For my book love assignment, I read Dune by Frank Herbert. This is a fiction book, with the genres of Science Fiction and Dystopia. The theme this book addresses is where power lies in a society. The author, Frank Herbert, writes mainly science fiction. He had written a few books before, but they had little success. Dune was his first major commercial success and what he is known for today. He then wrote a series for the Dune title, which is continued by his son, Brian, to this day.
In the beginning, we get introduced to our main character, Paul, a Duke’s son. An Emperor orders his father to move to a new planet, called Dune. Dune is a desert planet with little water and many dangers. All goes well on the new planet until they are attacked by another country/planet/society. Paul barely escapes with his life, and he and his mother go into the desert to look for civilization. He soon finds a group of tribal warriors, called Fremen, who think he is the god mentioned in an old legend, who will guide them and turn the planet into a tropical ecosystem. Paul and the Fremen ally, and they overthrow the conquerors together, with Paul regaining his royal status.
This book may not seem like the platform to raise issues about society, but Herbert embeds many real-world problems. For example, the book’s theme. The government/empire in Dune thinks the Fremen are unimportant and powerless, but the Fremen end up being the ones to take back the planet. This shows where real power lies in a society, not in the rich and powerful but few, but in the people. Dune also showcased drug addiction. In Dune, you must take a spice/drug forever, or else you die. This spice is already mixed in with their food, giving them weird visions. Drugs today are the same. If you start doing drugs, it is tough to quit, and if you do, you may go through some serious withdrawals. Harvesting spice in Dune is also very profitable but dangerous. In real life, becoming a drug dealer may earn you tens of thousands of dollars, but there is a high chance you get killed, either by the police or rival dealers.
Though you may think Dune is purely a Sci-fi book, it also has some elements of dystopia. For example, the Butlerian Jihad, meant to free humans from the machines, ended up enslaving them instead. This may have helped the people at the top of the social pyramid, providing them with almost unlimited free labor. The rich and powerful get more rich and powerful, while the poor get even poorer. Furthermore, we get introduced to the Golden Path, in which billions of people will die for a greater future, was just someone’s hallucination from a drug overdose. These events show just how dystopian Dune was, and that Herbert was trying to warn us about our possible future.
For me, Dune was a moderately long book with many challenging vocabulary words. The vocabulary words sometimes feel familiar, and it is because they are taken from religions such as Islam and Christianity. The book is memorable because the author’s writing style keeps you invested despite the book’s length. Typically, when I am reading a long book, I get bored about halfway through and have to will myself to finish the book. With Dune, It felt like I was never bored and always wanted to read more.
This book was a very challenging read, with around 800 pages and many book-specific terms. I would recommend this book to dedicated readers willing to spend many hours finishing a book. This book is also great for science fiction lovers (like me!) as it is set roughly 20,000 years from now.
To conclude, I believe that Dune is a great book and you should read it. This book changed my view of the Sci-fi genre. I used to think Science Fiction was just imaginary futures with imaginary technology and confusing stories that never in a million years would happen, but Dune showed me what realistic Sci-Fi would look like. Going into this book, I thought that this was just going to be another average Sci-Fi book, this book truly exceeded my expectations. If you ever decide to give this book a read, I would suggest reading a little bit each day, which prevents you from being overwhelmed by the length of the book.
best review