Rating: 
Summary: A Classic in every sense
Review: Frank Herbert's Dune is, without a doubt, a must read in every sense of the term. It is on the same level as Tolkein's "The Hobbit". Without writing a book reort, let it be enough to say that when you step back and consider the depth and intricancies Herbert created, it's simply mind boggling.There is something in this book for everyone, from action to philosophy to political intrigue. I wish I could give it more stars!
Rating: 
Summary: An admirable achievement of the imagination.
Review: After hearing and reading many glowing reviews, I was disappointed to find that Dune was not quite what I had expected. Perhaps my less-than-perfect rating is due to the discrepancy between my expectations and what was delivered, but I found that Dune lacked a overall cohesiveness that would have merited it the fifth star. There were points where the novel seemed to teeter on the edge of something greater, but the potential was never fulfilled and the work would quickly steer clear of whatever larger goal it had glimpsed. The barren landscape which Herbert depicts is very real in its harsh cruelties, and I doubt that anyone could dispute Herbert's ability to render an entire world and a related existence with such precision. However, I found his characters devoid of that which gave his landscape such life, almost paling in comparison to the grand events and environment sweeping around them page after page. They seemed less human than pawns of fate, even Paul with all his power; perhaps that is Herbert's point, but not one I felt it was necessary to sacrifice character quality to prove. The greatest flaw of the work was my lack of belief, in both the characters and events. I believe the greatest sign of a work to be the level in which one can relate, or even believe in the reality, the truth which the author presents. I felt incredibly distant from the events I read, unable to suspend my disbelief even momentarily. I felt that the story was repetitive, cycling within the same limited confines, and even the the magnitude of the ending did not seem a release. Although the end of the novel is a far cry from what the reader could imagine at the beginning, the story lacked a quality that made me believe. I gave it four stars only because of the quality of the author's writing, and because I can see the potential effect of such a work for other readers even if I am unable to experience it myself. Perhaps I should temper my critique with a confession, however. When this book was recommended to me, it was compared to Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy. I read it in anticipation of what I had read and so enjoyed in Tolkien's work, only to be disappointed when I realized that it was nothing similar. Perhaps had I read it without any preconceptions, I would be able to appreciate Herbert's work on its own merits. Unfortunately, I found myself comparing it to the fantasy trilogy, resulting in the review you read above. I am more a fantasy-fiction lover than one of science fiction, which gives me a definite bias. If you like science fiction then by all means, I highly recommend this book as one of the watersheds of modern science fiction.
Rating: 
Summary: Encyclopedically imagined, mature science fiction
Review: Like David Bronczyk and I'm sure many other readers, I came back to this book. I first read it as a teenager; now, 30 years later, I've read it again. Though I'm far more sophisticated as a reader now, I was more impressed with the novel on second reading than when I first encountered it. I am rarely impressed by science fiction, but for me this book has held up remarkably well and is a substantial literary work. Which is not to say it avoids many of the flaws that exasperate me when it comes to science fiction. For example, Herbert can't resist the standard science-fiction ploy of creating a society that, for some reason, has reverted to a sort of feudalism. Sci-fi authors just can't resist all those barons and dukes and emperors and fiefdoms and court intrigue etc. Why anyone thinks societies would go back to this sort of socio-political structure baffles me, but it's a staple of the genre. Herbert even has his characters armed with daggers and swords and lances, though he does provide a plausible rationale for that bit of reversion. You must also accept the premise of planets united and ruled by single people or families, another implausible idea. But if you accept these central conceits, you find in Herbert's book a richly textured, brilliantly imagined fictional world that has its own ecology, complex social interaction, anthropology, political intrigue, economic determinism, and grand historical sweep. This is what recommends the book, in my opinion: the sheer scope and detail of Herbert's imagination. Plus the author writes a good narrative. His skills as a story-teller are estimable. True, his dialogue can be wooden, and he had the bad habit of providing background information through dialogue or interior monologue. But I kept wanting to know what happened next, even though I'd previously read the book and seen the fascinating David Lynch movie. When I return to the books of my youth, I'm usually disappointed. Not this time. Dune held my interest sufficiently for me to want to read the next book in the series. Herbert's was an interesting mind, and I want to spend more time with it.
Rating:
Summary: The Dune Chronicles
Review: I finished reading all six Dune books on 6/15/00. About a week ago (today is 6/23). It took me a little less than three weeks to read them all (I started Dune on 5/27/00). I rented the movie years back and turned it off after watching it about twenty or thiry minutes. I didn't know what the heck was going on. So, I said to myself that I'd read the book before I rented the movie again. Well I finally did...and then some. I started collecting all six Dune books. When I had them all I began reading Dune. Talk about one cool plot. Dune had it all. One main plot with many subplots underneath. I had to stop reading the book at points so that I could reason everything out before I continued (I LOVED IT). Dune Messiah was pretty good too. It seems to me to be the easiest to understand because its very simple. Children of Dune was okay, but seemed to dragged out because Herbert spent so much time describing Leto II's hallucinations, trances, thoughts, etc. It could of been 200 pages less to get the story across. God Emperor of Dune was really cool too. I love how Herbert describes the changes of Arrakis into Rakis over the millenia. This book does a great job in describing the changes. Heretics of Dune: the most fast paced, action-packed book of the series. This one was a real page turner. Chapterhouse: Dune was an okay story but the book doesn't get interesting until you've read about 300 pages, 3/4 of the book. To me it seems when the Bene Gesserit are in the picture the story slows down quite a bit. I thought there was too much Bene Gesserit philosophy in this book. Overall, how do I rank all six books? Well, the first one, Dune, will have to be my favorite because it is a classic and it is the most intricate book of the series. Herbert really did his homework for this book. It's easy to tell. Book Five is a close second. Book Four is a third. Book two is ranked fourth. And I'll have to say Books three and six tie for last because they seemed the slowest of them all (however, I lean more toward Children of Dune being better because I think Leto II's "transition" was fun to read). Since then I've read two nonfiction books (one on the Alamo) and today I finished Clive Cussler's Serpent. "Now what?" you might ask. Well, I've been wanting to read some more fantasy since high school. The only fantasy I've read are Tolkien's famous four books and C.S. Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia." Now I'll read Piers Anthony's first Incarnations of Immortality book "On a Pale Horse" and then start reading some Xanth novels. Until next time...
Rating:
Summary: Very imaginative, vivid images, quite a fantastique world
Review: This is one of those situations where I actually preferred the movie to the book. Although the book gave much more background than the movie, it was much easier to follow the book after having seen the movie. I think if I had read the book first, I would have been lost completely. The movie is also part of my permanent collection. I mean, who could resist Kyle McLachlan as the Kwizatz Had'arrach?
Rating:
Summary: The Sleeper Has Awaken
Review: Herbert's classic masterpiece "Dune" expertly interweaves a science fiction future world with socio-political and religious theory to construct a compelling, although sometimes confusing, novel. The telling of the transformation of Paul Atriedes from young, innocent ducal heir to the Kwisatz Haderach is engaging and at the same time, disturbing. We see him both prepare for and fear the on-coming storm of the Muad'Dib jihad across the universe. Taken by itself, this story seems lacking at the end, but it must be read in concert with "Dune Messiah" and "Children of Dune" to fully appreciate Herbert's efforts.
Rating:
Summary: Not so much a book as another universe captured on paper
Review: Usually in science fiction, some compromise is made between those who want explorations of humanity and social dynamics at the expense of hard technical accuracy and those who want the opposite. As brilliant as some authors in this genre are, they tend to borrow their scenery and supporting casts from established conventions of spaceships and near-magical technology that follows no rule of science of which we are currently aware. While this is foremost a story about the lives of individuals, the subtle and overt variances between life in this world and the one Herbert envisions give life and strength to _Dune_. You understand the value of a cup of spilled dishwater on Arrakis as easily as you understand the fear of Big Brother in Airstrip One, because Herbert and Orwell support their world's differences throughout the entirety of their books. What Herbert does is to postulate several things, incredible to us now, that mark his created world as very different from our own: 1) A ban on artificial intelligence leading to the rise of humans trained to compute with the speed and accuracy of a machine; 2) A universe where democracy does not exist to any significant degree; 3) A universally consumed product that everyone wants to prolong life and health that permits a small percentage of its users to perceive the future. Many of the secular inheritances of empirical thought, from the early Greek mathematicians and philosophers to the present, are strangely gone from this universe. We assume that computers shall take more and more of a dominant role in mechanisms of labor and society; we assume that all humans are fundamentally equal and that class divisions of a feudal nature are nonsense; we assume that precognition is speculative and a fantasy yet unproven by any science. These alterations lend dimensions of interest to a book which would otherwise be an exploration of an alternate ecology, of the preternatural desert of Arrakis and the means by which its human residents cope with the hellish if scientifically plausible conditions. Don't misunderstand me - the saga, the medieval melodrama still fascinates me years after initially reading it during slow afternoons in sixth grade. What locks this in your mind is the vast differences between this world and the one that Frank Herbert describes, and very few have the sheer imaginative faculty to equal his achievements.
Rating:
Summary: Depth and Grandeur
Review: What can be written about this book that hasn't made its way into a critical essay, somewhere? The thing I find truly remarkable about this work is how it stands up to the tests of time and repeated reevaluation. Like the protagonist of this story, the author seems to have had a certain amount of clarivoyance. This book bears repeated reexamination and discussion, and will until the current year and the books year coincide (around 10,000 AD or so, I think...) On a personal note, I find the idea of the best warriors in the universe using primarily blades, not guns, to be an interesting futuristic anachronism. Not to mention very cool.
Rating:
Summary: Superb, enigmatic, and incomparable
Review: When I first read Dune, a couple years ago, I was enthralled by it's wonderful writing style. It seemed as though Frank Herbert preserved the freshness and vitality of Dune and whenever I open it up I get that freshness. With all of this pulp science fiction nowadays, it's nice to be able to unlock the times of old. Paul Atreides is one of the most fully realized character in any book I've read, and the Baron is evil but not cartoonish. The Bene Gesserit Sisterhood, with their special breeding programs, and the Guild with their plots and plans,make Dune a realistic, thought provoking, and fun book. Read this or the sand worms of Arrakis will come looking for you next.
Rating:
Summary: if you haven't read this, you must be illiterate
Review: the first time i picked up this book, i had the hardest time reading it and put it down several times until i finally gave up. the second time, i couldn't understant why i hadn't finished it. i turned pages breathlessly and eyed the list of sequels with a sense of relief that i would be spending much time in the dune universe. the third time i picked up the book i wondered what was going on in david lynch's mind when he made the film. i, once again, found myself making excuses to read pages here and there. managed to miss some bus stops and find reasons for a few long plane flights. needless to say, i'm a fan. the rich universe. the vivid imagery. the unpronouncable names. it all adds up to one of the most fascinating reads around. try it if you already haven't and revisit it if you already have.
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