Dune: 50th anniversary edition

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Frank Herbert’s epic masterpiece—a triumph of the imagination and one of the bestselling science fiction novels of all time. Getting asked to illustrate Dune was something I’d dreamed about for a long time. With that said, it was honestly a pretty intimidating prospect, especially at the outset. It’s been envisioned so well in the past, and has occupied such a prominent place in my psyche, I think once the initial thrill passed I became really nervous about doing the project justice. At some point I just had to reconcile within myself that I’d be bringing my own take to the text and that an artist’s shortcomings are a part of what makes one’s work interesting and unique. Whoa, boy. While I can't claim to be a full-throated Dune fanatic after completing this first read, I definitely understand why Frank Herbert's novel gave the sci-fi community something it didn't even know that it wanted. The pacing is excellent and does a wonderful job of balancing the savage action that takes place, as well as the deeply intricate moments of discussion and discourse. The political landscape and cultural complexity of Dune plays just as important a role as the action does, garnering a platform for the set piece moments to take centre stage. Those said moments are nurtured by the minute happenings that take place across the universe, and without them would feel hollow and empty.

By the year 9595, if mankind is still alive.... there will be no more wars, you'll experience no strife..." After 10,000 years have come and gone, if mankind is still alive, we have won....we'll be comfortably re-planeted.... you'll mostly feel euphoric and contented..."This setup owes something to the Mars stories of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Isaac Asimov’s Foundation books, as well as the tales written by Idaho-born food chemist Elmer Edward “Doc” Smith, creator of the popular Lensman space operas of the 1940s and 50s, in which eugenically bred heroes are initiated into a “galactic patrol” of psychically enhanced supercops. For Smith, altered states of consciousness were mainly tools for the whiteous and righteous to vaporise whole solar systems of subversives, aliens and others with undesirable traits. Herbert, by contrast, was no friend of big government. He had also taken peyote and read Jung. In 1960, a sailing buddy introduced him to the Zen thinker Alan Watts, who was living on a houseboat in Sausalito. Long conversations with Watts, the main conduit by which Zen was permeating the west-coast counterculture, helped turn Herbert’s pacy adventure story into an exploration of temporality, the limits of personal identity and the mind’s relationship to the body.

Probably because we've adapted so well to hot air, palm trees, sandy and salty water. The natives are friendly and they generally mind their own business. We love the care-free life-style here. Plus, whenever we're ready, we can sail away." said Raquel Remington, presently known as "Betty Revelle."

A sprawling and complex mélange of a novel, Dune combined grand themes about human nature and human relationships to the planet(s) we live (or might live) on. Herbert wrote about his inspirations: “I find fresh nuances in religions, psychoanalytic theories, linguistics, economics, philosophy, theories of history, geology, anthropology, plant research, soil chemistry, and the metalanguages of pheromones.”