Full of enthusiasm after reading Dune I read Dune Messiah but it is one of those books that divides the fans from the readers I suppose. The sequels are not fascinating unlike the first novel. It is a great science-fiction novel about systems of power and the role of ecology, although admittedly delivered in an accept it or loath it writing style and with various weird ideas including: Feudalism in space, a stress on lineages in which nonetheless many of the women seem to be mystic-concubines, homosexuality is shorthand for depraved evil, and space Arabs with blue eyes. At the centre of the first novel is a desert planet, Arrakis, and the secret desire of its inhabitants to transform it's ecology. The realisation of the interrelationship of environment, people and culture coming out of that experience is a key feature of the series. Frank Herbert's Dune was in part inspired by his experience working in a research centre in California studying desertification.
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