Bookshot #47: Dune

Finally, I've conquered Dune. It took me multiple attempts over many years but I finally sat down and did the deed and finished it. And you know what? It really isn't that bad of a book. Is it, as the cover proclaims 'Science Fiction's Supreme Masterpiece'? That I don't really know.

But, to whit: Dune is the story of young Paul Atreides who, along with his family is sent to the desert planet of Arrakis (or Dune) to keep the mysterious, life-giving spice flowing to the Universe controlled by the Emperor. The Emperor, threatened by Duke Leto Atreides' (Paul's father) growing power, plots with the enemies of the Atreides, the Harkonnens to overthrow the Atreides' family and send Paul and his mother fleeing into the desert. There, they found a home amongst the mysterious desert tribes of the Fremen and plot revenge even as Paul seeks to fulfill humankind's most ancient and unattainable dream.

There's a lot more to it than that, but I'm not going to delve into insanely complex world created by Frank Herbert- that, to me, is the most remarkable thing about this book. Arthur C. Clarke mentions on the back of the book that he finds it comparable to Lord of the Rings and that's pretty close to the mark. The mythology, the complexity of the alien society that these characters inhabit it's truly something to behold- a true literary achievement in and of itself. The best science fiction is science fiction that's not only transformative but transports the reader to truly alien worlds- Dune does just that and more.

Herbert infuses his world with shades of Islamic mysticism, ecology and environmentalism and politics but interestingly enough, he drew inspiration for the Dune saga from a trip to Oregon, (per Wikipedia, the font of all knowledge:)

After his novel The Dragon in the Sea was published in 1957, Herbert traveled to Florence, Oregon, at the north end of the Oregon Dunes. Here, the United States Department of Agriculture was attempting to use poverty grasses to stabilize the damaging sand dunes. Herbert claimed in a letter to his literary agent, Lurton Blassingame, that the moving dunes could "swallow whole cities, lakes, rivers, highways."[7] Herbert's article on the dunes, "They Stopped the Moving Sands", was never completed– and only published decades later in The Road to Dune– but its research sparked Herbert's interest in ecology.
Herbert spent the next five years researching, writing, and revising a literary work that was eventually serialized in Analog magazine from 1963 to 1965 as two shorter works, Dune World and The Prophet of Dune.[8][9] Herbert dedicated his work "to the people whose labors go beyond ideas into the realm of 'real materials'—to the dry-land ecologists, wherever they may be, in whatever time they work, this effort at prediction is dedicated in humility and admiration." The serialized version was expanded, reworked, and submitted to more than twenty publishers, each of whom rejected it. The novel, which was now titled Dune, was finally accepted and published by Chilton Books, a printing house better known for publishing auto repair manuals.

It's fascinating to me that not only did such a complex, complete vision spring from our own world- but that last part- that this novel, long considered to be a classic of science fiction, was rejected by twenty publishers only to be accepted by a printing house that was known for specializing in auto repair manuals.

Overall: I would say that it lives up to it's billing as a masterpiece. I didn't think I'd want to read more of these books- I just wanted to plow through and get it over with, but now that it's over and done with, I find myself wanting to read more. And if that's not the mark of a truly amazing book, then I don't know what is.