Skip to main content

Great Novels: Dune

    I recently finished reading Dune as part of my quest to read the greatest novels of the 20th century.  I have always heard that Dune was one of the greatest sci-fi novels ever written and it did not disappoint me in the least.


    Dune follows the story of Paul Atreides, a young man avenging his father after being defeated by a rival noble.  Paul is kind of messianic character, fulfilling prophecies, leading people, all that messiah stuff.


    The world of Dune is quite intricate with many different factions involved in the conflict over the planet.  The universe that Herbert has created is very complex and you feel that you are only seeing the tip of the iceberg of what there is to find in his world.  Which I suppose is the reason for all of the books, games and other stuff that has spun off of this one book.


  There are several other books in the Dune series and the first one has left me wanting more, actually ends feeling a little unfinished to me, so I'm sure I will eventually read the others.  At least the ones written by Frank Herbert.  If you are looking for good sci-fi and haven't yet gotten to this classic I highly suggest it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Book Review: Tribes

 Tribes  by Seth Godin is a quick read on leadership.  I read this book because it was listed on "Books every leader needs to read" or some such similarly named list.    There are some good bits to glean out of this short book.  I'll try to condense them here:   Managers are not by nature leaders.  Managers allocate resources to accomplish a defined outcome.  Leaders change things by setting a vision and building a tribe around that vision.   Tribes are everywhere big and small.  Mega-tribes, sub-tribes, etc.   Leadership is inherent risky.  But far less risky than our minds tend to think.  This is evidenced by the many failures of several highly successful leaders.  (Think Elon Musk and the Tesla Truck presentation ).   Find people who are doing exceptionally better than average and amplify their influence on everyone else.   Leadership is about challenging the status quo.  It is s...

If you write a blog and never post it to Facebook will anybody read it?

My guess is no...  Let's test the hypothesis! Facebook and similar "social" feeds feel so bad to my soul.  I find them as a total waste of time and it's time to really really delete these things once and for all.  I've been hanging onto Instagram as I find it much less toxic.  Pictures often give off a more positive vibe than your aunts reshare of politically slanted news or your neighbor's cousin's wall of text complaining about how there is not Olive Garden within 100 miles of their house.  However, that doesn't change the fact that I am the product being sold on this Instagram.  Algorithms are being worked out to find just the right number of post to leave in between advertisements for me to feel most engaged and most likely to click.  Which news parody sites or webcomics I should like next are also constantly being updated and reconfigured based on my behaviour.  Facebook and its subsidiaries are not the only companies with this massive ...

Book Review: Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now

I recently (actually weeks or months ago now) finished reading "Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now" by Jaron Lanier.  This short book covers what is quite possibly one of the biggest issues of the current era, the toxic influence of "social media" on individuals and culture at large. The book raises issues about more than purely "social media" sites like Facebook and Twitter, attacking the business model that many web services are operated on.  I can't bring myself to fully agree with every point raised by Lanier.  Ten chapters present ten different arguments for why you should opt out of most of interactions happening on the internet today.  However, I believe they can be summarized in two key points. Social media is bad for your health.   Your emotional, social, psychological and spiritual well being are degraded by the use of social media.  These sites tend to reduce our ability to have empathy, increase irritabili...