Dune

Summary: Underwhelming. Didn't meet high expectations. Unfortunately became a bit of a slog to get through.

The Good: Herbert creates a world, highly realized, with its unique cultures and language and history and politics. With depth and detail. Well plotted, bringing together many threads and characters with political intrigue.

The Bad: Despite such a variety of characters, with a variety of roles and actions, somehow they lack humanity. All their dialogue, all their thoughts, all their actions, tend to be in the service of the plot, or exposition, or enlightening the reader to this world. But despite seeing deep into the thoughts of the characters, we seem to get little enlightenment of their feelings on the matters at hand, let alone personal, particular, character-driven, and character-revealing aspects of their thoughts and feelings. Characters often seemed hyper-intellectual. I don't think there was a single argument based upon emotional conflict, or bit of humor in the entire book. Another for instance: the deaths of characters close to others did not seem to elicit much emotion, thought, or feelings on the matter. Characters felt too often unrelatable (as a result). I think this is why I did not feel enough care for what happened to the characters.

The Ugly: Suspenseful moments there were, but more as a result of the plot, and less the result of how he handled those plot moments, or how they actually played out on the page. Similar with the action scenes, which were intense almost despite the writing itself. A great hero, but one which did not have a lot of endearing or relatable qualities. And one who felt too entrenched in the tired (and even racist) trope of the civilized/western/white hero going in to lead and save the savage/exotic/eastern people of color (a la the films “Dances with Wolves” or “The Samurai,” which while I might have enjoyed, can nonetheless be rather troubling and problematic from a race perspective). Chapter introductions from books written about the events of the story, giving interesting insights and commentary, but whose foreshadowing crossed the line into actual spoiling what otherwise would have been suspenseful events if the outcome wasn't already known. A glossary that was helpful, but also felt a bit of a crutch, as Herbert then appeared to feel free to simply not bother to try to integrate the explanations of their meaning within the text itself (which would have required a more deft hand with storytelling, but which would have been more enjoyable and easier for the reader. The metaphysical/supernatural aspects lent some more other-worldliness to the story, but at times left me a bit confused or uncertain about their meaning, significance, or even a good sense of what was actually happening. A compelling tale, but one which at times seemed rather derivative of history (see T.E. Lawreance “of Arabia.”) Interesting cultural idea, but ones which also seemed extremely derivative. A story which might be an interesting analogy on the times in which it was written (Middle East politics, oil), but if there was something beyond just being borrowed or derivative, and which actually might be a commentary, I did not see it (though I acknowledge both that it might be my failing to see it, and that all works are derivative in some sense).

Disclaimer: Expectations can be important. I did see (at least most of) the 1984 film something over 20 years ago. My rather awful impression of it colored my view of the book. I wish I had not seen it beforehand. On the other hand, my expectations were high due to the rave reviews and #1 rankings on the all-time-best science fiction lists.