Review/Critique: Dune

Dune

Frank Herbert

"He who controls the spice, controls the universe."

- Vladimir Harkonnen

Review: It surprises me that Frank Herbert's "Dune" is not more popular than it is with how much influence it has had over the Science Fiction genre. It wasn't until last year when myself and a couple of friends decided and failed to start a book club that I even heard about this novel as it was by far the book everyone wanted to read the most. Things fell apart though and people ended up reading it on their own time. Now with my Year of Critique it's finally time for me to join the club! My friends let me know that they felt pretty positively about it and it is in fact the second best selling Science Fiction novel of all time, so surely it must be good right? Well as is true of any rhetorical question in review format, no I don't really think it's all that good - and before I get flamed by hardcore "Dune" fans I do not think it is awful by any stretch of the imagination, rather that what it does well it does really well and what it does poorly it does really poorly. Unfortunately the number of things it does poorly outweigh the number of things it does well and for such a large portion of the book. Let's not get negative though, let's start off positive by talking about the things "Dune" does really, incredibly, unbelievably well. 

       If you know me, you will know that I really enjoy fantasy stories with immense amounts of world building. Avatar the last Airbender, Lord of the Rings, and One Piece rank as some of my favorite pieces of media out there - so it brings me great joy to say that as when it comes to worldbuilding, "Dune" absolutely hits it out of the park. In fact I would say that some of "Dune's" world building elements are executed better than quite possibly any piece of media I've ever consumed. For example, the exposition of the planet's ecosystem, the culture of the Fremen people, and the challenges faced in people from off planet adapting to it. I have never read a book that is so painstakingly consistent in building out its world and accounting for every minute detail that would be different in it. No stone feels unturned and this element alone for me almost makes up for all of the things in the novel I did not like (also the Sandworms are so jaw droppingly iconic). Unfortunately though it's not just one giant book about the planet of Arrakis and a self contained story that takes place there, it's a political conquest of galaxy wide proportions and it's really here where I feel my enjoyment of "Dune" dwindled and unfortunately began as the first two hundred pages focus on this plot line.

         I'm not saying the Bene Gesserit aren't interesting or that the way in which Arrakis is leveraged as a planet in the grand scheme of things isn't cool, I'm simply saying that when the focus of the story is not on the culture of Arrakis I do not enjoy the book all that much. I think much of the reason for this has to do with the characters. Aside from Jessica, Paul's mother, every non Fremen character is wildly uninteresting. This is especially true for Paul who really just feels like a vessel for the forwarding of the plot - and I know that people will say "well it makes sense within the context of the book" and that is in fact true, but this truth doesn't magically make the character interesting. I don't know, maybe I'm just tired of genius main characters with little to no flaws. I do have to give credit though and say that I actually believe the plot that Paul is a vessel for is very interesting and well executed in comparison to other stories who pull a similar card with their main character. The villains too feel very replaceable. Now I'm all for a completely irredeemable, vile villain, but if that's the case I really think the villain's design needs to be intimidating, threatening, or badass. Vladimir Harkonnen is none of these things, he's just putrid and unlikable.

         The reason I bring this all up is because when politics are at the forefront of the story (the parts I stated early I do not like) these are the characters they focus on, and these parts take up more than half of the overall narrative. It's not on the culture of Arrakis, or the giant sand worms, or the Fremen, it's on a bunch of bland uninteresting characters playing games of political espionage with each other, and for this to work I really think you need to have interesting characters. Also so much of the dialogue is so unbearably cheesy. I would rather gag on a spoon than hear one more line about Paul being "a child who thinks like a man". These moments just bring back bad memories of Kirito or Bella as self insert with fulfillment character, and the book is so much more than that. If only it could stop focusing on it for five minutes. Anyway I've said about all I have to say without entering spoiler territory so let me get into my recommendation.

Recommendation: The first and easiest demographic to recommend this book is to anyone who is a fan of the Sci-Fi genre. It is one of, if not the most influential Sci-Fi books ever created and I really do believe it would do you a disservice as a fan of the genre to not have read this book. For everyone else, if you can make it past the first two hundred page slog you will absolutely be in for a treat come the rest of the novel. I'm just not sure I can give a hearty 100% recommendation to everyone with this in mind. If you like political intrigue then give it a try, I think you will know very early on if the first two hundred pages are something you can make it through.

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And that's my review/critique on "Dune"! Sorry this one took a while, I was on vacation in Germany for two weeks so Year of Critique was not on my mind hardly at all. I'll be coming out with the review for SMG soon, look forward to it.

Until then!