Dune

↻ 2025-06-11

A good book! There have been two recent movies made of this book, and I believe a few older ones too. The recent movies I felt were high on style and light on substance, but the book, which I have now read, is not light. It’s a very good book, full of intrigue and politics, and while it doesn’t have the hard sci-fi bent that I normally prefer, it is well-written enough to be a fun read nonetheless, even when it gets long and convoluted.

I particularly love the deflationary strife everyone feels as they look up the hierarchy. The minor families want to become major families because that will make them free, and the major families want to be the emperor because that will make them free, and the emperor is beholden to the guild and wishes he weren’t, and so on. Like life, there’s always something to resent, and always an aspiration which may prove only a thin veil in front of another aspiration and accompanying resentment.

If you liked this, you’d like Le Guin’s “The Left Hand of Darkness” - similar books, similarly well written.

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