Dune

By Frank Herbert

Starting Dune, I was excited but nervous - I had once before started the book (in audiobook format, as I did again) but quickly abandoned it. I partly blame my brother for falling asleep when we listened to the first couple chapters driving from Seattle to Austin, but to his credit the book starts slow and dense. This time, I started the book with Auva on our journey through the Southwest. I think she was equally nervous as me but less excited. I had in my mind a picture of an epic genre-defining science fiction world-building drama that I had looked forward to reading for a long time. Dune held a similar literary place as The Lord of the Rings did before I read it, and I was aware it may be slow but knew it'd be worth it. My point in saying this is props to Auva for sticking with me through this book!

As I mentioned, Dune starts slow. Herbert's interplanetary world is filled with constantly intense dialogue. Each chapter felt like a single conversation between a few characters, and a lot of names and terms are thrown about that we've never heard of before but are forced to catalogue. Early on though, every character is extremely well defined; Herbert does a great job of making characters distinct in their personalities. To me this meant, despite maybe not knowing what they were talking about, I enjoyed listening to these heavy conversations. And eventually things start to pan out, become clear, you start to be able to make predictions and yearn to find out what happens. Luckily for the reader, the second half of the book is as fast as the first half is slow. I think this is where Dune really shines. We get a slow and complicated building of the political, economic, and cultural interplanetary situation that we've found ourselves in and then things start to happen, and we are aware of the multifaceted reasons and consequences of these events. It isn't just something happening - by this point we saw it coming and know why things are happening. This isn't to say that the book lacks twists, crazy reveals, or excitement at all; certainly the opposite. But the way plot rolls out is smooth and justified, in a very satisfying sense to me as a reader. 

It's hard to write about this book because I don't want to spoil anything. Auva commented at the beginning her worry that Dune was just another "special boy fulfills prophecy and is awesome at everything" story, but I think it's important to look at Dune with the eyes of originality. It's like saying Lord of the Rings follows all the standard fantasy tropes - of course it does, it created them! This is not the only thing that makes Dune amazing, though, as I tried to make clear above. It's an amazing story to go through, and my only gripe is that I am now wanting to read the next book. (02/25/21)