Dune review

The Basics

Book Title: Dune

Author: Frank Herbert

Pages: 794 (not including Appendixes)

ISBN: 978-0-441-17271-9

Genre: Science fiction

Defining Quotes

"There is probably no more terrible instant of enlightenment than the one in which you discover your father is a man-with human flesh."-p. 166

"There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles." -p.263

Summary

The story follows a young boy named Paul Atreides. His family is moved to the desert planet Arrakis for his father, the Duke, to govern. We follow Paul as his family is betrayed and he starts to become the prophesized one - Muad'Dib.

Thoughts

I first of all what to start this review off by saying I probably didn't give this book the attention that it deserved while reading it. After finishing the book, I'm pretty sure I will come back to this book at a later time and give it the care and nurturing it needs in order to fully appreciate it. Now that we've put that out there, let's move on to my initial thoughts.

For me, this was a form of world building that I haven't really encountered before. There were a lot of terms, beliefs, ways of communicating, and societies that were brand new in a way I haven't read in other fantasy world-building books. I felt that the way everyone interacted with each other was extremely formal, which seemed strange to me. Not turned off by it, just different. My favorite character by far is the Duke Leto, Paul's father. He has a sense of integrity about him, but is also intelligent enough to know others don't play by the rules and thereby counter-attacks their attempts. 

The story is told by multiple perspectives, but not so many that you get confused. My confusion lay in a lot of the terminology, which there is a glossary provided in the back of the book for most of the terms. I feel if I concentrated my attention on this book solely instead of reading multiple books as well, I would've been more immersed in this world. I could see and read the potential, but I wasn't as absorbed in it as I was with The Way of Kings. 

If you're wanting to find a book to introduce yourself into the sci-fi genre, this isn't the book. If you love sci-fi literature and really want to see where the genre built upon itself, this is a great book to choose. Ironically, it doesn't necessarily have a lot of the technological machines that you would usually expect in a sci-fi book, but it is much closer to sci-fi than it is to fantasy, in my opinion. It's a dense book, but I believe it's a book worth reading (and reading again if you don't quite understand it). 

Pros vs. Cons

• Pros
• Great world-building
• Interesting characters you can get behind
• Great care and detail put into the writing
• Cons
• Can get lost in the terminology
• Somewhat of a dense book
• Needs your undivided attention when reading

Overall Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐

What did you think of my review? Is this helpful to you if you haven't read the book? If you have read Dune, do you think this is an accurate description of the book?