The Spice Must Flow

July 17, 2023
Britt (Phasers on Stun!) provides an entertaining crash course on Frank Herbert’s Dune series, a science fiction epic about a young royal heir who becomes the messiah of a desert planet. Britt notes that the first novel’s concern with taming nature (namely, to obtain the naturally occurring “spice” drug that enables space travel) stemmed from research for an article Herbert had planned to write on how the Department of Agriculture stopped the movement of sand dunes in Florence, Ore. After failing to sell the article, Herbert turned his notes into a novel that was “published piecemeal, written on demand, and workshopped and revised as it was being written” for serialization in the sci-fi magazine Analog in the early 1960s. Britt offers insightful analysis of Herbert’s books, suggesting that his inclusion of the powerful Bene Gesserit, a “secretive matriarchal sect,” presaged a more explicitly feminist strain of sci-fi that would gain prominence in the ensuing decades, and that the sequels subvert the idea of heroes by turning protagonist Paul Atreides into a dictator. An overview of Dune’s major adaptations finds David Lynch’s 1984 effort “difficult but fun” and Denis Villeneuve’s 2021 film a treat for both hard-core acolytes and newbies. Britt brings a superfan’s zeal to the proceedings, and the detailed account of Dune’s journey to publication enlightens. The result is a riveting testament to the saga’s enduring appeal.