. You’ve inspired me to reread it after all these years thanks!
Oh, good!! It’s always worth a re-visit. Such a great book.