My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Tangential foreshadowing from the Collected Sayings of Maud’Dib by the Princess Irulan.
After his dad is asked to take over keeping the oil supply flowing out of the Middle East, Paul, a promising MMA fighter, witnesses the death of his family and friends, narrowly escaping into the desert with his pregnant mother. Befriending a small band of freedom fighters, Paul becomes their holy leader and prophesied deliverer. Meanwhile, the military-industrial-complex of the infidel are trying to apply their bootheel to the impoverished desert people. Can Paul use guerrilla tactics to overthrow the infidel, become Emporer and bring jihad to the west?*
Okay, so Dune does predate the general cluster-truck that is the Middle East conflict, but you do have to wonder if Herbert was munching on a bit of spice for inspiration when writing.
Unlike some other sci-fi classics, Dune does hold up as a novel in the modern day. There are some aspects that mark this as a book of the 60s (e.g. anything related to women) but it isn’t as jarring thanks to the complex worldbuilding. A lot has been poured into this novel that had me marveling at the efforts involved for one book. And yes, I know about the sequels and expanded universe novels, but this was clearly written as an open-ended standalone.
I have previously tried the expanded universe books that were co-written by Kevin J Anderson and Herbert’s son Brian. They did not grab me. The amazing worldbuilding that defined many of the concepts of space opera sci-fi** didn’t appear to have enough legs for those novels. I’m glad I picked up the original Dune to understand what the fuss was all about.
*Â https://www.goodreads.com/review/show…
** https://www.goodreads.com/review/show…
https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/dune-endures
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/30/frank-herbert-dune-at-50-sci-fi-masterpiece
Tyson Adams 
Yeah, it works really well as a standalone. Next time I re-read it I’m going to try approaching it as if it truly were a standalone and see if that affects how I view it.
Baby Herbert and that other guy, man, while I’m glad they finished up the Dune Chronicles, they really showed off their lack of skill in comparison to Frank. Frankly, hahahaha, it was embarrassing to see them write such drivel.
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