For as long as I can remember, Frank Herbert’s DUNE has stood in my mind as one of the great pillars of twentieth century science fiction. It has so much to offer: politics, religion, family, future technology, ecology, culture, alien worlds, and philosophy. It is rich with ideas and images, it boasts a huge cast of memorable characters, it is full of unique and memorable scenes. It has inspired two film adaptations, with a rumored third film on the way.
DUNE was also followed by five excellent sequels, as well as video games. After the author’s death, his son and a certain party-not-to-be-named-here began writing numerous additional sequels and prequels. This is a rich universe spanning thousands of years and hundreds of characters, and complex ideas about every aspect of human life and civilization.
I was excited to return to the world of DUNE, and I found the novel the fastest 500 pages I’ve read in a long time. And I was a little disappointed.
The story is still good. The ideas are still excellent. But the storytelling left something to be desired.
Some simple complaints:
- The point of view shifts constantly and rapidly, sometimes from paragraph to paragraph, leaping in and out of the thoughts of every character in the scene. The net effect is that, while you have a rich sense of everything happening simultaneously, you feel set apart in your God-like perspective. You aren’t on the journey with Paul Atreides, or the Lady Jessica, limited to their view of the world, revelling in their experiences. You’re walking around the scene, peeking over everyone’s shoulder with a certain detachment.
- Too much of that “rich universe” I mentioned earlier is left unexplored or undefined. It is one thing to tantalize and tease, but it is something else to surround your reader with the ghosts of fictional people, places, and things and then leave them to fill in the details as best their imaginations can.
- Some of the science fiction dives too deeply into fantasy. Fantasy (space opera) is great in its own time and place, but most of DUNE is hard political science fiction. So when Paul and Jessica start manipulating molecules with their minds or experiencing genetic memories just because “they have the power,” it actually detracts from the reality (suspension of disbelief) of the rest of the story.
That’s not a terrible list of complaints. And they won’t stop me from reading the next two volumes, DUNE MESSIAH and CHILDREN OF DUNE, which are my favorites. But this return to a literary classic has tempered my opinion for the work overall, although it has not blunted my enthusiasm for Herbert’s achievement.
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