Book Review: Dune

Dune

Written by Frank Herbert in 1965

Synopsis: When House Atreides is tasked with governing the desert planet Arrakis, they walk into a trap. For the duke’s prescient son Paul, the move will test the limits of his training as he struggles against an uninhabitable environment and the nightmarish destiny that awaits him if he survives.

Review: Wow.

Dune’s narrative voice is third-person omniscient, meaning we get multiple characters’ thoughts in each chapter. This choice has fallen out of fashion recently, especially in stories with young protagonists. Herbert proves that, when done right, having more characters’ perspectives can be really rewarding in nonviolent climactic scenes, like the high-stakes negotiation at the end of the novel. In a story characterized by both backstabbing and deep loyalty, witnessing everyone’s thoughts as they carry out their independent actions made the book easier to follow and much more interesting.

Perhaps the best outcome of this choice is how much development we get in both Paul and his mother Jessica. Jessica is brilliant and strong, but it would be all too easy to sideline her in a chosen-one story. Herbert thankfully gives her just as much of the action, and it’s fascinating to see each character’s evolving view of the other as they face challenges together.

Zooming out, the worldbuilding in Dune is strong overall. The culture of the Fremen comes through clearly, the workings of the interstellar government are boiled down to just what readers need to follow the plot, and the worms are adorable. I look forward to reading the rest of the series.

Strengths:

• All the unique ideas that went into the Bene Gesserit. Individuals from this school can make people instinctively obey commands by speaking in the exact right tone/impersonation tailored to make that person listen, and the group as a whole has planted entire religions for distant future strategic advantages.

• The best way I can put this is that Paul earns his role as the main character. It’s not just that Herbert orders us to follow him; the author crafted a dynamic, magnetic character who’s super fun to watch.

Weaknesses:

• There was a weird, happy tonal shift in the appendices, and the cost of their awkwardness outweighs the benefit of the extra context they provide.

• The Baron is a caricature villain. His every appearance on the page is accompanied by another description of his obese ugliness and his gay pedophilia.

• This is a personal preference, but the line between natural skills/training and supernatural abilities should have been made clearer, because the increasing importance of the latter continually chipped away at all the awesome aspects of the former.

Rating: 19/20 names for one guy

Ideal Setting: Read this when you need another hero to look up to whose abilities you could theoretically learn to match.