The Worlds of Dune

Book excerpt: Some writers build worlds. Others birth entire universes. In the decades since its publication, Frank Herbert’s Dune has become arguably the best-selling and certainly the best-known science fiction novel ever written. So how did an ex-Navy newspaperman from Washington State come to write such a world-conquering novel? And how was he able to pack it with so many layers of myth and meaning? Herbert’s boundless imagination was sparked by a dizzying array of ideas, from classical history to cutting-edge science, from environmentalism to Zen philosophy, and from Arabic texts to Shakespeare’s tragedies. Beginning on Arrakis and going planet by planet, The Worlds of Dune offers a supremely deep dive into Herbert's universe – detailing along the way the many diverse strands that he wove into his epic creation to offer a visually rich accompaniment to this sci-fi legend.