"Dune" by Frank Herbert

 The classic scifi story about the battle for a desert planet. A galactic empire is riven by faction fighting between aristocratic houses. An order of witches controls an aristocratic breeding programme. A young man on a desert planet is taught mind control tricks. This epic story is clearly the influence for Star Wars but, as the biggest-selling scifi novel of all time, it is so much more.

Its major themes include environmentalism, psychedelic drug use, eugenics and religion. There are clear references to the emergence and rapid expansion of Islam from its desert setting. Although religion is fundamental to the motives of the characters, and they experience drug-induced altered states of consciousness which include the ability to see the future, Dune is resolutely secular: there are prophets but no Gods.

Told from a multiple PoV, the plot is a characteristic hero's adventure; in the very earliest pages the hero is tested by and receives advice from a crone. Much of the interest of the book comes from the world-making which is incredible. Each 'chapter' begins with a quote from the works of Princess Irulan.

Selected quotes:

• "Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them." 
• "A world is supported by four things ... the learning of the wise, the justice of the great, the prayers of the righteous and the valour of the brave." 
• "She went through the quick regimen of calmness - the two deep breaths, the ritual thought." 
• "Growth is limited by that necessity which is present in the least amount." 
• "Is it defeatist or treacherous for a doctor to diagnose a disease correctly?"
• "She stared at him, thinking of the Duke's men rubbing their woes together in the barracks until you could almost smell the charge there, like burnt insulation."
• "The day hums sweetly when you have enough bees working for you."
• "As his planet killed him, it occurred to Kynes ... that the most persistent principles of the universe were accident and error."
• "She had succumbed to that profound drive shared by all creatures who are faced with death - the drive to seek immortality through progeny." 
• "When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movement becomes headlong - faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thoughts of obstacles and forget that a precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it's too late."
• "Give as few orders as possible ... Once you've given orders on a subject, you must always give orders on that subject."

A hugely influential epic.

February 2022; 485 pages

This review was written by the author of Motherdarling  and The Kids of God