Samantha's Reviews > Dune
Dune (Dune, #1)
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TW: pedophilia and rape off page
Although this is discussed as a highly influential work in scifi, now having read it, I do think we have evolved past the need for this to be part of the canon. This book was a bit of a mess with the characters, world, and plot all feeling a bit disjointed and half baked. The world, while interesting and obviously very detailed, is barely explained to the reader and relies heavily on the appendix without actually providing context in the story (with the exception of a few things like spice and the worms). These characters all felt a little flat and/or underutilized. The plot felt like two separate books, while being peppered with themes of glorifying colonialism, white saviors, and lack of agency for most of the women. Although I understand that is a product of when it was written, it still points to how there are much better works that have been written since even if they were influenced by this. I’m interested to see what they do with the movie adaptation. I’ll have a review and discussion on my channel coming up.
Although this is discussed as a highly influential work in scifi, now having read it, I do think we have evolved past the need for this to be part of the canon. This book was a bit of a mess with the characters, world, and plot all feeling a bit disjointed and half baked. The world, while interesting and obviously very detailed, is barely explained to the reader and relies heavily on the appendix without actually providing context in the story (with the exception of a few things like spice and the worms). These characters all felt a little flat and/or underutilized. The plot felt like two separate books, while being peppered with themes of glorifying colonialism, white saviors, and lack of agency for most of the women. Although I understand that is a product of when it was written, it still points to how there are much better works that have been written since even if they were influenced by this. I’m interested to see what they do with the movie adaptation. I’ll have a review and discussion on my channel coming up.
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Manjot
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rated it 5 stars
Oct 21, 2021 01:00AM
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I think it's a book very much of it's time, truly a boys club book. The villian is described horribly: it's fatphobic. Not to mention how many people refer to him as gay, instead of a pedophile. It's not great.
No matter how much people think the plot is good, and I think it's 'okay', this book hasn't aged well in a lot of ways.
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I think the great part about Dune is that it doesn't hold your hand (like really it is just so absurdly confusing at the beginning) not just in world building but also in its messaging. I refer to the fact that there is not a single hero in this book. These characters are arguably terrible people and Frank Herbert knew this, however since we are in the characters heads it is not always obvious. But what we are looking at here is not a savior or promotion of colonialism but in fact a dangerous example of what happens when a leader manipulates a population into a blind following and the consequences of such actions. These consequences in this book of course cannot be seen directly by us, however Paul knows because he sees the future and he tells the reader this throughout the whole story. Then by the end he has truly accepted the horrors that will happen under his name and he only accepts the mantle of emperor out of fear at what he has created. Knowing that what he has done will create chaos in the Empire.
The rest of the books in this series focus on the consequences of Dune and Dune Messiah is at least worth checking out a plot summary (although it is very short) only to see what happens of Paul and his empire.
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