Well, first off, I applaud Herbert for his fantastic worldbuilding. He set the course for all the fantasy/sci-fi works we know and love today. NOt to mention he has a great way with words. A lot of people love Dune and the series as a whole, and they should. However, as of now, I'm not 100% a fan.
First off, it's a huge novel. Nothing wrong with that. It's just that literally the entire first part of the book is a giant exposition dump that helps world-build. I get that it's a massive world to build, being extremely far into the future and on other planets and all, but there had to have been a better way to go about it. A lot of the world-building was also very political, and thus in my opinion, very boring. The book only got interesting at about 48ish% and even then it was a bit iffy. Basically later in part two when Paul and Jessica found themselves with the Fremen did the book finally pick up the pace and become interesting to me. (And I was mostly interested in the Fremen and their culture as they were actually hella fun to read and learn about).
Speaking of Paul and Jessica, (our MCs), out of everyone named in this book, they are the only two with "normal" names and that struck me as odd. Like, everyone has a cool fantasy name, like Chani, or Leto, but the MCs get boring non-fantasy names. Unclear why Herbert did that. (I mean they do get Fremen names later but still).
Dune by Frank Herbert
I didn't care for Paul as a character. He felt too much of an overpowered God character and was kind of a jerk to people because of it. At least, that's how I read him. I also wasn't a fan of his inta-love for Chani. There was zero chemistry. They met and were like "We're supposed to be together" and so it was. Then they had a kid we never saw, and the kid died and I felt nothing because we spent like no time with him. Heck, we barely spent time with Paul and Chani. Not that this book needs a romance, I'm just saying if you're gonna include one, make me care a little about it.
As for the writing in the book itself, it was confusing. The first half of the book took forever for things to happen. Then mid-way through part two, we get very confusing time skips. A lot of plot points started rushing, especially near the end and that made for a confusing read, especially as we spent so long on other story points (like with Leto's character, only to have him die).
Speaking of Leto, I'm sure the Harkonnen would have killed him regardless, but like, why did he follow along with the plan to kill himself in order to kill the Duke? Like, he didn't have to. I dunno, a false poison tooth sounds like a stupid plan to me. There had to have been another way.
You can also definitely tell this book is a series. There was too much information in this book not to. especially the ending. Nothing wrong with that. Just wanted to point that out.
All in all, it's not a bad book. It has a lot of potential. (As can be seen by being the inspiration for things we love today like Star Wars or Ender's Game). While I absolutely love all the work that Herbert put into this book (and most likely the sequels), it was too boring for me to get into for most of it. Maybe because it did pick up and became kinda interesting in the latter half of the book, I'll check out the rest of the series at some point. But for now, I'll wait.
I'd probably still recommend this for any sci-fi lover, though.
