DUNE!

I'm a Dune movie fan and then received the first six Dune books as a birthday gift. I had some thoughts about the first three before I read the next three.

Let me get the amusement at reading words like noukkar, aql, shaitan and ghafla out of the way. How cool was that! These words have been used more dramatically and ritualistically than we do in our day-to-day. Just gora things.

1) Excellent world building - Pretentious phrase but the book has so many details that build up this universe. Now that we are in the middle of a world that has started showing signs of collapse due to climate change, the imagery helped me imagine an alterate (brutal) world. Hard to narrow but some ideas that I loved - desert life with stillsuits and non-rhythmic walking on the sand, life cycle of the worm, prana-bindu like wow

2) One person changing the course of the world - Here there are agendas that have been in motion for centuries and yet the course of everything changes in the individual decisions of people: Jessica's choice to have a son, Paul's choice to become Muad'Dib by having that excess spice. Plans are laid to rest.

3) Imagining humans as superior beings - Though the powers of the Guildsmen and Bene Gesserit Mothers have a touch of the supernatural, loved the idea of humans evolving their brains and bodies to do things that seem.. magical? The mentats calculate probabilities of events happening and its fluid, changing according to the course of action people take. Love! It is different because the book doesn't seem to pass this off as "magic" but rather a human ability. Actually debatable because there is so much awe around it.

4) THE INTERCONNECTION OF POWER, RELIGION AND CLIMATE - I'll die with this combination. Hyperbole but just so impressed. In a way, it's so obvious. Yet Herbert had so much foresight in 1965 when we weren't discussing irreservible climate change, planet power etc etc. There's this phrase in the book which goes like when law and religion is the same, the ruler rules basically forever. Because anything against the "law" becomes blasphemy. 

5) His vision of the future is the opposite of what I've normally come across - It's not technological, it's human. A fuedal political system, the prevalance of religion as a controlling system, ingenious.  

The books slow down progressively. First was super great excellent, second was okay (with too much abstract), third went on and on and on about secret plans and it was upsetting when they didn't materialize as such. Even in the third book though, its the last 100 pages that hit me. It was a great idea, proposing evolution. Seemed like an analogy for when everything else fails, humans are the ones who will have to accomodate the planet. 

Getting back to the other books.