I recently got into Dune. Been on my TBR for years but finally bought audiobooks thanks to the incredible movies. I finished Dune 1-3 in two weeks. Needless to say, I’m obsessed.

Id really like to get a complete hardcover set but can’t find one anywhere other than absurdly expensive leather bound editions like Easton Press.

Please tell me there is a complete set of decent hardcovers 1-6 somewhere out there (in English) and that I’m just bad at googling.

In Dune 2 before Paul rides the worm Stilgar hands him the thumper and says : "I tuned it myself".

I have not read any of the Dune books so I don't know much about thumpers, but, is it possible that Stilgar tuned the thumper in a way that would call a grandfarher worm to further enforce the prophecy or was it pure chance?

I could be looking for connections where none exist, but one shot that stands out to me for some reason is a close up of Rabban’s whip as he is walking to the ornithopters after the spice depot is destroyed. Im horrible at remembering book details, but I don’t believe Rabban was ever described as using a whip, so it’s something Denis put in and I think I know why.

Some people were disappointed by Rabban’s quick death, because he was made out to be quite formidable and a nemesis to Gurney. Yet, he gets killed instantly. Of course, having read the book I knew going in that rabban was all bark and no bite. He may shout and be angry all the time, but we only ever see him abuse weaker people, like his subordinates who are powerless to do anything to him. The only time we see him try and actually fight another warrior is with gurney.

The whip is basically a direct analogue of Rabban. I don’t know for certain, but I’m pretty confident in assuming that a whip would be useless against someone with a shield. It needs to go fast to be damaging, too fast. That whip has only ever been used for one thing, terrorizing helpless victims. It may look scary and intimidating, but when it’s put against a person with a blade and combat training, it’s worthless.

Both Rabban and the whip are initially shown with an air of intimidation and malice, yet both are only good at one thing, preying on the weak. When the odds are more even, the illusion is gone. All bark, no bite.

Hey guys, I'm genuinely interested in everyone's experience while reading the novels and your ability to understand certain plot threads, especially from Children to Chapterhouse. Take something like The Golden Path and the way its developed from Emperor/Chapterhouse. I found it extremely difficult to completely comprehend this narrative arc and its connective tissue throughout these three novels. I understand Herbert seems completely immune to any expositional dialogue, but would it hurt to just have a couple of sentences that provide clear exposition? I find Dostoevsky, Melville, and Woolf easy in comparison to Herbert's style.

Don't get me wrong, I have been loving the series and cannot wait until I read them again, but there are times when I feel that my head may explode in connecting certain narrative threads.

OK. This book has too much info and huge details that i might need to take a while to process.

ive ended the reading right now (about 10 min ago), and some questions are still popping up, but i dont wanna look up in wiki to not get spoilers about chapterhouse.

My questions are (If the answers are in chapterhouse let me know):

1. What exactly does Leto II REALLY wanted for the bene gesserit/humanity? I get that in GEoD he wants the humanity to “advance” by the Golden Path plan, but did he knows about the honorable matres? And the destruction of Arrakis/Rakis?

2. How Sheena controls the worms?

3. What is the language thing about the sandworms and dances?

4. The Atreides are not prescience anymore, but why Teg has some kind of prescience?

Please don’t be harsh on me if the answers are simple, i just didnt understand so deeply some points

In chapter 45 of God Emperor, Malky is brought before Moneo and Leto. A couple passages caught my attention and I feel like Herbert is trying to say something, but I don't understand what it is.

“Moneo?” Leto spoke in a softly persuasive tone. “I know that Malky offered you greater temptations than any other . . .”

“Lord! I never . . .”

“I know that, Moneo.” Still in that soft tone. “But surprise has shocked your memories alive. You are armed for anything I may require of you.”

Later:

Leto studied Malky—the dark wrinkled skin, the sunken cheeks, that sharp nose at such contrast with the rounded oval of his face. The heavy eyebrows had turned almost white. There but for a lifetime of testosterone . . . yes.

And:

“Here there, old friend Moneo,” Malky said, rolling his gaze toward the majordomo. “Don’t you know what he . . .”

“I was never your friend!” Moneo snapped.

“Companion among the houris then,” Malky said.

The first passage made me suspect that Moneo was gay (or bi, or closeted/bearded, since he has a wife and children). Not sure what else would be tempting to Moneo as majordomo of god himself except for love/companionship (certainly not money or power).

The second one I had no idea what to make of -- is Malky implied to be trans? I feel like that's REALLY reaching but I don't understand the significance of calling out testosterone defining Malky's features -- I guess maybe it's just talking about hair, but doesn't everyone's hair go white in old age?

Finally, "companion among the houris" -- were Moneo and Malky banging each other as well as the houris when they partied? Or is this implying that Malky used to be one of the houris? Or that they both were? Again, reaching and unlikely but a lot of this book has buried the lede on some weird stuff.

This is obviously a pretty minor point but it feels like too many breadcrumbs to be a coincidence, but I don't really understand what they point to (story of my first read of GEOD lol). Any more astute readers have any context or ideas to share?

I know I am not the first one, but check this:

I never heard about this comparison before, I watched both Dune films last month, and the Zimmer song is stuck in my head since.

Today, I was whistling it, ocasionally, washing dishes, and then Charles Bronson's face poped out in my mind.

I was SHOCKED!

And now it makes total sense why this Dune track hit me so deeply. Leone's film It´s not the best Western of all time, but this scene maybe is the best western scene of all time. The vendetta, and the Morricone track hits hard with perfect timing. Such a beautiful thing to see and hear.

I cannot separate anymore. I am glad I am not alone and people are talking about these since the first release :D

The timeline of the discovery and usage of the spice mélange in the Dunivese is not entirely clear. While the Spacing Guild has apparently been using spice for some 10,000 years, it is implied throughout the novel that the broader "discovery" of spice in the Imperium is a relatively recent event. There are a couple of referenced objects from before or at the discovery of the spice:

He thought of the filmbook Yueh had shown him - "Arrakis: His Imperial Majesty's Desert Botanical Testing Station." It was an old filmbook from before discovery of the spice.

and

"There's one dragline outfit [Harvester] that came with the first team of Imperial ecologists, though, and it's still running... although I don't know how... or why."

Now, these could be a 10,000 year old filmbook and harvester, but that's not how it reads to me. Instead it seems like spice was thought to have been discovered relatively recently (on the order of a century).

This interpretation agrees with what we know of Liet/Kynes father Pardot, who is described as the "first planetary ecologist". To me this reads like he was literally the first assigned to Arrakis, but it might just be a title. What isn't ambiguous in the appendix is that he managed the Botanical Testing Stations which had been abandoned by the time of the events of the novel. However, this implies they were operating in Liet/Kynes's father's time, so the "Botanical Testing Station period" was not particularly long ago. Given it's title, the aforementioned filmbook is clearly a product of that period. Now, again, it's possible that period lasted thousands of years, but that's not the sense I get from the text.

Finally, there is the issue of the Fremen. They are an indigenous culture chafing at foreign oppression brought there to harvest spice. By the time of the first book the situation is a powder keg waiting for an ignition source, it does not feel like something which has been plodding along for 10,000 years.

Personally, I think the most parsimonious timeline is as follows:

• Fremen arrive on Arrakis some time before the Butlerian Jihad, they are the first to actually discover spice, but they have little to no contact with the broader galaxy.
• The Spacing Guild discovers the prescient abilities of spice, and emerges as the only group able to provide interstellar transport following the BJ.
• During the succeeding 10,000 years Arrakis is a backwater without a feudal lord. Fremen culture develops (with some Bene Gesserit meddling) and the Spacing Guild trades for spice harvested by Fremen in the towns of Arrakis. No one other than the Spacing Guild, the Bene Gesserit, and the people of Arrakis is aware of spice. This well established trade network between Fremen and Spacing Guild becomes the smuggling network we see in the novel.
• A century or so before the events of the first novel, some emperor becomes randomly interested in the desert ecology of Arrakis and decides to sponsor a scientific expedition. Unable to refuse without raising suspicion, the Spacing Guild acquiesces. As shown in the novel, the Spacing Guild is eager to keep their use of the spice a secret. This begins the Botanical Testing Station period.
• Spice and its healthful geriatric properties are discovered by the imperial scientists. They think that they have discovered something that had previously only been known to the people of Arrakis. Arrakis is clearly now far more valuable to the Imperium as a mining colony then as just an area for scientific research.
• The emperor grants the Harkonnens the contract to hold Arrakis as a quasi-fief and mine the spice. Thus begins the colonial exploitation of Arrakis which leads us to the events of Dune.

Thoughts?

In the sequel film, I don’t really understand this line from Baron Harkonnen. What exactly is “genius” about pummeling Sietch Tabr with heavy weaponry? It seems, indeed, rather obvious.

I remember watching it a second and third time at home a few weeks ago. I felt like watching it again today, only to find that it’s being released to MAX on the 21st?

One little detail i noticed on rewatching, is on first glace it seems like Jessica and Gaius Helen Mohiam are having the 'sides' conversation telepathically, but on closer look the two actors are making very subtle facial expressions that convey meaning in a way the characters would be able to interprid light sign language.

Just a clever easter egg i feel where trivial expositional is restrained, and casual viewers can chalk it down to mind powers or space magic etc.. and still appreciate the overall film pacing, but anyone whos familiar with the books can see they are simply reading each others body language with no magic involved at all.

The Spacing Guild & its navigators were the one truly extraordinary part of Lynch's Dune. I wonder if they were left out of this current version because inevitable comparisons would likely come up short.

Without the Spacing Guild portrayed as one pillar of the Duneverse triad of power, it left me wondering why the spice even mattered, at least to the rest of the galaxy.

Is Attack on Titan inspired by Dune? I mean, I had just finished reading Dune Messiah (I'm halfway through Children of Dune) and knowing what Paul went through, I can't help but notice the similarity of Paul & Eren's tragedy.

Both had the vision of the future and multiple realities. Having no control of what will happen. Deprived of their own choices and freedom. A slave to a destined future.

Paul didn't want the jihad, and kill billions of people in the universe, but he's helpless. His followers wouldn't listen anyway if he asked them to stop. The motion had been set regardless. The moment he took on the role of Muad'dib, jihad was already inevitable. He only wanted to save Chani from a terrible death.

Eren didn't want to trample 80% of the world population, but it had to happen so he can save his friends and live a normal life at least a few more decades.

Obtaining such power is nothing but a curse.

Ok ok we love Feyd but aren't we going to talk about how he simply just had the best birthday ever?

• Humiliate and kill the last (err.. not exactly the last, but ok) members of your archenemy House for millennia and be even more seen as the hero of your House;

• Your weird and powerful uncle who adores you takes the government of the most valuable planet in the entire universe from your useless brother (who you hate), and gives it to you with the promise of making you Emperor of the entire Cosmos;

• Have the (possibly) most pleasurable moment of your life with the Gom Jabbar;

• Make a baby in Léa Seydoux.

You literally can't ask for more than that.

Harkonnen forces use some kind of holographic feed to keep track of harvester and troop movements across the surface of Arrakis, but since "thinking machines" aka computers are forbidden, I'm not quite sure how such technology is actually possible.

My assumption is that those guys standing around the display and chanting are mentats who are manipulating the display and that the hologram uses similar technology to the filmbooks.

So are they basically mentats who are constantly updating a filmbook display?

In the tent-scene in the second movie right before Paul gets the names Usul and Muad'Dib I noticed something: a Fremen sitting next to Paul says "Muad'Dib likes his smell" and that before he himself asks Stilgar what the name of that desert mouse is and so on, thus before he is officially called Muad'Dib.

Am I just misinterpreting the name here and the Fremen is talking about the mouse? Or have i missed something else?

The part I'm talking about starts at 40:30

[Edit...obviously SPOILERS here....read at your peril! :) ]

I feel like I should meditate before writing this....

I audiobook GEOD before I sleep each night. I was listening to the ritual of 'Siaynoq', the sharing, the adoration of the GE....and a whole lot struck me about Duncan Idaho (well, that ghola of that time, and all the others before him). He is very much the witness of the scene....witnessing the awesome power of Leto's creation, an utterly fanatical, worshipful, Universe-wide female army of Fishspeakers.....and I realised how integral Duncan Idaho is to this Universe.

I'm not sure I can put this all into words:

Leto continues having a Duncan Idaho in his millennias-long life for so many reasons, some obvious and explicit (his breeding program, companionship, a 'connection to the past')....but, taking Leto's prescience into account there are a few more:

Leto knows that somehow a Duncan Idaho is integral to his own death....but...because all the gholas form a kind of continuum, he can't tell which one will do it......AND HE STILL CONTINUES HAVING THEM PRODUCED BECAUSE BEING KILLED (A SURPRISE!) IS PART OF HIS PLAN!

He still loves his Duncans, every one, delighting every time in encouraging their mind of awakening to what he is trying to do, to bring their minds to the necessity of his predation on a free society and the lesson that predation will teach when it ends through the right Duncan's efforts.

Mindblowing! That Leto knows a Duncan will help kill him is even more incredible when also, as a reader, realising that Leto makes each Duncan, by far, the 2nd most powerful person in the universe every time he brings one into existence.

During the feast of Siaynoq what is happening is Leto is creating a bind between the Fishspeakers and Idaho so that the billions and billions of Fishspeakers renew their loyalty to Duncan even as he pledges loyalty to Emperor Leto. "WE SHARE! WE SHARE!"

Why?

Because....Leto knows that when he dies the Fishspeakers will always have a leader to follow. "Male armies are only answerable to themselves.......but female armies attach to a leader"

and he always makes sure they have two leaders, Himself, who has been there for 3000 years and a Duncan, who in a way is also always there, someone who will always be ready to fully lead them, for them to follow unwaveringly when Leto, as he knows he will, passes on.

The God Emperor's vision is so vast....but by his own admission, not infinite!

As a personal aside recently there was a post about 'who is your favourite Dune character' and I'd like to take this moment to say I most identify with Duncan Idaho (though Leto II is my favourite character, how could he not be?), though I certainly don't connect with him due to any inherent talent with the ladies......

I identify with Idaho because he has been killed and reborn so many times, each time in a state of confusion....so many lives lived....his experience smeared and mixed and, dare I say it, distilled and improved....

I loved in Children of Dune when we see the true power of a mentat's mind through his eyes.....and was so moved when those metal eyes are brought to tears at the loss of his love, Alya, taken by possession. Herbert's use of tears in this water-crucial story is exceptional. When Leto sheds tears of love to Hwi they burn his skin, but he is grateful for the pain, grateful he is still human enough to cry.

We all die many times in life, and are reborn. Where is the child we once were? Where is that person who suffered a trauma and survived it? Where is that old home where we once lived? Who are we? How did we arrive here? What do I do now, not quite ever knowing the answers to those questions?

When one considered Mrs the books and the movies (new and old). Much of it doesn’t really make sense and there are tons of very odd plot holes.

Some examples: They have atomics and space folding (automated and navigator based) at any given time, and in violation of any atomics treaty any house or minor house with atomics could fold space with atomics and destroy anyone at any given time. Even if you wanted to say atomics were not allowed, then why not stoneburners?

Lasers against shields. It’s known by dune that lasers and shields are very bad things. They have Hunter seekers that have poison. Why not put lasers on drones or Hunter seekers and use those to assassinate people?

Folding as a way to invade or to kidnap or as a weapon. Senva is the only person who can fold without a ship however many of the folding ships are quite small. There were plenty of opportunities to use a folding ship as a vehicle to fold and infiltrate, kidnap or even kill.
Want to wipeout a planet, warp into its core with a few stoneburners.

Worms Want to harvest spice? Why not use shields place away from the spice to lure worms away from The harvesting? They go nuts for shields so the thump of a harvesting operation should be of no consequence.

In many of the books people don’t know how spice is made. It seems like some revelation that the worms make spice and that it’s a big secret. I find it absurd that it took thousands of years and planetologist to figure out spice was from worms.

I love the books and all the movies but some of the plot holes are staggering.

The amount of technology and especially folding technology makes most of the Dune tactics nonsensical.

I heard a company is making a Dune video game set solely on the planet Arrakis. While I still look forward to playing this game. I would rather see a game set in multiple worlds throughout the Corrino Imperium. I picture a game that’s a cross between Starfield, Grand Theft Auto 5 and Assassin Creed Valhalla. The player could decide if you start the game on Caladan and pledge yourself to house Atreides or on Giedi Prime and become a sworn sword for House Harkonen. The possibilities are endless so I’m kind of bummed the game developers decided to keep the game set only on Dune. I do understand the reasoning behind a single planet game. It’s a multi million dollar undertaking to build galaxy spanning space RPG. The scope is insane, and it would take years. Dune fans What are your thoughts ?

Very often less is indeed more.

In the opening scene of Dune: Messiah conspirators convene to plot against MuadDib. It marked the first time Herbert brought out a Spacing Guild steersman in the series. Holding him out for the course of the original novel subtly infused a reader with a flair imposing a figure of ominous presence, nebulous shape and unbounded cunningness.

Instead, we got quite the opposite. It is as if Herbert deliberately tugged all antagonists but one one level down. His honesty adds a zest in that he admits it by projecting his intent onto the thoughts of Scytale, a Tleilaxu mentat, who Herbert seemingly made his talking head.

Scytale smiled, passing a benign gaze over his companions. They were as he’d been led to expect. The old Reverend Mother wielded her emotions like a scythe. Irulan had been well trained for a task at which she had failed, a flawed Bene Gesserit creation.

Reverend Mother throwing a tantrum by "wielding her emotions like a scythe"?

So much for Irulan, whose input to the decision-making was roughly one per cent, however, at one point in the meeting, Reverend Mother resorted to no less than calling Jessica "a bitch". That's a loss of style and bad optics, especially if the one is at the head of a secret centuries-old influential society, a mental school shaping the landscape of the Universe. What about "the Bene Gesserit way"? The problem is that such a veneer hardly agrees with the aura we were led to believe in "Dune".

Do you imagine the actress who played Gaius Helen Mohiam in Lynch's movie fitting the impression of a laywoman shouting "a bitch!"?

Likewise, the supposedly critically important leader of the Spacing Guild was relegated to the backstage and ridicule ("The pontificating fool was their major weakness"). Why did you make him a pontificating fool, in the first place? Herbert gave out his name, Edric. "Edric" alludes to the Nordic legends but does not belong in the Dune Universe. To add insult to injury, "Edric was no more (and no less) than the magician’s hand: he might conceal and distract". Not much.

So far, Lynch was the first and, until the TV miniseries, the only one who added something new to the cinematography of Dune: he showed us the Navigators, something that even Herbert did not, in a way that it felt as a natural extension of the novel.

The bizarre rugged creature with a beak-like hole instead of a mouth, swimming inside a cask, capable of "seeing plans within plans", and the secluded members of its suite emanating the stink of a dead body, imposing weird associations on a viewer – all for nothing? It doesn't connote foolishness.

Herbert was a productive author with an array of brilliant ideas. However, a good writer he was not. He wasn't a master of a word and composition, which his writing betrays. He didn't possess the understanding, often innate, of the sound of words put together. It, sometimes, made his text bulky, entrapped in parasite words, such as "data", and "well", overabundant in certain places, and sunk in unnecessary details. Some constructions reek of a crude and chaotic approach.

Chapter One of Dune: Messiah is a glaring example of this. Twelve years had passed since the Arrakis Revolt before the actors decided on action. Why wait for so long? Even if we consider the seriousness of the premise of the twelve years respite, their remarks would equally fit in the context of one year after the Revolt or zero years.  

The scene purports to show us their scheming against Paul as much as against one another. Yet, the way it was executed made their appearance look cartoonish and their characters with no rhyme or reason. Making some characters stand out (Scytale) at the expense of others is disingenuous.

The phrase "Edric took this moment to pop a melange pill into his mouth" is a caricature. The parts  

"Idaho’s dead,” Irulan said. “Paul has mourned the loss often in my

presence. He saw Idaho killed by my father’s Sardaukar.”     

and 

" the spice heightened a Steersman’s prescience, gave him the power to guide a Guild heighliner across space at translight speeds. With spice awareness, he found that line of the ship’s future which avoided peril"

are superfluous because we've already been informed by reading the preceding book. 

I'd take a step further and claim that this chapter is superfluous. It's out of place because it nullifies the intrigue. Just like "Dune" started in Paul's quarters in the Caladan Palace, this part should've taken place in Paul's quarters in the Arrakeen Palace. The meeting of the co-conspirators should've never been included. The actions and words of those involved should've gradually unveiled their motives and personas. 

And if Herbert couldn't do without him he should've shrouded the physical attributes of the Steersman in mystery, replacing him with a special representative or councillor, similar to how he did this in "Dune", to reveal him at the climax of Messiah and even then for a length of a glimpse.

These drawbacks disrupt the integrity of the story and are disappointing.

Im new to dune and have been trying to piece together this particular mystery. Or at least how it was supposed to potentially work.

So an Atreides female would be born. Leto takes Arrakis. The Harkonnen’s destroy their rivals and take back the planet. The Emperor looks the other way. The Atreides daughter being trained in the Bene Geserit ways and given as a concubine to Feyd-Rautha.

Feyd completely takes over the Empire and his house by also taking Irulan, and killing his uncle, and places his seat of power on Geidi Prime. His concubine ‘unexpectedly’ has a son, who both flee to Arrakis thus the Lisan Al Giab prophecy is initiated. A mother and son of the outer world.

The mother turns into Reverend Mother as the Son is the ‘Mahdi’, and takes the name ‘Mau’dbi’. He learns the ways of the Fremen and falls in love with the one called ‘Sihaya’. As it her tears that will save him from death. He then fully liberate Arrakis by leading the Fremen in a Holy War as their messiah, as well terraforming the planet into a Green Paradise as foretold. While also choosing to merge with Sandtrout and begin the process of the golden path.

Up to here the Bene Geserit seem to be doing alright but then seems like it would quickly fall out of even their control. Though I’m still reading the books and this based purely off my own exploration of lore.

final edit: i should've just re-read the pages of when it happens in the book. lel

Simple question that is all.

It seems like I am incorrect according to everyone.

But does it not make sense that Jessica would think what could possibly happen in this upcoming ritual to make me a RM and would this negatively affect my baby. Now i know she doens't know what the ritual is, but that is even more reason to think about the baby.

Also, some people knows what happens in the ritual, definitely Chani as she was on the way to being a reverend mother (in the books), and the people sitting outside the cave the ritual is happening in are joking about her drinking the worm's poison (in the movie). Just wondering why Jessica wouldn't think to ask someone what happens in the ritual before going into it.

To be honest it all really comes down to Herbert didn't think it was important or didn't consider it. But it's hard to believe he didn't consider it when the whole universe is so complex.

I'm curious to hear your thoughts on which saga, Dune or Foundation by Isaac Asimov, is more technologically advanced. Both series offer unique visions of future technology, and I can't really see who would be the more advanced here, let's say if they came across each other somehow.. ?