Reference.com

Dune (novel)

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - Cite This Source

Dune is a science fiction novel written by Frank Herbert and published in 1965. A joint winner of the 1966 Hugo Award and the winner of the first Nebula Award for Best Novel, Dune is popularly considered one of the greatest science fiction novels of all time, is frequently cited as the best-selling science fiction novel in history, and was the first bestselling hardcover science fiction novel ever.

Dune is set far in the future amidst a sprawling feudal interstellar empire where planetary fiefdoms are controlled by noble Houses that owe allegiance to the Imperial House Corrino. The novel tells the story of young Paul Atreides (heir apparent to Duke Leto Atreides and scion of House Atreides) as he and his family relocate to the desert planet Arrakis, the only source of the spice melange, the most important and valuable substance in the universe. In a story that explores the complex interactions of politics, religion, ecology, technology, and human emotion, the fate of Paul, his family, his new planet and its native inhabitants, as well as the Padishah Emperor, the powerful Spacing Guild, and the secretive female order of the Bene Gesserit, are all drawn together into a confrontation that will change the course of humanity.

Dune spawned five sequels written by Herbert before his death in 1986: Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune, and Chapterhouse Dune. It also inspired a 1984 film adaptation by David Lynch, a 2000 Sci Fi Channel miniseries and its 2003 sequel, computer games, a board game and a series of prequels and sequels co-written by the author's son Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson starting in 1999.

Origins

In 1957, after the publication of The Dragon in the Sea, Herbert had begun the initial stages of planning his next novel. He took a plane to Florence, Oregon, where the USDA was sponsoring a lengthy series of experiments in using poverty grasses to stabilize and slow down the damaging sand dunes, which could "swallow whole cities, lakes, rivers, highways. Herbert's article on the dunes, "They Stopped the Moving Sands," was never completed (and only published decades later in an incomplete form in The Road to Dune), but it sparked Herbert's interest in the general subject of ecology and related matters. Herbert spent the next five years continuing research and writing and rewriting what would eventually become Dune, later serialized in Analog magazine from 1963 to 1965 as two shorter works, Dune World and The Prophet of Dune. Herbert dedicated the work "to the people whose labors go beyond ideas into the realm of 'real materials' — to the dry-land ecologists, wherever they may be, in whatever time they work, this effort at prediction is dedicated in humility and admiration." The serialized version was expanded and reworked, and ultimately rejected by twenty publishers prior to its eventual publication. At least one editor realized the possible mistake: "I was unhappy to learn that Scribner's rejected Dune. The editor's comment that he may have been mistaken (in doing so) — let us hope that's prophetic.

Synopsis

Setting

Thousands of years in the future, the human race has scattered throughout the galaxy, populating multiple planets ruled by aristocratic Houses who themselves answer to Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV. The CHOAM corporation is the major underpinning of the Imperial economy, with shares and directorships determining each House's income and financial leverage. Key is the control of the planet Arrakis, the only source of the valuable spice melange, which gives those who ingest it extended life and prescient awareness. Melange is crucial as it enables space travel, which in turn is monopolized by the Spacing Guild; its Navigators use the spice to to safely plot a course for the Guild's Heighliner ships via prescience using "foldspace" technology, which allows instantaneous travel to anywhere in the galaxy.

The spice is also crucial to the powerful matriarchal order called the Bene Gesserit. The secretive Bene Gesserit, often referred to as "witches," possess mental and physical powers developed through thousands of generations of controlled gene lines and years of physical and mental conditioning called prana-bindu training. When a Bene Gesserit acolyte becomes a full Reverend Mother by undergoing what the Lady Jessica calls "the Reverend Mother ordeal" (referred to as the spice agony later in the series), she gains access to her "ancestral memories" — the complete life experience of all her female ancestors back to the point of each life's conception. The agony is induced by taking a massive overdose of "awareness spectrum narcotics," though Jessica discovers that the equivalent Fremen ritual involves drinking the bile of a drowned sandworm, a melange-essence poison known as the Water of Life which the subject must change internally or die. Only women have ever been able to survive the transformation. However, the Bene Gesserit have a secret, centuries-old breeding program to create a prescient superhuman — and male equivalent to a Bene Gesserit — called the Kwisatz Haderach, who would not only be able to survive the spice agony, but whose "organic mental powers would bridge space and time."

The planet Arrakis itself is sparsely settled by a human population of native Fremen tribes. Leaders of the tribes come to be so by defeating the former leader in combat. The Fremen also have complex rituals and systems revolving around the value of water on their desert planet. They conserve the water distilled from their dead, consider spitting an honorable greeting, and value tears as the greatest gift one can give to the dead. Their culture also revolves around the spice, which is created as part of the life cycle of the giant sandworms who dominate the deserts. Lastly, missionary efforts of the Bene Gesserit have implanted a belief in a male Messiah who will one day come and transform Arrakis.

Plot

Emperor Shaddam IV has come to fear House Atreides, partly due to the growing popularity of Duke Leto Atreides and also because the talent of Leto's fighting force is beginning to rival the effectiveness of the Emperor's own dreaded Imperial Sardaukar guard. Shaddam decides that House Atreides must be destroyed, but cannot risk an overt attack on a single House, which would by necessity unite the other Houses against him. The Emperor instead uses the centuries-old feud between House Atreides and House Harkonnen to disguise his assault, enlisting the brilliant and power-hungry Baron Vladimir Harkonnen in his plan to trap and eliminate the Atreides. Shaddam forces Leto to accept the lucrative fief of the desert planet Arrakis, the only known source of the spice melange, previously controlled by the Harkonnens.

Complicating the political intrigue is the fact that the Duke's son Paul Atreides is an essential part of the Bene Gesserit's secret, centuries-old breeding program to create a superhuman called the Kwisatz Haderach. There are signs that Paul might actually be the Kwisatz Haderach, born one generation earlier than expected, though this remains in doubt.

The Atreides suspect foul play, and are able to thwart the initial Harkonnen traps and complications while simultaneously building trust with the local population of Fremen. Ultimately, however, the Atreides are unable to withstand a devastating Harkonnen attack, supported by Imperial Sardaukar disguised as Harkonnen troops and aided by a traitor within House Atreides itself — the Suk doctor Wellington Yueh. Captured, Duke Leto dies in a failed attempt to assassinate Baron Harkonnen; Paul and Jessica escape into the deep desert. With Jessica's Bene Gesserit abilities and Paul's developing skills, they manage to join a band of Fremen, ferocious fighters who ride the giant sandworms of Arrakis.

Paul and his mother quickly learn the ways of the Fremen, while teaching them the weirding way, or Bene Gesserit method of fighting. Jessica becomes a Reverend Mother, taking the concentrated spice while pregnant with her second child. Daughter Alia experiences all that her mother does from the spice, gaining prescience and wisdom before even being born. Years pass, and Paul increasingly recognizes the strength of the Fremen fighting force, and recognizes their potential to overtake even the Sardaukar and win back Arrakis. Living on the spice diet of the Fremen, Paul's prescience increases dramatically, enabling him to foresee future events and gaining him a religious respect from the Fremen, who regard him as their prophesied Messiah. As Paul grows in influence, he begins a jihad against Harkonnen rule of the planet under his new Fremen name, Muad'Dib.

Both the Emperor and the Baron Harkonnen show increasing interest in the fervor of religious fanaticism shown on Arrakis for this "Muad'Dib," not guessing that this leader is the presumed-dead Paul. Harkonnen plots to send his nephew and heir Feyd Rautha as a replacement for his more-ruthless other nephew Glossu Rabban — who is currently in charge of the planet — to gain the respect of the now-troublesome Fremen. Winning them over as a fighting force, he hopes, will give him enough power to overtake the Emperor himself. The Emperor, however, is highly suspicious of the Baron and sends spies to watch his movements.

On Arrakis, Paul is reunited with an old ally of the Atreides, Gurney Halleck. Completely loyal to the Atreides, Gurney is convinced that Jessica is the traitor who had caused the House's downfall. He nearly kills her, but for Paul's last-minute intervention. Disturbed by his lack of complete prescience and the near-loss of his mother, Paul decides to take the spice poison. After several days in a near-death state, Paul emerges as the Kwisatz Haderach. His powers are less random, and he is able to see past, present and future at will.

Alia is captured by Sardaukar and brought to the planet's capital Arrakeen, where the Baron Harkonnen is nervously attempting to thwart the Fremen jihad under the close watch of the Emperor. The Emperor is surprised at four-year-old Alia's defiance of his power and her confidence in her brother, whom she reveals to be Paul Atreides, still alive. At that moment, with the aid of a gigantic sandstorm, Paul and his army of Fremen attack the city. Alia kills the Baron Harkonnen with a poisoned needle during the confusion. Paul quickly overtakes the city's defenses and confronts the Emperor, threatening to destroy the spice and thereby effectively end space travel and cripple both the Imperial power and Bene Gesserit in one blow. Feyd Rautha challenges Paul to a knife-duel in a final attempt to stop his overthrow of power, but is defeated despite treachery. Realizing that Paul is capable of doing all he has threatened to do, the Emperor is forced to abdicate and promise his daughter Princess Irulan in marriage to Paul. Paul ascends the throne, his control of Arrakis and the spice establishing a new kind of power over the Empire which will change the face of the Known Universe.

Characters

The characters are listed by primary allegiances. In some cases these allegiances change or reveal themselves to be different in the course of the novels.

House Atreides

House Harkonnen

House Corrino

Fremen

  • The Fremen as a collective
  • Stilgar, Fremen Naib (chieftain); Stilgar is a skilled politician.
  • Chani, Paul's Fremen concubine.
  • Liet-Kynes, the half-Fremen son of Imperial Planetologist Pardot Kynes on Arrakis and his Fremen wife Frieth; Liet is the father of Chani, and a revered figure among the Fremen.
  • Esmar Tuek, leader of the smugglers who help Gurney Halleck out.

Analysis

Environmentalism and ecology

Dune has been called the "first planetary ecology novel on a grand scale". After the publication of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson in 1962, science fiction writers were confronted with the problem of biological-human relations. Dune responded in 1965 with its complex descriptions of Arrakis life, from giant sandworms (for whom water is deadly) to smaller, mouse-like life forms adapted to live with limited water. The inhabitants of the planet, the Fremen, must compromise with the ecosystem they live in—sacrificing some of their desire for a water-laden planet in order to preserve the sandworms which are so important to their culture. In this way, Dune foreshadowed the struggle the world would have following Carson's book in balancing human and animal life. Dune was followed in its creation of complex and unique ecologies by other science fiction books such as A Door into Ocean (1986) and Red Mars (1992). Environmentalists have pointed out that Dune's popularity as a novel depicting a planet as a complex—almost living—thing, in combination with the first images of earth from space during the same time period being published, was instrumental in environmental movements such as the creation of Earth Day in many nations worldwide.

Declining empires

Scholars have compared Dune's portrayal of the downfall of a galactic empire to Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which portrays the corruption, division, and circumstance which led to the fall of Ancient Rome. Lorenso DiTommaso, for example, outlines similarities between the two works by highlighting the excesses of the Emperor on his home planet of Kaitain and of the Baron Harkonnen in his palace. The Emperor is said to have lost his effectiveness as a ruler in the name of ceremony and pomp. The hairdressers and attendants which he brings with him to Arrakis are even referred to as "parasites" in the novel. The Baron Harkonnen is similarly corrupt, completely decadent and given over to sexual pleasures. In a parallel manner, Gibbon's Decline and Fall blames the fall of Rome on the inflow of decadent ideas from conquered states, and on the excesses that followed therefrom. Gibbon claimed that these luxuries weakened the soldiers of Rome and left it open to attack. Similarly, the Emperor's Sardaukar fighters are little match for the Fremen of Dune because of the Fremen's lack of luxury, comfort, and overconfidence with which the Sardaukar have become familiar. The Fremen also are more capable of self-sacrifice, putting the community before themselves in every instance, while the world outside wallows in personal comfort at the expense of others. In all these characteristics, Dune is not alone in drawing from Gibbon's work, as Isaac Asimov creates a similarly declining empire in his Foundation series, as does Arthur C. Clarke in his The City and the Stars.

Gender issues

Kathy Gower criticizes Dune in the book Mother Was Not a Person, arguing that although the book has been praised for its portrayal of people in a mystical world, the women get left behind. In her view, women in Dune culture are largely left to domestic duties, and the exclusively-female Bene Gesserit religious cult resembles age-old notions of witchcraft. Women in this religion are feared and hated by the men. They also never use their power to aid themselves, only the men around them, and their greatest desire is to bring a man into their religion. Margery Hourihan echoes this sentiment, calling the main character's mother Jessica "by far the most interesting character in the novel" and pointing out that while her son approaches a power which makes him almost alien to the reader, she remains human. Throughout the novel, she struggles to maintain power in a male-dominated society, and manages to help her son at key moments in his realization of power. Other gender critics argue that the book's portrayal of homosexuals, as in the case of the Baron Harkonnen, is highly negative and one-sided.

Themes

Heroism

Throughout Paul's rise to superhuman status, he follows a plotline common to many stories describing the birth of a hero. For example, as in other hero stories, he has unfortunate circumstances forced onto him. After a long period of hardship and exile, he confronts and defeats the source of evil in his tale. As such, Dune is representative of a general trend beginning in 1960s American science fiction in that it features a character who attains godlike status through scientific means. Eventually, Paul Atreides gains a level of omniscience which allows him to take over the planet and the galaxy, and also causes the Fremen of Arrakis to worship him like a god, leading to varying results. Author Frank Herbert said in 1979, "The bottom line of the Dune trilogy is: beware of heroes. Much better rely on your own judgment, and your own mistakes.

Cultural influence of Dune

Dune has been widely influential, inspiring other novels, music, films (including Star Wars), television, videogames, and even comic books. Dune itself spawned five sequels written by Herbert, a 1984 film adaptation by David Lynch, two TV miniseries, computer games, board games, action figures, and a series of prequels and sequels co-written by Brian Herbert, the author's son, and Kevin J. Anderson.

Dune inspired the Iron Maiden song "To Tame A Land." However, when songwriter Steve Harris requested permission from the author to name the song "Dune," his request was met with a stern refusal — backed up with a legal threat — which noted that "Herbert doesn't like rock bands, particularly heavy rock bands, and especially rock bands like Iron Maiden." The song was renamed "To Tame a Land" and released in 1983.

Awards and nominations

Adaptations

See also

References

Notes

Bibliography

  • Clute, John; Nicholls, Peter The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312134-86-X.
  • Clute, John; Nicholls, Peter The Multimedia Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Danbury, CT: Grolier. ISBN 0-7172-3999-3.
  • Nicholls, Peter The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. St Albans, Herts, UK: Granada Publishing Ltd.. ISBN 0-586-05380-8.
  • Jakubowski, Maxim; Edwards, Malcolm The Complete Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy Lists. St Albans, Herts, UK: Granada Publishing Ltd.. ISBN 0-586-05678-5.
  • Pringle, David The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction. London: Grafton Books Ltd.. ISBN 0-246-13635-9.
  • Tuck, Donald H. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Chicago: Advent. ISBN 0-911682-20-1.

External links



Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia © 2001-2006 Wikipedia contributors (Disclaimer)
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Last updated on Tuesday March 11, 2008 at 19:56:19 PDT (GMT -0700)
View this article at Wikipedia.org - Edit this article at Wikipedia.org - Donate to the Wikimedia Foundation