A couple of days ago I just finished reading Frank Herbert’s masterpiece, Dune (all 6 volumes). After several months of intense reading (well not that intense, since I also had the job to handle and some trips inside Romania and also outside) I finished the 6th book from the Dune series (Dune – Chapter House Dune). I have to mention that if you read this article, you can be assured that no spoilers or events mentioning will occur in this article. Even if you haven’t finish the book series yet, you can safely read the article.
First of all I have to say that with this book series I had the same impression as with James Clavel, Noble House: a very large composition, something really hard to believe someone was able to conceive and put together. Besides the fact that there are many characters and a lot of events that are taking place, the Dune books cover a large period of time, and in the end you have the nice feeling that you witnessed a fragment of history.
The Dune series, written by Frank Herbert is composed of 6 books:
- Dune 1 – Dune
- Dune 2 – Dune Messiah
- Dune 3 – Children of Dune
- Dune 4 – God-Emperor of Dune
- Dune 5 – Heretics of Dune
- Dune 6 – Chapter House Dune
Starting with the first 2 books, the taste of the lecture is really great. The author introduces you in the warm (and sandy 
) and fascinating world of Dune/Arrakis and their inhabitants. You also make a first contact with the particular style in which the Dune books were written: fragments of 10-15 pages, interwined with philosophical excerpts. In the first books, these excerpts are not really connected to the action that takes place at that moment, but more with the general world, cultures and practices involved in the books.
As the reader progresses, and especially starting from the 5th book of Dune (Heretics of Dune), the philosophical excerpts tend to become really complex, but at the same time more tied to the actual events that you read about, and less to the general elements of the involved entities. Depending on what you expect to find and what you are really looking for, the last 2 (or even 3) books of Dune might become boring or at least very slow-progressing. There is a lot of politics and strategy planning and in most cases, the author has a interesting passion for analyzing the effects of various actions on people’s minds, souls and reactions.
As a general observation, each of the 6 books can be divided in the following parts:
- the description: a fast-paced introduction to the current state of events, as well as a recapitulation of events that took place in the previous book (of course, starting from the 2nd book)
- the fermentation: this part covers approximately half of book. It is the time of analyzing the characters, planning various actions or just expressing the flow of time and the effect that this flow has on the main characters.
- the ending: again a fast-paced part of the book, where the events are taking place really fast (especially if you compare this part with the previous one) and most of the questions and the dilemmas that the reader has acquired are solved and given the long awaited answer.
Although at the end (last 2 books) I got a little bit bored with the whole Dune composition (probably I was just looking for some more SF action and mind-blewing future-crazy devices, technologies, and so on), I must admit that it was great reading these books, and I completely recommend these books to any SF-fan wannabe (as I am) (because if you are more than a wannabe SF-fan, then you already have these books in your trophy room ).
Dune – the movies
Before ending this post, I want to say some things about Dune – the movies. I am not sure I watched the proper movies (I saw Dune (2000) (mini) and Children of Dune (2003) (mini) ) but the I must say I was impressed with the fidelity of the movies for the actual events described in the book. My strong advice is to first read the books and then see the movies, because both mini series try to cover as many details as possible, and if you haven’t already read the book, then it is more likely that you will understand only half of the movies. Otherwise, it is great to see how the people that made the movie imagined and created all the costumes, and buildings and make-ups, and so on. In many cases I had a reaction like “Oh, so this is how that thing looks like…”.