A Year in Books #1- Frank Herbert’s Dune
This is how sci-fi is done.
Of course you start this year with a post-apocalyptic sci-fi about a planet suffering from an ecological crisis and political warfare. Of course you do.
‘Dune’ is science-fiction that makes you question- how much science-fiction could you write so that it’s too much science fiction? And the Herbert family (of which father Frank wrote 6 books of the original Dune
series, while son Brian expanded it to another 14), tell you- ’Not enough.’
All the way back in 1965, Frank Herbert sat down on his desk and thought-
“Do we have interplanetary kingdoms with ongoing political tensions, constantly at war with each other?”
Check.
“Do we have a noble, righteous King who gets killed because of this politics?”
Check.
“Does the kingdom then get captured by an enemy clan that plans to expand control over all the other planets?”
Yes in Lannister.
“Do the protagonists have supernatural abilities to see the distant future and control space-time?”
Uh-huh.
“Does our main lead, a prince, lead an army of tribals and slaves in an uprising against the evil empire using his superpowers?”
Holy mother of dragons, yes!
“But most importantly, do we have giant, scary worm monsters roaming around the planet that our prince protagonist would learn to tame and ride?”
Suffice to say, calling Dune ‘rich’ in storytelling would be an understatement.
Our protagonist is Paul, Prince of the kingdom Atreides, son of Duke Leto. Duke and the gang have been given control of the planet of Arrakis by the
Emperor. Arrakis is a desert landscape filled with nomadic tribes and where water is a sign of wealth.
The planet, however, does contain something that holds immense power to help control the fate of the entire universe- spice. The spice ‘Melange’, found only on Arrakis- fuels their trade economy, gives computational superpowers to futuristic Robo-humans called ‘Mentats’, and acts as a currency for Inter-galactic space travel.
Basically, pretty important stuff.
And where there’s important wealth inducing stuff, there is obviously the politics around said wealth inducing stuff.
The Atreides family gets caught in the midst of a sadistic scheme by an evil slave empire- the Harkonnens. The Duke gets assassinated, Harkonnens seize the planet, and Prince Paul and his mother make the run for it in the strange, arid dunes of Arrakis.
In their journey, Paul discovers his many supernatural gifts inherited from his mother, a member of the religious clan of Bene Gesserit. He also comes face-to-face with the nomadic hunter tribe of the desert, the Fremen, falls in love with one of theirs, rides a giant 400m sandworm, and leads them all in a rebellion against the evil Harkonnen empire.
And becomes, in the process, a true leader of men- ‘Muaddib’.
Reading Dune gives you so much perspective into all elements of characterisation and world-building in a typical sci-fi. That’s because it pretty much does cover all the elements. Its universe is vast and so very rich in detail, that the first book running around 800 pages, barely manages to cover the opening premise of the story. This is also where I feel it gets a bit too much.
Herbert gets so engrossed in his world and all the little details in it that the story takes a back seat, and you realise much of what is mentioned in the summary at the back hasn’t happened even 300 pages into the book.
It’s also dosed heavily with Arabic sounding jargons, words like- Gom Jabbar, Kwisatz Haderach, so much that the author literally has to provide us with an entire glossary and a few other Appendixes at the back.
But reading it really does make you rediscover why you fell in love with fantasy sci-fi as a genre in the first place—the intricacies of good story-telling filled with nasty politics and warfare tactics.
What really struck a chord with me was that, at the heart of the journey of Dune, is its conflict of water. Herbert, an avid environmentalist, spent close to five years designing the ecosystem of Dune. The story imagines a world where water could be considered a sign of wealth, so much that even shedding tears is considered an act of privilege.
It also draws many relevant parallels to human greed. The extent of our obsession with resources (in this case, ‘spice’) and the resultant consequences (in this case, ‘scarcity of water’).
Which pretty much answers the question of its inspiration. The book’s heavy usage of Arabic terminologies, a devastating feud that spans many years for the control of a resource (read oil), and a flawed leader that leads a tribe towards an uprising against slave-masters who exploit them. Anybody could put 2 and 2 and figure out what Herbert’s aiming at (*cough* Iraq war *cough*).
Which is why it’d be interesting to see what the studios do with the upcoming film. Today in 2021, somebody would definitely get cancelled for writing stuff like this, and the book would most likely be banned.
But then again, old Frankie Herbert doesn’t seem to be the kind of guy who’d get scared of stuff like that. He also seems to be the kind of guy who’d throw a quote from his own book on their faces to get his point across:
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
