Dune

Book One in the Dune Chronicles

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

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.

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

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

Audie Award winner, 2008

Critic reviews

“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

“A portrayal of an alien society more complete and deeply detailed than any other author in the field has managed...a story absorbing equally for its action and philosophical vistas...An astonishing science fiction phenomenon.” —The Washington Post

Essential – more than once

If your only experience with Dune was the horrific movie, read on.
The mini-series was much better, but does not hold a candle to the original novel.
If you read and loved the original, you may be surprised how much you will enjoy this audible version.

Dune is more than great Sci-Fi, it is great fiction. I recently re-saw the mini-series and immediately wanted to experience the unabridged original again. The book was even better than I had remembered. The prose, the characters, and the story are all superior.

I was surprised there were quite a few subtle nuances in the story that I had not picked up on in my pervious several readings. I enjoyed this immensely as this is rare in all but the best of fiction.

Unfortunately the rest of this series does not live up to this powerful beginning, but not to worry, Dune stands alone. I strongly recommend this book even if you really disliked the movie. There are images and characters in this novel that have affected me strongly since my childhood and influenced me as a person. There are few works of fiction that I both enjoyed and appreciated as much as Dune.

I generally don’t like music or sound effects in an audio book, but here the sound-effect are light and don’t distract from the story. The narration, although not perfect, is quite good. This audio edition does the work justice.

Strange World, Stranger Presentation

I'm a big Heinlein fan and the was my first Herbert "read", definitly won't be my last!. My throat is still dry after experiencing the world he creates. I don't usually care for "produced" stories with sound effects, background music, and multiple actors reading. Your mind's vision and interpretation of the characters and scenes changes to that of the director. Dune, however, pulled it off nicely. Like a well acted movie, these voices became the characters. Be warned though, the book switches back and forth between multiple actors and a single reader, I liken this to watching a movie where the main actor changes with every scene, very hard to grasp at first and I'm not sure why they did it. Should have been one reader or multiple readers, but not combined.

Satisfyingly different from the movie version

I was a bit hesitant to read this book. I enjoyed the movie, but found it to be pretty flawed, with the antagonists being ridiculously and unbelievably evil. My great relief in reading this book was finding Frank Herbert had written them much better than that.

I was constantly surprised by the nuance in the book, compared to the movie. Much more thought was given into the politics of the situation, and the characters had quite a bit more moral ambiguity and fragility.

On the other hand, some of the grandiosity of the movie is absent from the book. Some highs are not as high as I was expecting them to be.

Overall an excellent read. I wish I hadn't ever seen the movie so that I could have gone into it fresh.

Great reading, Great listening

I was blown away by this book when I first read it probably 30 years ago and am so glad I decided to listen to the audio version because it is also wonderful. As so often happens, I haven't seen a movie rendition that came close to satisfying the personal vision I'd created based on the book, however, the audiobook was practically right on the money. The varied narration voices made it one of the best audiobook experiences I've ever had. I can see how it might not work as well if you've not read the book so by all means, pick up a copy and read it. It's right up there with the Hobbit/Lord of the Rings as far as wonderful sci-fi/fantasy.

High Cheese-factor

I love this book. I’ve read it twice before, when I was a teenager and later, as an adult. The 1984 movie was a fantastic adaptation for its time, and seemed to align well with how I envisioned the story when I read it.

This audio book, however, is really let down by the casting and performances. I would have happily listened to the narrator read the story to me - he’s quite good, and understands the tone of the tale. His vocalizations of the various characters are really nicely done. The dramatic vignettes, however, are just cheesy. The actors, while quite talented I’m sure, we’re poorly chosen for their respective characters. I couldn’t get past the fact that the voice actor for Paul, had a British accent, while his parents voice actors sounded like they were from Ohio (i.e., the US’s most neutral accent). It was also clear that each actor was recorded separately; Paul, for example, always having a significant amount of reverb added to his voice while Gurney, who sounded like a California native, had a very dry recording with very little effects added. It was just a sloppy production.

All that said, I STILL really enjoyed the book. I wish it had been a better production, but it’s such a grande, expansive story, that even a so so production couldn’t take all the goodness out of it. Again, the main narrator was very, very good.