Dune, by Frank Herbert
My review
What can you say about Dune, really? A classic of science fiction literature; a book that many consider to be the best of the genre. I last read it probably 20 years ago in high school -- I remembered a lot of sand, I remembered enjoying it, and then I have some sort of weird memory of a movie with Sting in it, but that was pretty much the extent of things.Then the other day a friend of mine tweeting about the acquisition of Sun by Oracle as another one getting gobbled up by House Harkonnen, which triggered me to reread it.
This time around, I understood a lot more of what the book is about, of course, and enjoyed it just as much. It’s a great book, for sure – although my memory of the rest of the sequels is still good enough that I’m not going to ruin the original by re-reading those.
I think the pacing is a little on the slow side – not really contemporary speed, anyway – but the idea, and the bigness of the setting are of course amazing, as is the range that Herbert shows, going from huge imperial family intrigue & wars to personal mysticism.
Anyway, definitely worth reading again.