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Sci-Fi Books

Frank Herbert's Dune, 50 Years On 234

Posted by Soulskill from the spice-must-flow dept.
An anonymous reader writes: This October will be the 50th anniversary of Frank Herbert's massively popular and influential sci-fi novel Dune. The Guardian has written a piece examining its effects on the world at large, and how the book remains relevant even now. Quoting: 'Books read differently as the world reforms itself around them, and the Dune of 2015 has geopolitical echoes that it didn't in 1965, before the oil crisis and 9/11. ... As Paul's destiny becomes clear to him, he begins to have visions 'of fanatic legions following the green and black banner of the Atreides, pillaging and burning across the universe in the name of their prophet Muad'Dib.' If Paul accepts this future, he will be responsible for 'the jihad's bloody swords,' unleashing a nomad war machine that will up-end the corrupt and oppressive rule of the emperor Shaddam IV (good) but will kill untold billions (not so good) in the process. In 2015, the story of a white prophet leading a blue-eyed brown-skinned horde of jihadis against a ruler called Shaddam produces a weird funhouse mirror effect, as if someone has jumbled up recent history and stuck the pieces back together in a different order."
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Frank Herbert's Dune, 50 Years On More

Frank Herbert's Dune, 50 Years On

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  • ... um, yeah, that's the eerie parallel. OK.

  • Not blue eyed ... (Score:5, Informative)

    by perpenso ( 1613749 ) on Saturday July 04, 2015 @04:21PM (#50045021)

    the story of a white prophet leading a blue-eyed brown-skinned horde of jihadis

    They were not blue eyed in the normal sense of iris color. They were blue eyed in the sense that the drug they were saturated with had turned the whites of their eyes blue. And for heavy long term users it could be a dark blue making their eyes seem black at a distance.

    • Re:Not blue eyed ... (Score:5, Funny)

      by just_a_monkey ( 1004343 ) on Saturday July 04, 2015 @04:38PM (#50045083)

      Ah, so it's about the War on Drugs.

  • That's still exactly what it was (Score:5, Insightful)

    by preaction ( 1526109 ) on Saturday July 04, 2015 @04:31PM (#50045063)

    Herbert was exactly writing about hydraulic despotism, which is a common thing for varying definitions of "hydraulic". Oil is the big one right now, but water is showing all signs of being the next. As for revolution, anyone compassionate enough to be a good leader will have to face the choice that what path they are embarking upon will lead to death and destruction. Playing a race card is just shock value clickbait...

    • "As for revolution, anyone compassionate enough to be a good leader..."

      Compassionate... I don't think it means what you think it means.

      • Do you think Hitler or Lenin weren't compassionate for those groups of people they were trying to help? If everyone hates you, nobody is going to follow you.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by khallow ( 566160 )

      Oil is the big one right now, but water is showing all signs of being the next.

      No, it isn't. Water falls out of the sky in most of the world. And farmers, the largest consumers of water can in most parts of the world considerably reduce their water consumption with some simple approaches should that ever become important enough to do so.

      • Water falls out of the sky in most of the world.

        Sadly, in more and more parts of it, it's becoming illegal to collect it. And mind you, I'm not talking about diverting seasonal drainage, I'm talking about collecting rainfall from your roof, let alone from a structure purpose-built for collecting water like you commonly see in areas with high rainfall and low government interference.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by khallow ( 566160 )

          Sadly, in more and more parts of it, it's becoming illegal to collect it. And mind you, I'm not talking about diverting seasonal drainage, I'm talking about collecting rainfall from your roof, let alone from a structure purpose-built for collecting water like you commonly see in areas with high rainfall and low government interference.

          That's a far cry from a hydraulic empire since first, there would be no central control over water and it's trivial in the cases you mention to circumvent any such authority.

        • I suppose you are referring to the Rocky Mountain region of the US where it has always been illegal to divert the rains from the rivers to an extent that you are withholding more than the allotment accompanying the title to your land. Small-scale wars were fought over this. Read history, it really does have more to it than "white people were mean to non-whites" and "men were mean to women."

        • Sadly, in more and more parts of it, it's becoming illegal to collect it. [...] I'm talking about collecting rainfall from your roof
          Care to give a reference?
          This is hard to believe!

  • If there is a small area which contains an essential resource of which a global shortage exists, there will inevitably be some form of political or military conflict for that area. This situation will last until the resource is depleted or the resource becomes non-essential.

  • Frank is a deeper fellow than all but a few really grasp.

    "The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action."

    - Frank Herbert.

    How perfectly does that describe the Guardian and most of its readership?

    True wisdom requires the humility to see the universe for what it is... a step beyond our reason... always and forever. That is not an endorsement of some religion... that is rather a caution before anyone becomes consumed by unshakable convictions.

    Be decisive f

    • Re:The author doesn't understand Herbert (Score:5, Insightful)

      by umafuckit ( 2980809 ) on Saturday July 04, 2015 @06:04PM (#50045397)

      Frank is a deeper fellow than all but a few really grasp.

      "The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action."

      - Frank Herbert.

      How perfectly does that describe the Guardian and most of its readership?

      Um... not very well?

      • Re:The author doesn't understand Herbert (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Karmashock ( 2415832 ) on Saturday July 04, 2015 @06:15PM (#50045433)

        oh really? So you think the Guardian is an open minded institution that doesn't routinely engage in ideological advocacy of the same ideology?

        Or that that ideology in question doesn't basically a have the same solution for everything?

        Because if you don't know that... you haven't been paying attention.

    • True wisdom requires the humility to see the universe for what it is... a step beyond our reason... always and forever.

      I heartily endorse that statement, and encourage you to teach it to your children.

      (My children, on the other hand, will be competing with yours in the global society and I want to give them the best chance of success.)

      • vague... what will you be teaching your children? And why do you think they'll out compete people taught to be flexible and open minded?

        • And why do you think they'll out compete people taught to be flexible and open minded?

          Because in practice, that default position morphs into "incapable of critical thinking about objective reality and causality, and spending your life trying to make sense of the world while being poisoned with a crippling case of mixed premises and moral relativism" - that's why. Being open to new facts is important and wonderful. But being an intellectual invertebrate is unfortunately what's generally being indoctrinated.

    • Re:The Guardian (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 04, 2015 @07:46PM (#50045719)

      Plus ca change...
      30 year old description but still scarily accurate:
      "The Daily Mirror is read by the people who think they run the country. The Guardian is read by people who think they *ought* to run the country. The Times is read by the people who actually *do* run the country. The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country. The Financial Times is read by people who *own* the country. The Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by *another* country. The Daily Telegraph is read by the people who think it is."

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by chihowa ( 366380 )

      Frank is a deeper fellow than all but a few really grasp.

      His books were largely philosophical treatises and it's so often disappointing to talk with people who can't see past the superficial stories that he uses to explore an element of philosophy. I'm surprised that anyone can get through the entirety of Dune without that dawning on them, but it becomes much more clear when you start reading his other works (especially those not set in sci fi settings).

      • precisely...

        I read Dune at the same time I was reading "the User Illusion" and a book on zen philosophy... I was 16... it was sort of surreal mix and it changed the way I see myself, society, and the rest of humanity... apparently permanently.

  • The Golden Path (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    *SPOILERS!*

    > 'of fanatic legions following the green and black banner of the Atreides, pillaging and burning across the universe in the name of their prophet Muad'Dib.

    This is exactly what happens. Paul Muad'Dib is later able to see the future, yet doesn't stop this from happening.

    It's all in the name of some greater plot to prevent a catastrophe in the far future, thousands of years ahead. The "Golden Path".

    After six books in the Dune series, Frank Herbert died. At this point, it's still not fully reveal

  • in 1917 it was Lawrence of Arabia (Score:3, Interesting)

    by known_coward_69 ( 4151743 ) on Saturday July 04, 2015 @06:17PM (#50045441)
    a British national who led the saudi's to revolt against the rule of the ottoman empire to help the british in the middle east. the story of Mohammed is probably more similar since the Muslims actually killed off the Eastern Roman Empire in the end. and there are theories that Mohammed's family was somewhat new in the area and were actually Jews who fled the Roman destruction of Israel during one of the revolts. the Muslim and ancient Christian/Hebrew names for God are virtually identical frank herbert didn't predict much of anything

  • Is the OP aware the Dune milieu was intended as a commentary on the West and Middle Eastern oil?

    IIRC, in the story, as ridiculously profitable as Dune was for the Emperor, the cost of his army assault ate up some 40 years worth of sales, which was almost spot on to the first Gulf War vs. Iraq's profits, which were not even taken to pay for it

  • I forget the last Dune book I read as there were so many books in the series. They became well garbage and I thought he was milking it for all it's worth.

    • You may want to remember that Frank Herbert wrote only first six--and the last two were done a couple of years before he died. After that it was his son, Brian Herbert, in conjunction with Kevin J. Anderson, work about which some people, well, have a rather low opinion. [penny-arcade.com]

      • You may want to remember that Frank Herbert wrote only first six--and the last two were done a couple of years before he died. After that it was his son, Brian Herbert, in conjunction with Kevin J. Anderson, work about which some people, well, have a rather low opinion. [penny-arcade.com]

        No I wasn't aware.

        Reminds me then of the L. Ron Hubbard's series "Mission Earth" it's a 10 volume set. It's said he died while writing it, someone taking over the story. I can tell you where it happened - volume 3 it went stupid after that one, just ridiculous. I have the 10 volume hard back set (hopeful collectors item) but just collected the last 6 (unread).

  • Arabic and Islamic themes in the Dune universe (Score:5, Interesting)

    by kbahey ( 102895 ) on Saturday July 04, 2015 @08:37PM (#50045855) Homepage

    Many years ago, I wrote an article on Arabic and Islamic themes in Frank Herbert's Dune [baheyeldin.com]. It includes many etymological info on terms used in Dune.

    Hope some of you enjoy it.

  • Shows Herbert for the so-so writer he is.

  • Check Out Hellstrom's Hive. It is about a hidden human community based on the principles of the social insects. Oh so totally creepy. Its chill has stayed with me for decades. Would love to see it as a movie.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dargaud ( 518470 )
      I liked 'The White Plague', about an artificial disease that wipes out all women... and the crumbling society that remains.

  • ive read the six Herbert Dune books several time, and while there are several over-arching themes, it's the little things that bring me back...

    'Governments hate a popular leader.'
    'Revenge is for children and the emotionally retarded.'
    'His greatest skill is that he learned how to learn.'

    So many bits of wisdom from a man that thought with purity.

  • Decades pass, hillarity ensues... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 05, 2015 @03:42AM (#50046929)

    Wow. Herbert, looking for exotic inspiration for his stories, uses elements of the Arab, Persian and Muslim world thus making his stories very different from the vast majority of scifi at the time, which tended to be was based in civilizations resembling those built by Jews and Christians in moderate climates (most authors start with what they and their readers are familiar with and then get busy telling a story). Herbert floods his stories with words that have a middle-eastern sound, scenery straight out of "Lawrence of Arabia", middle-eastern-style tribal and martial behaviors, and titles the first book "Dune" as if to put a huge capstone advertizing this on the endeavor. This is all obvious to the early readers of the work. The military aspects of Dune are obvious both in the way the off-world forces approach Arrakis (an actual Arabic word) like Westerners approaching the Arab/Muslim world. The Fremen are clearly modeled on the tribal people of the middle-east, and therefore are organized and fight as those people have historically organized themselves and fought (absent the scifi props of worms and such). Even the spice is an allegory both for oil (which from a Western perspective "must flow" and is required for transportation across large distances) and for actual drugs (such as the heroin from Afghanistan)

    Decades pass

    Ignorant morons pickup the book "Dune", skim through it (or, admittedly, SOME even READ it), and declare that the author was amazingly prophetic and that aspects of what he wrote seem to have a mysterious connection to the modern world etc.

    [face palm]

    One one level it's very a funny display of extreme ignorance, but on another level it's a disturbing display of intellectual failure. This confusion about cause-and-effect, source-and-sink, and otherwise backward thinking is right up there with cargo cultism and is an indictment of the reasoning and education of the person displaying it.

  • The attempts to put Dune on screen have been largely terrible, but this is one of those books where the "big budget blockbuster" would be totally justified. Either that or potentially an HBO series in the vein of Game of Thrones. Given the amount of story to tell that might be the best chance to really do it justice.

    Somehow, it really needs to happen.

    • Re:This needs to be a well done movie (Score:5, Insightful)

      by iluvcapra ( 782887 ) on Sunday July 05, 2015 @11:38AM (#50047985)

      The attempts to put Dune on screen have been largely terrible, but this is one of those books where the "big budget blockbuster" would be totally justified.

      Huge stretches of the book are internal monologue or whispered conversations in dark rooms, where two people exchange few words and pages are spent on exposition. The book is unfilmable; or rather, you can make a lot of movies with the title Dune but they're going to end up just sharing character names and the general bag of situations.

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