I recently read Dune by Frank Herbert.
I don't want to summarize to a great extent, but a comment on its scope, precision architecture and character design is neccessary.
The story is vaguely familiar to Lawrence of Arabia and containing other elements that would eventually influence most likely every science fiction novel after it. Simultaneously, which I understand is often imitated but never quite as good, it works in all the political and family dramatics of Shakespeare and the hero myth of Mycenean Greece (and in fact both the themes common in mythology and the theme of mythology are handled beautifully within it). It has an interesting comment about the action of chemicals on the brain (perhaps what influenced me to write this) and their potential relationship to the evolution of man in both memetics and neurology. In my opinion, it tackled some difficult concepts of literature that I don't feel educated enough to talk about yet. And did it as good or better than many "great" writers of the mainstream (I'm looking at you Sinclair Lewis and Tom Wolfe)
After spending a great deal of time sweating and pacing out the details of exactly how a story will fall together (and anything I've done is an Aesop fable compared to this), I could appreciate how nuanced the chain of events were. How high-context and weighted the interplay between even second-tier characters.
And the main characters suit their roles like gloves. The Baron Harkonnen is a piece of filth and I truly hate him. Paul Muad-Dib is in the bad-ass hall of fame in the best way possible. His father version 0.5 of him, with regal trimmings. And on down the list.
Anyway, recommended highly.
Saturday, July 08, 2006
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2 comments:
Glad you enjoyed it. I read that book many years ago and, as you probably now see, it shaped many of my beleifs both politically and beyond. However, I always have to question the utility of such histories to my current philosophy, so I couldn't be sure how you'd take it. It also inspired the epic that I will retire to the woods to compose later in my life, and I hope it's given you some ideas as well. Book two will be in the mail should you ever get the itch... just let me know.
I'm glad you had a chance to read this classic. I read a lot, particularly sci-fi, and Dune stands out as one of my favorites. It is definately the best sci-fi series out there. If you haven't yet read all six of Frank Herbert's Dune novels, I highly recommend it. His son (Brian) and Kevin Anderson have been writing prequels to Dune. Unfortunately they pale in comparison to the original canon.
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