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princehal's review
5.0
this was an absolute DELIGHT. i was slightly uncertain going in because i'd heard the sci-fi elements can get quite dense at times (and there was a lot of dense material, some of it i loved, some of it i struggled through) but that is vastly outshone by how engaging and exciting this book is, and how genuinely INTERESTING it is. i listened to the audiobook version so i'm still pretty uncertain how half the names are written, but at the very least i know (i hope) how paul is spelled, and i love him.
also, like... that cast for the new dune. somehow everyone is even hotter than i was imagining them in my head (duke leto!!!!) and i was being pretty generous as it was.
this is such a nonsense review i'm sorry, i just liked this book so much!!
also, like... that cast for the new dune. somehow everyone is even hotter than i was imagining them in my head (duke leto!!!!) and i was being pretty generous as it was.
this is such a nonsense review i'm sorry, i just liked this book so much!!
davida's review
3.0
I thought it was really beautifully written, but a bit draggy/slow-moving for me. Like, I get that it's seminal and a lot of sci-fi was written on the back of it ... but it just wasn't that enjoyable to slog through.
ebdawson's review
4.0
This book is about a boy who chooses to become a dark messiah figure in order to get vengeance for the death of his father.
I never would have described it to you that way before. But that is what I came out of this reading with.
The first thing you should know about this book is that it makes you work. It will not spoon feed you. There is a great deal that happens off the page, which it will catch you up on with a line or two. But it's important that you use your imagination to understand the full importance of that line or two.
There are lots of little issues I have with plot holes and characters, but I believe I mentioned most of them in my notes. I'm going to focus this review on the final third of the book, when all the threads begin to come together, and the ultimate conclusion.
Everything changes when Paul is in the tent after his father dies and has his first prescient vision. What I had never considered the first time I read the book was that Paul and his mother could have lived out their lives in anonymity as Fremen (once they won their place of course). It's not unlikely that Paul would have sought some sort of revenge for his father, and against the Harkonnens. But when he is negotiating with Kynes, he already makes a bold claim for the throne. And he does that because he thinks it is the only way to stop the holy war that he has foreseen.
But does he really want to stop the holy war? He claims that it is, and yet it seems like he really doesn't try very hard to stop it. He plays on all the prophecies about him, justifying himself along the way. The ending seems to be a confirmation of this when he fully becomes this dark messiah and realizes even with the power of the throne, he can't stop the holy war, but he doesn't seem very disturbed by it.
I raised the book up a star this time through because it is so incredibly thought-provoking. The themes, the world building, the concepts behind it. There is so much packed into this book. It really does take some work to get through and to fully understand the picture Herbert is painting, but it is worth the effort.
I never would have described it to you that way before. But that is what I came out of this reading with.
The first thing you should know about this book is that it makes you work. It will not spoon feed you. There is a great deal that happens off the page, which it will catch you up on with a line or two. But it's important that you use your imagination to understand the full importance of that line or two.
There are lots of little issues I have with plot holes and characters, but I believe I mentioned most of them in my notes. I'm going to focus this review on the final third of the book, when all the threads begin to come together, and the ultimate conclusion.
Everything changes when Paul is in the tent after his father dies and has his first prescient vision. What I had never considered the first time I read the book was that Paul and his mother could have lived out their lives in anonymity as Fremen (once they won their place of course). It's not unlikely that Paul would have sought some sort of revenge for his father, and against the Harkonnens. But when he is negotiating with Kynes, he already makes a bold claim for the throne. And he does that because he thinks it is the only way to stop the holy war that he has foreseen.
But does he really want to stop the holy war? He claims that it is, and yet it seems like he really doesn't try very hard to stop it. He plays on all the prophecies about him, justifying himself along the way. The ending seems to be a confirmation of this when he fully becomes this dark messiah and realizes even with the power of the throne, he can't stop the holy war, but he doesn't seem very disturbed by it.
I raised the book up a star this time through because it is so incredibly thought-provoking. The themes, the world building, the concepts behind it. There is so much packed into this book. It really does take some work to get through and to fully understand the picture Herbert is painting, but it is worth the effort.
philippurserhallard's review
2.0
Frank Herbert's Dune is... well, long, isn't it? And there's an awful lot of it that's primarily about sand. To tell the truth, I was disappointed in this, one of SF's undoubted towering classics which I'd never quite got round to reading before. The worldbuilding is astonishing -- possibly unmatched outside Tolkein, in fact -- but most of it is kept off the page, in oblique hints in the appendices and glossary or at most in the dialogue of subplots which only temporarily diverge from the grand epic scenes of trudging on and on through some more sand. In fact, one gets a much, much stronger sense of Herbert's remarkable universe through watching David Lynch's magnificent film than by reading the book. Creating the Imperium but setting your story on Arrakis makes about as much sense to me as imagining the whole of Middle-Earth, then writing a huge novel set entirely in Forodwaith.
The writing isn't particularly impressive either, often aiming for a grandeur which it never quite lives up to, and getting lost in its own abstractions. I was amused by the fleeting mention of a Fremen warrior called Geoff. I reckon he deserves his own web comic.
The writing isn't particularly impressive either, often aiming for a grandeur which it never quite lives up to, and getting lost in its own abstractions. I was amused by the fleeting mention of a Fremen warrior called Geoff. I reckon he deserves his own web comic.
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