Dull As Dunes

The sudden spate of articles e.g. Fortean Times 411: Nov 2021. BBC Science Focus: Oct 2021, and sundry other newspapers and periodicals ...

Paul Found Crossing The Sahara Was Easier Than Reading Dune

.... that have been spawned by the release this year of a new Dune movie - not to be confused with the David Lynch 1984 version (which he reportedly disowned) - based upon the Frank Herbert Sci-Fi book of the same name, have made me smile, or perhaps grimace is the better term.

I recall reading the book in the early to mid 1970's, when it was being avidly read by the students of my acquaintance, aka one of the ‘campus novels’ ... these usually being the same students who were also reading Stranger In A Strange Land or the Tolkein epics, while experimenting with magic mushrooms or LSD, which were the melange equivalents of student choice back then. (Warning: both drugs are of course still illegal Class A drugs according to UK law, and users can face imprisonment! So don't try them kids). 

Strange Album Covers Were Part Of The Music Experience ...

Incidentally a recent study by Danish scientists has confirmed what those students back then could have told them (as they listened to music by prog/rock group Yes, and tripped over the Roger Dean album covers), which is that both the Psilocybin, which is the psychedelic drug found in magic mushrooms, and LSD, enhance the way people emotionally respond to music.

Anyway I digress .... I was already a science fiction fan, and so had high expectations after the recommendations. But I vividly recall that the book left me deeply disappointed. I didn't find it an exciting and mind blowing epic, but rather, I found it a turgid and stodgy book, that I struggled to summon the will to finish. Any book that has phrases such as “A beginning is a very delicate time.” ... or “It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.” ... really has got its philosophical head, up its space feudal fundament.

I know that it won all sorts of awards, at the time it was written in the mid 1960's, and has even been described as the 'world's best-selling science fiction novel'. But even commendations by such authors as Neil Gaiman and Jeff VanderMeer do not move me .... it was boring, and populated with one dimensional characters who I cared nothing about. 

I would love to have bet that not too many of its teen readers back then, would ever re-read it again in later years, but a large number of posts on the Reddit website, showed me that fans of the Dune series, will still read and re-read the books. But for me, one read was one read too many.

So seeing all this uncritical, and even reverent worship of the book(s)/films again, simply reminded me that many of those students who were cultishly reading and praising the book way back then, are now the somewhat venerable commissioning editors of movies, magazines, newspapers, and TV media of today. That is the only conclusion I can draw from the totally over the top coverage and discussions, that the release of the latest film version of Dune has engendered.

I don't expect too much support for my Heretical Herbert opinion, that the book was, and is, vastly overrated. I was in a minority back in the 1970's, and no doubt will remain so now. I am still a Sci-Fi reader, so no long term damage done, other than wasting a couple of weeks of one summer that I will never get back. 

But I was prepared to be a dissenting voice back then when I risked being ostracised by an entire student generation, and still feel the need to be so again.