Lidens's Reviews > Dune

This starts my summer of re-read. I still love this book and I still appreciate Herbert's writing style. No matter how many times I read this, I'm always floored by how much he's fascinated by ecology.

I've always viewed this book as soft sci-fi with fantasy elements. However, the novel starts off this epic series has everything. It has mysticism, it has politics and the decline of an empire, it has so many Middle Eastern and Native parallels, it has a lot to say about religion, it has interesting gender dynamics especially given its time, and it shows the effects of being a messiah on someone who's aware he's the messiah.

I appreciate how much Paul oscillates between cold, calculating, Messiah Paul and the very human Paul that really just wants to prevent the jihad from happening. Something similar happens to Jessica as she struggles between being a mother to two very strange children and being Reverend Mother.

The best writing might be all the quotes from Princess Irulan's writings at the beginning of each chapter. And of course I will always be amused how much Dune influenced Star Wars.