Book # 65 & Sci-Fi Book # 1- Dune by Frank Herbert

Dune is one of may favorite books, so even though this was the third time I've read it I still greatly enjoyed it. I'd have to agree that it is easily one of the greatest science fiction books of all time.

Explaining the plot succinctly is a bit problematic. The book centers on the desert planet Arrakis which is the only source for the spice melange, a drug like substance that can improve someones health and for some give extrasensory perception (which is necessary for someone to pilot a spacecraft). The political system is a sort of intergalactic feudalism and the Emperor has awarded the working of Arrakis to the House Atreides after removing the House Harkonnen from the planet. But really the whole thing is a set up to get rid of Atreides because the Emperor fears that they are becoming too powerful. When the Harkonnens make their play to invade Arrakis and remove the Duke Leto Atreides from power, his son Paul Atreides is able to escape into the desert and take refuge with the native population of the planet, the Fremen. Paul is seen as someone who fulfills a prophecy to lead the Fremen and he sets out to regain control of the planet from the Harkonnens. And I should mention that there are giant worms that roam the deserts of Arrakis.

The whole world that Herbert describes is very well thought out and everything has a back-story that is only hinted at. The book even has a fairly lengthy glossary of terms that are unique to the book. Given the massive amount of world building that goes on in the first half of the book, the book almost feels short even though it is over 500 pages long since the story continues zipping along and never really lets up. I could easily imagine the same story taking up twice the number of pages. Thankfully there is a whole series of books that follow. I had read most of the original Dune books by Herbert before, but now I feel like I need to reread them all and actually get to the end of the series this time. This is one of those books that you can't recommend highly enough to someone that loves science fiction - A+.