Maybe this is where I went wrong. I have it in my head that I did not enjoy Dune, because I only got about halfway through the first sequel before abandoning the series. But maybe it was the sequel that was the problem.
(This was a long time ago, so I’ve forgotten the specific and just retain a memory of general “meh”-ness).
For those who haven’t read the book:
What “psychic” witches? The so-called witches (used as a snub in the book) are the members of the Bene Gesserit ‘school’ which includes for the greater part ‘sisters’ and (later in Frank Herbert’s Dune saga) male warriors. The sisters had no psychic powers (as portrayed in Lynch’s Dune). On that, I couldn’t say it better than Wiki: The group… members train their bodies and minds through years of physical and mental conditioning to obtain “superhuman” powers and abilities that can seem magical to outsiders. One example are the sisters with truthsayer ability, being able to determine who is lying or not, and that by extreme observation of their subjects. No psychic powers involved.
Yep. Frank Jr’s/Anderson’s efforts don’t measure up to Sr’s books.
Ian Banks wrote some quite nice ones. Niven/Purcell did at least one really good one, even though it is the dreaded Continued Space Opera (they were decent enough to actually finish the story for good after just the second volume). But Dune… Dune! One of my teenage buddies had at least nine (allegedly different) volumes of Dune in his bookshell in the late 1980s. I never got further than a dozen of pages into Dune II and filed it under “do not admit to have read”.
You, sir or madam, are most excellent. I had always heard that line as a sexual innuendo (you won’t attract the worm) but I will never listen to that song in the same way again.
PS. bonus props for making me think of Walken dancin’ …
Dune (including all the sequels, prequels, and the whole mess) is not space opera, it’s space soap opera.
This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s long and involved like that.
I read Dune a long time ago and there were plenty of bits I liked and still remember (I used to quote the “fear is the mind killer” bit to myself during stressful situations) but I also found it pretty exhausting to read. I distinctly remember my father being SO excited when I read it and SO disappointed when he suggested I read a sequel and was like “I’ve had enough thanks” haha
I’m really glad nobody described Dune this way to me this way back in the day, because calling something “Tolkienesque” is a very good way to make me not want to read it. Being surrounded by Tolkien fans, I tried reading The Lord of the Rings three times, gave up without finishing the first book each time. But Dune, I love.
This. Dune, Dune Messiah, and Children of Dune are all very worthwhile. Some things get pretty crazy (in a bad way) in the third and can be left alone after that.
I recently read Red Mars and its sequels on @hecep’s recommendation and it was AWESOME, although I admit I often skimmed the overly long geographical/geological descriptions! Some of the best character studies I’ve ever seen.
Anyway, I think Dune is nearly a perfect novel. Read it three times or so, and I will never read any of its sequels. 
Okay, serious question: how did humans get there? We’re told that navigators use the spice to see far enough into the future so they can avoid objects floating about in space. Spice is only available on Dune, so you need to get to Dune to be able do interstellar travel. I don’t think Herbert ever says how starships worked before humanity got there.
But does it have lightsabers?
David Lynch should have used this for the theme music:
The older I get, the more I see of the obnoxious behavior of those in power, the less I like Dune.
Spice is just needed for folding space. You can still use old-fashioned rocket engines to get you places in the Dune universe – it’s just slower.
It’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from Dune
There’s nothing that a hundred Fremen or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Arrakis
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had.
I am 15-years old, propped up next to my younger brother in a road trip across Kansas. The windows are rolled down but the wind is blowing hot. I am reading my Mom’s battered copy and I can barely understand what a “gom jabbar” is. It was the perfect time and place for Dune.
Dune dune dune dune d-d-d duuuuuuuuuuune 
I always thought spice was an allegory for psychedelics.
The first book really. Frank is great at setting up extreme world settings and thinking about how people adapt to and survive them. His stories start to fall apart after the set up.
