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A review by trilbynorton
Dune by Frank Herbert
5.0
This Fremen religious adaptation, then, is the source of what we now recognize as “The Pillars of the Universe,” whose Qizara Tafwid are among us all with signs and proofs and prophecy. They bring us the Arrakeen mystical fusion whose profound beauty is typified by the stirring music built on the old forms, but stamped with the new awakening. Who has not heard and been deeply moved by “The Old Man's Hymn”?
I drove my feet through a desert
Whose mirage fluttered like a host.
Voracious for glory, greedy for danger,
I roamed the horizons of al-Kulab,
Watching time level mountains
In its search and its hunger for me.
And I saw the sparrows swiftly approach,
Bolder than the onrushing wolf.
They spread in the tree of my youth.
I heard the flock in my branches
And was caught on their beaks and claws!
-from “Arrakis Awakening” by the Princess Irulan
Even without sixty years worth of cultural weight behind it, there is a portentousness to Frank Herbert’s science fiction epic. There are, as one character puts it, “plans within plans within plans”, as groups like the religious Bene Gesserit and the secretive Spacing Guild use their limited prescience in their attempts to steer galactic civilisation towards a future of their own choosing. Then there are the self-fulfilling prophecies, as every action taken by messianic protagonist Paul Atreides seems to confirm some past augury implanted in the fanatic Fremen aeons ago. And then there is Paul himself, a nexus of space-time who sees and wrestles with his role in the onrushing upheaval he seems incapable of avoiding.
For the first third or so of Dune, you will have no idea what is going on. Herbert is not big on upfront exposition, instead choosing to pepper his prose with allusions, hints, and strange new words and expecting us to catch up on millennia of galactic history. It puts many people off the book, but for many it is a major part of Dune’s appeal. There is an immersive quality to being submerged in an unfamiliar vocabulary, but also a sense, like Paul and Jessica encountering the Fremen, of being initiated into greater mysteries. There’s also a glossary and appendices, always the sign of great SFF.
I drove my feet through a desert
Whose mirage fluttered like a host.
Voracious for glory, greedy for danger,
I roamed the horizons of al-Kulab,
Watching time level mountains
In its search and its hunger for me.
And I saw the sparrows swiftly approach,
Bolder than the onrushing wolf.
They spread in the tree of my youth.
I heard the flock in my branches
And was caught on their beaks and claws!
-from “Arrakis Awakening” by the Princess Irulan
Even without sixty years worth of cultural weight behind it, there is a portentousness to Frank Herbert’s science fiction epic. There are, as one character puts it, “plans within plans within plans”, as groups like the religious Bene Gesserit and the secretive Spacing Guild use their limited prescience in their attempts to steer galactic civilisation towards a future of their own choosing. Then there are the self-fulfilling prophecies, as every action taken by messianic protagonist Paul Atreides seems to confirm some past augury implanted in the fanatic Fremen aeons ago. And then there is Paul himself, a nexus of space-time who sees and wrestles with his role in the onrushing upheaval he seems incapable of avoiding.
For the first third or so of Dune, you will have no idea what is going on. Herbert is not big on upfront exposition, instead choosing to pepper his prose with allusions, hints, and strange new words and expecting us to catch up on millennia of galactic history. It puts many people off the book, but for many it is a major part of Dune’s appeal. There is an immersive quality to being submerged in an unfamiliar vocabulary, but also a sense, like Paul and Jessica encountering the Fremen, of being initiated into greater mysteries. There’s also a glossary and appendices, always the sign of great SFF.