Dune

By: Frank Herbert

Narrated by: Scott Brick, Orlagh Cassidy, Euan Morton, Simon Vance, Ilyana Kadushin, Byron Jennings, David R. Gordon, Jason Culp, Kent Broadhurst, Oliver Wyman, Patricia Kilgarriff, Scott Sowers

Length: 21 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's summary

Long-listed, Audible.com Best of the Year, 2007

Long-listed, Audible.com 100 Audible Essentials, 2007

Audie Award winner, 2008

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE directed by Denis Villeneuve, starring Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Dave Bautista, Christopher Walken, Léa Seydoux, Stellan Skarsgård, and Charlotte Rampling

Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, who would become the mysterious man known as Muad'dib. He would avenge the traitorous plot against his noble family—and would bring to fruition humankind's most ancient and unattainable dream.

A stunning blend of adventure and mysticism, environmentalism and politics, Dune won the first Nebula Award, shared the Hugo Award, and formed the basis of what is undoubtedly the grandest epic in science fiction. Frank Herbert's death in 1986 was a tragic loss, yet the astounding legacy of his visionary fiction will live forever.

©1965 Frank Herbert (P)2007 Audio Renaissance, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers LLC

Critic reviews

Audie Award Winner, Science Fiction, 2008
Nebula Award winner, Best Novel, 1965
Hugo Award winner, Best Novel, 1966

"Unique...I know nothing comparable to it except Lord of the Rings." (Arthur C. Clarke)

"One of the monuments of modern science fiction." (Chicago Tribune)

"Powerful, convincing, and most ingenious." (Robert A. Heinlein)

Great story, Dorky voices

Dune is one of my favorite books but the way they tried to do a play-like performance in parts of it was really odd. As many already said, it's inconsistent... sometimes the narrator does the voices (excellently) and then suddenly they'll do a mini dramatization. I wish the narrator did the whole thing. but overall it's still great because the story is great.

Better than the reviews lead me to believe

I thought this performance of “Dune” was fantastic! I didn’t have high expectations due to some of the reviews, but the audiobook was, in fact, easy to listen to and keep up with. I had not read the book before this, so I would say the first third of the book was a little tricky to understand and keep pace with because of the world building. You need to be able to pay attention. But it’s a solid performance that I thoroughly enjoyed!

Good book!! Odd audiobook

It’s an extremely imaginative world and story but I’ll be honest and say the structure is weird and I could see people being turned off by it. It’s interested in the world and ideas more than the characters who I still don’t feel connected to but I’m rather interested in the ideas explored through those characters. The performance with the cast I really liked but it stops abruptly a hundred pages in or so and then is sporadic throught the rest of the book. I’m not sure why and I hated it at first but the single narrated does a great job and by the end of the book when the performances came back I actually found myself perfering the narrator and wishing he had done the entire thing.
Overall I enjoyed it and would recommend though watching YouTube videos on the history of the world really enhances the experience

Outstanding

This is one of the absolute best audio books I’ve ever had the privilege of experiencing. Very well done!

Excellent narration and epic story.

The narration with various voice actors helped organize all the different characters. A truly epic story whose constant danger to the characters maintained an intense suspense. The author showed an incredible imagination for a different world with fantastic governments, societies, technologies and biology that can be reasoned to ponder our reality.

Outstanding read.

Attentive listening is a must . Otherwise you will find your self lost in a forget land with its own culture and ethos. great book.

Great Book! Too many narrators

If you could sum up Dune in three words, what would they be?

Legendary Science Fiction

What was one of the most memorable moments of Dune?

One of the best comes early-the gom jabbar!

What aspect of the narrators’s performance would you have changed?

Too many narrators

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

Dune: The Center of The Universe

Any additional comments?

Nope

Well-read, VERY well written

I really enjoyed this book, I read it pretty fast compared to some of the earlier books I read here. This was my first exposure to Herbert and Dune, but I had heard of it when I was younger. I've now got all of the original books and will listen to them soon.

One thing that I did not like in this version is that in some parts, the characters were read by different actors, but at times they were all read by the narrator. This was mildly confusing until I got used to it. The actors for each voice were good and they helped a lot more than a single narrator could.

Overall, an enjoyable time reading it, but don't read this if you don't want to get into the whole series!

One of the best sci fi books of all time.

Amazing story that weaves and flows and uses space, politics, religion, and mystery. It's everything you could ever want from a book. My favorite book of all time.

Single narrator or audio play?

This production of Frank Herbert's "Dune" started out with promise as a multi-reader audio play. The use of subtle music and just a few sound effects and different readers for the various characters really helped bring the book to life. I had read it while I was in high school and thought it a chore. Listening to the story was a delight.

Somewhere in the beginning (it is a delicate time, after all), the format switched to the normal single narrator doing all the characters. Then it switched back. Then it switched again. It continued in this fashion for the entire book. I don't know if it was a conscious choice or not, but I suspect the producers started with a single narrator and planned on layering over the various other actors. Then for some reason, it go turned into a rush job and they ran with the parts they had in the can.

Overall, the production gets a 4/5. The story itself is fascinating (5/5) but the production is annoying (3/5). If it were to stay in format, I'd give it a 5/5 for the radio play format portions and 4/5 for the single narrator portions. I used points to download the audiobook. I'd be miffed if I had shelled out $35 for it.