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A review by okevamae
Dune by Frank Herbert
4.0
It’s easy to see why this book is a sci-fi classic. The worldbuilding is amazing. The characters are a little less strong, and I’m not a huge fan of “chosen one” narratives, but it’s still a compelling read. As with many older sci-fi novels, the dialogue (and the language in general) is weirdly stilted in some places, but the audiobook narrators do their best.
Speaking of narrators, the audiobook I listened to is bizarrely inconsistent when it comes to voices. The dialogue in some scenes is voiced by the full cast, but in other scenes all of the characters are voiced by the narrator. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to which scenes are full cast and which ones aren’t. It even switches mid-scene at times. The main narrator, Simon Vance, is fantastic as always, but I’d prefer they choose one or the other. Switching back and forth makes no sense. My only guess is that they started out doing a full cast recording and then ran out of money, or something like that. That’s the only thing that makes any sense to explain why they did it this way. When I read in the reviews that the audiobook had problems, including some passages being edited, I tried to find another recording, but I didn’t have any luck. Older recordings of this book must exist, but unfortunately, they aren’t available on Audible, Overdrive/Libby, or Hoopla.
Audiobook aside, there is certainly some questionable content in the book, but I think any book with this kind of staying power is going to have things in it that raise eyebrows 50+ years on. Overall, it’s a really excellent sci-fi epic, and I’d recommend it to any fan of the genre, so long as you’re cognizant of the content warnings.
CW: Fatphobic tropes (the cartoonishly evil villain is described as grossly obese), rape and pedophilia
Speaking of narrators, the audiobook I listened to is bizarrely inconsistent when it comes to voices. The dialogue in some scenes is voiced by the full cast, but in other scenes all of the characters are voiced by the narrator. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to which scenes are full cast and which ones aren’t. It even switches mid-scene at times. The main narrator, Simon Vance, is fantastic as always, but I’d prefer they choose one or the other. Switching back and forth makes no sense. My only guess is that they started out doing a full cast recording and then ran out of money, or something like that. That’s the only thing that makes any sense to explain why they did it this way. When I read in the reviews that the audiobook had problems, including some passages being edited, I tried to find another recording, but I didn’t have any luck. Older recordings of this book must exist, but unfortunately, they aren’t available on Audible, Overdrive/Libby, or Hoopla.
Audiobook aside, there is certainly some questionable content in the book, but I think any book with this kind of staying power is going to have things in it that raise eyebrows 50+ years on. Overall, it’s a really excellent sci-fi epic, and I’d recommend it to any fan of the genre, so long as you’re cognizant of the content warnings.
CW: Fatphobic tropes (the cartoonishly evil villain is described as grossly obese), rape and pedophilia