Finished my first re-read of Herbert’s “Dune” in decades, to prepare to see the motion picture in a few weeks.
Sometimes when I read something that I enjoyed so much in high school, it doesn’t hold up well, but Dune does. Then, the features of the world Herbert made changed the way I looked at ours. What were the possibilities for developing the human body and mind, and our awareness? What would life be like in such a different physical environment? How can small local actions have global, even galactic consequences–what we now call “the butterfly effect”.
Now, I admire the work for the imagination behind it and the skillful way Herbert told the story. I was amazed at how much backstory and context he packed into the first few chapters without slowing the story’s movement forward. For the most part, paragraphs were short, scenes were short, and chapters were short. Herbert depicted only the important scenes and none of those were left out.
Lots of writing lessons in this book. I think I need to read his biography to learn more about how he wrote it.
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