I just got done rereading it and am getting into Dune Messiah for the first time. While I still generally like it, some of what bothers me about the first book is how it never really feels like there’s any stakes. There’s never a question about what’s going to happen, it’s all predetermined for the most part and it tells you it’s predetermined. Then key moments/deaths that happen just sort of happen very quickly and without any fanfare, it’s just like, “Oh, ok, I guess they’re dead now. That’s it.”
And then the peak of the novel is another situation that just sort of happens without much buildup. It’s just, all the important players show up exactly where they need to be and get into an extremely unlikely & vulnerable situation that can taken advantage of. It just all happens too neatly.
Despite all that, I still like the book, though I’ve heard the series kind of has to keep one-upping itself as it goes on.
In a lot of ways it is the LotR of sci-fi. It laid the foundation for a lot of things that follow, like Warhammer 40,000, but at the same time is not especially well-written. You have to appreciate it as something halfway between a good book and a piece of the history of fiction.
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