Better with Time

We LOVED the new Dune movie! If you saw it, I can bet you did too. Dune is a classic masterpiece now a major motion picture in 2021, and is the best selling science fiction novel of all time, in our opinion for good reason.

A novel written in 1965, set in the year 10,191, it is timeless. And now to see it revisited, up on the big screen where it belongs, is a dream come true. Some things, like Dune, only get better with time.

The novel originated when Herbert was assigned to write a magazine article about the sand dunes in the Oregon Dunes near Florence, Oregon. The article was never written but it planted the seed that led to Dune.

We share many of Herberts ideals as well as his themes, which are evident in the Percivious trilogy.

Frank Herbert used his science fiction novels to explore complex^[34] ideas involving philosophy, religion, psychology, politics and ecology. The underlying thrust of his work was a fascination with the question of human survival and evolution. Herbert has attracted a sometimes fanatical fan base, many of whom have tried to read everything he wrote, fiction or non-fiction, and see Herbert as something of an authority on the subject matters of his books. Indeed, such was the devotion of some of his readers that Herbert was at times asked if he was founding a cult,^[35] something he was very much against.

There are a number of key themes in Herbert’s work:

• A concern with leadership. He explored the human tendency to slavishly follow charismatic leaders. He delved into both the flaws and potentials of bureaucracy and government.^[16]
• Herbert was among the first science fiction authors to popularize ideas about ecology^[36] and systems thinking. He stressed the need for humans to think both systematically and long-term.^[37]
• Human survival and evolution: Herbert writes of the Fremen, the Sardaukar, and the Dosadi, who are molded by their terrible living conditions into dangerous super races.^[39]
• Human possibilities and potential: Herbert offered Mentats, the Bene Gesserit and the Bene Tleilax as different visions of human potential.^{[citation needed]}
• The nature of sanity and madness. Frank Herbert was interested in the work of Thomas Szasz and the anti-psychiatry movement. Often, Herbert poses the question, “What is sane?“, and while there are clearly insane behaviors and psychopathies as evinced by characters (Piter De Vries for instance), it is often suggested that normal and abnormal are relative terms which humans are sometimes ill-equipped to apply to one another, especially on the basis of statistical regularity.^[16]
• The possible effects and consequences of consciousness-altering chemicals, such as the spice in the Dune saga, as well as the “Jaspers” fungus in The Santaroga Barrier, and the Kelp in the Destination: Void sequence.^[16]
• How language shapes thought. More specifically, Herbert was influenced by Alfred Korzybski‘s General Semantics.^[40] Algis Budrys wrote that his knowledge of language and linguistics “is worth at least one PhD and the Chair of Philology at a good New England college”.^[41]
• Learning, teaching, and thinking.^[16]

Frank Herbert refrained from offering his readers formulaic answers to many of the questions he explored.^[16]

Source: Wikipedia