Entry One: Dune

    I’m about 20 pages into the book Dune, and its actually pretty good. I have tried numerous times to read older science fiction novels and not been able to finish them. More modern ones are probably more interesting to me because they are more accurate in my current place, you know? In the 1960’s, people probably could not even fathom the technology we have today, let alone ahead of our time period. Yet this book seems almost like fantasy, which I am also a fan of, and I don’t need to believe it is possible on earth because the setting is on a different planet. However, since it is not based in a specific earthly time period, I can’t really use that to help me in any way. I can also assume that since the author Frank Herbert served during WWII and judging by the part of the book that I have read, a war or war-like situation is going to be a main plot point, most likely between the Atreides and the Harkonnens (you would know who they are if you were reading this book, yet also keep in mind that I barely know who they are and I am reading it). Like most well written science fiction novels, it is hard for me to fully understand what exactly I am reading until I get a good way into it, the obvious reason being that it is an entirely different world, and the only reason I really understand how our earth works is because I have lived 14 years in it. I know a lot of tiny details about specific people and places in Dune, but without a full explanation of the whole world which would be awkward to put in the beginning of a book (unless of course you are JRR Tolkien) it is hard to get the whole picture. Anyway, since the only thing I have been told about this book was that it was great, and by reading the very positive response/quotes on the back of the it (which I don’t think should always be trusted), I am pretty optimistic about this one.