Reviews with content warning for Fatphobia - Dune

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Dune by Frank Herbert

96 reviews

entling's review against another edition

Ble distrahert av andre prosjekter, og syntes det var litt mye funky fett- og funkofobi… Når det kommer til disse lange fantasy-seriene, så tror jeg nok Morecocks Elric of Melniboné står øverst på lista mi.

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royalwaves's review against another edition

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adventurous relaxing tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

There’s definitely some things in this that haven’t aged well and I do have problems with the Baron. But, excluding those things it’s been a long time since I enjoyed something so much that I wanted to go out of my way to write an essay about it. I want to buy another copy of this book, annotate it and analyse everything. There’s a reason this is such a classic sci-fi and I’m honestly annoyed with myself for taking so long to read it.

P.s. If you have trouble getting into this in the beginning Dune part one might help you understand better. I haven’t watched the original adaptation in a decade so I can’t speak for that one.

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becksusername's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

It took me almost a full year but I have finally read Dune. Still can't get over the main characters being called Paul and Jessica. And in my head "Chani" is pronounced "Zendaya"

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cosmopsis's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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question47's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.25

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alexiconic's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

The danger with reading a book that inspired many other, newer stories, is that the original just doesn’t seem as revolutionary anymore. I am not the biggest sci-fi fan so my thoughts might be biased by a whole “I’m not super into space” attitude, to be fair.

Dune had things that were absolutely great. It’s clearly a well thought-through world, the environment and the history are very well constructed and it works well. We enter a world where it’s clear the author knows what is what. The mystical elements of the Bene Gesserit, the planet’s ecology, the political factions and their motivations: these are solids.

I’m a bit in the middle on the writing. Having switching POVs and a kind of omniscient narrative is not that popular anymore, and it took some getting used to. But I ended up appreciating it. I didn’t really enjoy the time jump midway in the book: it removed too much buildup and context, and Dune was already going to be a long, long book, which would have been better if we had a little more insight in the “between” period.

What really let the book down for me were the characters. Most weren’t very fleshed out, and while that was the point to a certain extent, it also lessened the impact. I truly didn’t understand why Paul was this great charismatic leader, for example. There were also some tensions in the characters goals:

if Paul wants to stop the jihad, why would this pretty smart dude not consult his mother, who we know is also quite smart? Why would he still surround himself with the exact conditions that make a jihad likely?

And then there are the let downs on the few characters that bring some diversity to the book, especially Jessica and Chani.

They are women, and the book treats them as though they would therefore be perfectly happy taking a side-kick role while the others (the men) are glorious - and really, is being reduced to “mother” and “concubine who maybe if she’s lucky gets to be a wife” even side-kick level? It’s a shame because we see glimpses of these women being incredible, knowledgeable, strong, and well-respected, and the roles they have are in strong tension to these glimpses of power and competence. And then there’s the Harkonnens, who should be evil and fearsome. The Barons portrayal as a gluttonous ruler with a preference for young boys is… less than great. The insistence on this factor and his posture to make the reader disgusted with him doesn’t work out great. His homosexuality is completely irrelevant, and making your villain the only gay (and coincidentally also a pedophilic) character reeks of rather uncomfortable homophobia. His posture is almost a joke. And the worst thing is that it’s discrediting to the great work Herbert does on establishing the Baron as a nefarious, well-planning political actor. The nephew also suffers from the time jump, which makes him transform from a petulant child to a fearsome fighter with some wits in two pages; a shame, because he’s a rather intriguing character.

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