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)

very good!

Narration effort was very strong. excellent work by other cast as well.2 thumbs up.

Pretty Darn Good

I am a fantasy/sci-fi lover, and after the excitement of the new movie coming out this year knew I wanted to read the book first. I had heard this described as the inspiration for many fantasy/sci-fi stories, including references to Harry Potter, Star Wars, Game of Thrones, etc. Overall, I really enjoyed this book/audible. It was full of action and excitement, and I can certainly see glimpses of each of the above referenced stories in this novel. A few draw backs in the story/audible are - I can tell the producers of the audible were trying very hard, and this is one of the first I’ve encountered with sound effects and what felt like acting in the narration. It could be cool for some people, but I found it a bit odd and cheesy. As far as the story goes, I really enjoyed it. The drawback to the story is that there are somewhat long-winded, what I’ll refer to as “acid trips”. It honestly does not surprise me that this was written in 1965, as there were extended dialogues of the characters being in trances, having taken various poisons/drugs. I found these to be super boring.

That said, overall this was an awesome story, and I’ll certainly be “reading” (listening to) the sequel and possibly the full series.

best sci fi book on audible!

I didn't know what to expect since I heard this book was The Abridged version, it's only missing a few lines from the actual book nothing important just things like "he said" and "she said" lines and a few sentences here and there. the voice acting is absolutely great but it's not throughout the whole book usually at more important parts do the other voice actors come in. besides that Dune is a fantastic book with some of the best characters in a space opera with great fantastic building and I highly recommend it!!! (I listened to the whole book in three days I was hooked!)

A thrilling and complex adventure

From start to finish, this is easily one of my favorite sci-fis. Simply meer perfection.

I wish the narrator read the whole book

I got really into the Scott Brick, the narrator’s performance for each character. He is wonderful. Yet I don’t understand why they would have sections where other actors of obviously lesser talent would voice the characters. The jumping back and forth was disorienting at first, then I got use to it. But I think it was a mistake to have different voices represent such powerful and memorable characters.

Great book, poorly done audio

I just finished my second listen of this book and the story and music are great, but voice acting is disappointing. Characters voices change, based on what seems like who was available that day to do the reading. Many characters oscillate between their own voice actor and the narrator doing his interpretation of the character.
Really confusing based on how well this book is written and some great remakes have now come out.
Please redo the audiobook properly.

Great Story, Inconsistent Narrations

Dune is an incredible story, although this audiobook production of the story is odd due to inconsistent character voices. It may be better to forgo the audiobook and simply read it on its own, however it is still worth the experience but may be difficult to grasp everything if this is the first dive into the Universe of Dune.

The change in the voices depending on which characters were interacting with each other.

What I like the least, mostly because I couldn't understand why, is the inconsistency of who was reading for some of the characters. It would take me a second as it pulled me out of the experience before I could emmerse myself into it again.

What I loved the most however was the dedication to the emotions that could be mentally illustrated into my mind through the way everything was spoken from the sand, yes even the sand, to the subtle changes in the way a character sighed.

Great voice acting, but the actors change

Very well done, but the changing voice actors for the same characters was immersion breaking at times.

Narration is hard to follow

The idea of multiple voice actors is great, but they're not always the same. I think they should have either kept just one narrator or had all the people voice the same character through the whole book.