Dune by Frank Herbert
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'm going to re-review this one again very soon, because I only slap-dashed this one onto this site years ago. It was unfair to one of my favorite novels of all time and it was unfair to myself. The novel is so rich and fantastic. There's a reason I read it eleven times, once per year since I had turned fourteen, but I had eventually dropped the ceremony after reading five of the prequels by his son and the prolific turner of words, KJA.

It's been long enough that I think I can go back to reading this one, and will come October of 2015 as a buddy read. I'm looking forward to it. I can trace this book back to my original love of all things sci-fi.

I might have been annoyed with all the politics on the first read, but it later became my favorite passages. Who would have known? I might have been slightly annoyed with the idea that there's some man who can do something that women can't. It was couched pretty carefully in the story, and women are generally a lot more powerful than the men in general, so it's easy to let things like that get lost in the whirlpool of prophesy and whatnot, but it still annoyed me. And yet, it's pretty easy to forgive. I loved the discussions and themes riddled through the tale. I loved the worldbuilding. I loved the characters. I used to bore my friends to tears with my wild speculations about Hasimir Fenring and the possibility of spinning off a long line of hidden Kwisatz Haderachs.

What can I say? I am a fanboy in the very very worst way.

I got into philosophy because of all of the wisdom sayings of this book. I got into ecology because of this book. I got into the idea of transhumanism because of this book. I even got into what I had then thought of as the most ugly and contemptible and boring of subjects: Economics.

So, several dozen Economics and Politics books later, I can honestly say that Dune corrupted me. Damn you, Dune. I cannot praise you enough.

But give it time. Come October, I'll be setting my sights back on you, and this time, I might just get critical.

What a delightful time to be alive. :)

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