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)

One of the all time greats marred by spotty audio

The story itself is fantastic. Deservedly hailed as one of the greatest stories ever told, sci-fi or otherwise. A fully realized and richly detailed alternate universe filled with science, religion and political intrigue. A must read.

Unfortunately, the audio recording does not fulfill expectations. While far better than the original single reader audiobook (be glad you didn't spend 25 hours listening to THAT) the 2007 version is marred by the bizarre decision to have each reader read a chapter or section rather than have each reader read a character's part throughout the book. In other words, the voices for each character change throughout the book!!! Why? Baron Harkkonen's voice suffers the most. At one point it sounds like Michael Clark Duncan is voicing him and others it sounds like a sleepy Orson Welles.

It's a shame that one of the greatest books ever written has never received a proper translation into another medium. David Lynch's movie was stylistically and visually fulfilling, but the story edited and changed dramatically. The Sci-Fi channel's 3 part miniseries held more closely to the original plot, but the budget and casting left alot to be desired. The original 1997 audiobook was read in a horrible monotone and finally the 2007 version's inconsistent readers. Hopefully someday Dune will receive a treatment that it deserves.

Excellent! Don't worry about the narration

Dune is difficult to grasp at first and requires patience, even for an avid sci-fi fan like myself. Here's the trick to stories like this one: don't try too hard. You won't understand everything at first, but that's ok. Just keep reading. Everything will become clear soon.

Dune is a superb story and rightfully deserves praise. The setting is brilliant: the planet and its inhabitants are intricate and arcane. You can feel the sand in your shoes and your lips cracked with thirst. The characters are well rounded and the spice (and its effect) is truly creative.

Dune does have a few flaws. For one, Herbert's writing is a bit unpolished. One of his bad habits is the lack of a consistent viewpoint. Within one section, we may jump from Paul's perspective, to Jessica, back to Paul, and then into third-person omniscient for a bit of narrative. It is awkward and amateurish. The plot is detailed and well-paced and my only quarrel with it is that Paul's over-confidence and detachment made the ending feel somewhat anti-climactic. It certainly seems set up for a sequel (and there are many).

A lot of reviewers have complained about the narration but don't let this deter you. Most of the the story is read solely by Simon Vance (who, by the way, is an excellent narrator). Yet, sometimes, and without any noticable pattern, the dialogue is read by a variety of narrators with Vance only doing the narrative. I have no idea why it was done this way and it is indeed inconsistent. Once you learn to expect this, it isn't that bad. It certainly isn't as terrible as some reviewers are claiming it to be. Regardless, all of the narrators are talented and they make easy work of the complex pronunciation and accents. Also, the background sounds and music were excellent and they really added great effect. I absolutely loved the quotes at the beginning of each chapter. It is a unique and enjoyable production.

So good but voice changes can be confusing

Voice acting is great, but they changed voices for certain parts which could be a little confusing. Baron Harkonnen in particular seems to oscillate between James Earl Jones and a doddering old man. If you can get past this a great story awaits.

Where is my old version?!?!

This is nice and all but it would be nice if the audiobook I originally purchased was not removed from my library 😡 if you want to give me this new book that’s fine but please give me access to the book I purchased.

Dune Fan

As someone who has read Dune numerous times, I found it a bit like seeing a movie of a favorite book--some things just aren't like you envisioned them. I had a problem with some of the voices because they were so different from anything I imagined from reading the book. The worst voice was that of Gurney--he sounded like a California surfer. I kept expecting him to say, "Dude!". It was really bad. The second worst, although it did improved over the course of the book, was with Stilgar. He sounded like Count Dracula at first. And there were inconsistencies in the voices because sometimes the narrator would just voice the character instead of the reader who was originally voicing him. Those complaints aside, I really love the book, and thought it was very well done. I am anxiously awaiting Book Two.

Great and yes inconsistent

This offering has been well reviewed and there is nothing I could add. I will confirm, however, in my own humble opinion, this is one great book. The characters are well developed and the story unique. I agree with what some have said that this book is the bar to which all other sci fi must be measured.

As to the production? Well, it truly is inconsistent. There are parts, particularly in the beginning, where the actors are superb. The music and loops are always well placed and add tremendously to the ambience and telling of the story. However, things then change. The voices initially acted out by others become the single, strangled voice of the main reader himself for no rhyme or reason and with no obvious logic.

Given the story and all that is positive about the offering is so incredible, I still have to give it 5 stars.

A Muhammad-like story on galactical scale

I remember reading ‘Dune’ the first time in secondary school when I borrowed a copy of the book from the local library. Though I don’t return to most novels once read or listened to, ‘Dune’ have been one of the exceptions. My second acquaintance was during my study of Hebrew and Classical Arabic during postgraduate studies at university.

My third meeting with Frank Herbert’s Sci-Fi classic was when I listened to it in audio book format. While it initially was just a great story, and during my years of study a feudal-Arabic desert mixture, the religious aspect of the novel intrigued more this time. Though the quotes by the princess Irulan felt at times as if it took away some of the suspense in the book, it had the function of giving the story the feel of a memoir.

Paul Arteides the son of the duke Leto Artreides becomes the Mohammad-type prophet of the desert planet Arrakis, filled with dunes and huge sandworms which rules its surface. The story plays out around his transition from a duke’s son to a prophet, religious leader, genetically engineered oddity (the Kwisatz Haderach of the Bene Gesserit) and political force against the evil Harkonnen house who have been extorting the local population of the planet. It is a story filled with treachery, slyness in which good and bad, right and wrong blurs. Herbert has the ability to drag the reader or listener into a story in such a way that you change with Paul Artreides and accept the idea of a jihad against even the Emperor Shaddam IV. I was trying to think of a close parallel to what the story is about and the best I can come up with is the idea that a European kingdom loses its rightful heir just to discover that he has not died but turned Muslim and yet it is open to accept him and swear absolute loyalty to him.

While Simon Vance reads the story, his reading is enriched with various voice actors that acts out important characters and scenes. These are also complemented with certain background sounds. Although some reviewers complained that some of the interpretative reading didn’t sound natural and sounded forced I there was nothing that hindered me. If there is something that I would change in the way the novel is read, it would be Vance’s pronunciation of certain words like “Lisan al-Gaib” to sound more Arabic. Then again there is nothing that says it must be pronounced the way I would like it to be pronounced.

This 1965 Nebula and Hugo Award winning book is still a worthwhile and intriguing book to read. In some ways the story is straightforward, yet it has its surprises and it is a worthwhile Sci-Fi classic to listen to.

Fantastic, Period

Dune easily stands as one of the great works in Sci-Fi, with good reason. Frank Herbert had a unique ability to tell stories, and an even more unique view into the human psyche.

Much to my surprise, I saw that many reviews complained about the audio. My experience was just the opposite - I have found this recording to be one of the best on Audible. With a full cast of characters I though the voice work was all very well done. The one valid complaint that I have seen is that character voices are sometimes read by the narrator rather than the actor who has been portraying the character - this is somewhat jarring at first, but I ultimately found it forgivable.

As for the story itself, many dozens of reviews and reviewers have done a far better job than I ever could of explaining why Dune is such a classic. If you've never experienced Dune (and no, none of the movies or mini-series even get close), do yourself a favor and get this book.

Good Listen

Overall this was a very good audiobook. The sound quality is very good. The narrator is very good. However the character actors were intermittent. Sometimes the narrator would do the voices, sometimes the actors would. It would even shift within paragraphs. The actors were very good, it just would have been nice if it was either all actors or all narrator.

Classic story, disappointing narration.

The narration flips between a single narrator performing all characters to a different narrator with separate narrators for most characters. It's as if the recording we're cobbled together from multiple recordings.