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A Dune companion: characters, places and terms in Frank Herbert's original six novels
\"This companion to Frank Herbert's original Dune novels--Dune, Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune--provides an encyclopedia of characters, locations, terms and highlights the series' underrated aesthetic integrity. An extensive introduction covers themes of ecology, chaos theory, concepts and structures, and Joseph Campbell's monomyth in Herbert's narrative\"-- Provided by publisher.
BOOK
A Dune Companion
This companion to Frank Herbert's six original Dune novels-- Dune , Dune Messiah , Children of Dune , God Emperor of Dune , Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune --provides an encyclopedia of characters, locations, terms and other elements, and highlights the series' underrated aesthetic integrity.
eBook
The art and soul of Dune part two
\"The Art and Soul of Dune: Part Two captures the breathtaking behind-the-scenes journey behind the making of Dune: Part Two, the second film in director Denis Villeneuve's six-time Oscar-winning film adaptation of author Frank Herbert's science fiction classic. Written by Dune: Part Two producer Tanya Lapointe (p.g.a.), this visually dazzling exploration of the filmmaking process gives unparalleled insight into the project's genesis--from its striking environmental designs to its intricate costume concepts and landmark digital effects. The Art and Soul of Dune: Part Two also features exclusive interviews with key members of the cast and crew, including Denis Villeneuve, production designer Patrice Vermette, and many more, delivering a uniquely candid account of the hugely ambitious international shoot\" Provided by publisher.
BOOK
Discovering Dune: Essays on Frank Herbert's Epic Saga
G. Connor Salter reviews Discovering Dune: Essays on Frank Herbert's Epic Saga, edited by Dominic J. Nardi and N. Trevor Brierly, considering its new contributions to studies of Frank Herbert's work. Essays included fit into four categories (Politics and Power, History and Religion, Biology and Ecology, and Philosophy, Choice and Ethics) and range from Herbert's use of ecology in Dune to how game theory may help explain certain characters' apparent ability to see the future. Discovering Dune also includes an appendix which contains the only up-to-date bibliography of Herbert's work (primary and secondary sources).
Journal Article
The Engineered Messiah: Islamic Theology as Source Code in the Post-Cybernetic Universe of Dune
Frank Herbert’s Dune (1965) establishes a universe defined by the “Butlerian Jihad”, a historical crusade that banned artificial intelligence and created a vacuum filled by religious engineering. This paper argues that in this post-cybernetic setting, religion functions as a sociological operating system designed for political control rather than a metaphysical connection to the divine. The study analyzes the Missionaria Protectiva to demonstrate how the Bene Gesserit order creates belief systems by co-opting and re-engineering Islamic theology. It suggests that the order’s manual of superstitions serves as a library of cultural scripts that primes the indigenous population to accept a manufactured Messiah, specifically the Mahdi. Consequently, the protagonist Paul Atreides is reinterpreted not as a traditional “White Savior” or authentic religious prophet but as a “hacker” who utilizes these pre-planted Islamic codes to access and manipulate the social infrastructure of Arrakis. His prescience functions as a form of biological predictive analytics that traps him in a deterministic loop of his own calculation. Ultimately, this reading suggests that Dune offers a critique of “techno-theology” by showing how the instrumentalization of the Mahdi figure transforms the concept of Jihad from a spiritual struggle into an unstoppable, automated algorithm of violence.
Journal Article
A BUTLERIAN HAUNTOLOGY
In this article, I engage with the backstory to Frank Herbert’s Dune saga, viz. The Butlerian Jihad, tracing its genealogy, and considering its possible relevance for thinking about and motivating an Islamicate response to artificial intelligence (AI) and cognate technologies. I argue the latter is a colonising phenomenon deployed along necropolitical lines against “the wretched of the earth”. My argument unfolds in a “nested structure”, beginning with an overview of The Butlerian Jihad and how it features in the Dune universe. I particularly examine how Herbert uses the term jihad and conflates it with crusade and explore a possible genealogy of The Butlerian Jihad, tracing its inspiration to “The Book of The Machines” in Samuel Butler’s novel Erewhon (1932 [1872]). Engaging with scholarly commentary on Butler’s work, I address implicit conceptions of class and race, particularly through the lenses of colonialism and the phenomenon of Other-ing. Considering Butler’s motivations for writing the novel, I explore how examining hauntology provides a pathway into a discussion of the potentialities of Luddism as a political project. Reframing Luddism along fugitive and decolonial lines, I conclude by exploring what it might mean to call for and enact a Butlerian Jihad today.
Journal Article
Spice and Ecology in Herbert's Dune: Altering the Mind and the Planet
The characterization of spice in Frank Herbert's science-fiction novel Dune plays a significant role in world-building and focusing readers' attention on natural enhancements to the human mind. Herbert uses historical and social contexts relevant to real-world spices to create layers of meaning by tapping into emerging trends in ecology, psychology, and politics. These include the historic spice trade, drugs in the countercultural movement, the disciplines of ecology and psychology, and foreign interference in the Middle East. Such linkages help position spice as a valuable commodity as well as a psychoactive substance that various characters must consume to accomplish extraordinary feats. In the world of Dune, everything is dependent on one substance, and although spice may give advantages, it also takes its toll. The consequences of spice consumption on an individual level then mirror the larger ecological disruptions in the novel in the realms of politics and the environment. In this way, spice represents a key feature of world-building that assists in tying the threads of the novel together and driving through to readers the ecological message about the interconnectedness of life.
Journal Article
Obce fonosfery. Dźwiękowe krajobrazy pozaziemskich planet w kinie science fiction
In cinema, the landscape is reflected not only in the im- age, but in the sound as well. The article discusses the cre- ation of the latter based on ten science-fiction films, dating from a period of nearly 70 years, that show extraterrestrial planets. Their soundscapes are described in terms of R. Murray Schafer’s theory and Michel Chion’s audio-visual analysis. In pioneering titles from the late 1950s and ear- ly 1960s, the use of experimental electro-acoustic effects blurs the distinction between sound and music, creating an impression of the uncanny. In the middle part of the ar- ticle, adaptations of two canonical texts of the genre are compared – Stanisław Lem’s Solaris and Frank Herbert’s Dune – which introduce contrasting planets. Thanks to the juxtaposition, it turns out how their elements translate into sounds and what function these sounds can take. The last section describes two series that are the latest spin-offs of the fantastic sagas: Star Trek and Star Wars. In the first, the motif of a living planet returns, and in the second, the material-based keynote sound.
Journal Article
Ecological Colonialism and Messianism: Frank Herbert’s Critical Vision
This article provides a reconsideration of Frank Herbert’s dystopic perspective, through the careful analysis of “Dune” and “Dune Messiah,” the best-selling science fiction novels. Narratively unveiling the detrimental impact of colonizing imperialism motivated by religious doctrine, “Dune” and “Dune Messiah” compel their readers to denounce conceptions of the religious and the spiritual preventing the respectful formation of the human body, mind, and spirit and opposed to evolutionary understandings of the universe, biosphere, and human history. “Dune” and “Dune Messiah” offer critical principles and resources to produce emancipating notions of the human and spiritual practices contributing to the emergence of a more ethically and ecologically sustainable society and world.
Journal Article