Dune

Main Review:

I’ve always had a soft spot for science fiction in all its forms. Whether it’s the optimistic utopianism of Star Trek, the brutal grimdark future of the 41^st Millennium or everyone’s favourite galaxy far far away I’m always down to strap in to an adventure among the stars. But with that said, I’ve somehow managed to get through nearly a quarter of a century on this spinning hunk of space rock without ever actually picking up a copy of alleged classic science fiction story Dune. With another big movie adaptation on the horizon, featuring everyone’s favourite Guatamalan heartthrob Poe Dameron (I mean Oscar Isaac) and with my good friend Harry (a long-term Dune-r) cheering me on from the side lines - I figured it was time to give Frank Herbert’s tale a go.

Right from the start, I was struck by the sheer volume of world-building that Herbert throws at you with little to no explanation. One such example within the very first page was a character’s voice being described as sounding like an ‘untuned baliset’. From context I could tell it was a musical instrument but was surprised to discover it was an entirely fictional instrument that only exists in the world of Dune. It was a really clever and engrossing way to draw you into the world right from the get-go, but I did worry that that it would get a little dense if not done in moderation. I was quite glad to find a glossary at the very end of the book. But whilst you might unfavourably call this style of world building blunt, what was so refreshing to me was that it was for its own sake. This isn’t the typical sci-fi story in an established setting where everything has to link into nine other parts of the lore in order to let some rando on Youtube make a ‘8 Easter Eggs you didn’t notice” style video. The world feels real and lived in, and even the appendices at the end of the book felt a lot more than dynamic and enjoyable to read than many others (looking at you Tolkien).

It’s also worth pointing out that so much of the setting and tone of Dune has been taken and used by other settings in the 50+ years since Dune was first released. Whether it’s the quasi-feudal trading dynasties in space (Rogue Traders anyone?) or the idea of a super powerful drug called ‘Spice’ (Mines on Kessel optional) so much has been duplicated or reworked in other books, films or games. The number and depth of these similarities probably explains why the back cover of the book rather loudly reminds readers that this story predates a lot of other major franchises to make it clear that it is the primogenitor. Regardless, as I took my first steps in the world of Arrakis, and learnt about the massive space ferries of the Guild and the cool order of telepathic space witches the Bene Gesserit, I was quickly engrossed with a child like wonder.

As with the Maltese Falcon, even a cursory glance at the blurb of the book gives away the main events of the first third of the book. But even it hadn’t given away that Duke Leto was going to go the way of Ned Stark, it was notable how much the first few chapters felt like the opening moves of a game of chess – with various factions and characters making their moves and getting set up for the coup to come. We might see the betrayal coming a mile off, but that doesn’t make it any less gripping to read when it does eventually happen. There’s a real frenetic sense of chaos as the Duke is betrayed, his followers scattered and his son and concubine sent fleeing into the desert sand. As a whole, Dune really is to science-fiction what A Song of Ice and Fire is to fantasy – by which I mean that whilst there are scientific elements there (quite prevalently in places) the most important element in the story is the people, and what they will be willing to do to acquire and maintain power, and how that question remains at the root of so much violence and death. One element of Herbert’s writing style that really helped support this was allowing all characters in a scene, not just the main character to have their thoughts explicitly described. It helps to add a great amount of detail to each moment without having to rely solely on dialogue alone.

With Duke Leto firmly out of the picture, the torch passes primarily to his son Paul Atreides. With character names as varied as Gurney Halleck, Thufir Hawat and Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, I couldn’t but snigger a little at the main character being… Paul. If Duke Leto is Ned Stark, Paul is Daenerys Targaryen, the noble-in-exile turned messianic leader. He flees into the deserts of Arrakis and is set up as the religious leader of the Fremen to take back what is his. Paul is regrettably, at his core, more than a little ‘white saviour’-y, and the way the book depicts the Fremen does border on the colonialist tropes of the ‘noble savages’: easily manipulated by the more ‘civilised’ groups of the galaxy, but ferocious in a fight. It’s notable that only upon Paul’s ascension to leadership among the Fremen as the Muad-Dib do the Fremen stand a chance of threatening the Empire in much the same way that the Na’vi in Avatar don’t start winning until the pasty white boy turns up.

There’s a deeply cynical streak that runs right through Dune, perhaps to be expected in a book so focused on dynastic politics. More than once we find characters bending others to their will by preying on their hopes and dreams – Paul and Jessica’s whole survival relies on a myth about a chosen one having been sown on the planet centuries before by the space witches mentioned earlier. But the book never loses sight of the power that hope can have in motivating people to achieve the impossible. Nowhere is the cynicism perhaps more notable than at the very end, where things take a very Shakespearean turn. The baddies are defeated yes, and a marriage gets arranged, but there’s a deep-rooted and unspoken conservatism to way that even with Paul victorious, the power structures that led to all this death will remain unchanged; the pieces may have changed, but the board remains the same.

And with that so the first review of 2021 comes to a close. I’ll be changing tack a little for the next review, looking at a book I bought after getting obsessed with my other major piece of festive entertainment – the Netflix Regency drama Bridgerton.