Dune
Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, heir to a noble family tasked with ruling an inhospitable world where the only thing of value is the "spice" melange, a drug capable of extending life and enhancing consciousness. Coveted across the known universe, melange is a prize worth killing for... When House Atreides is betrayed, the destruction of Paul's family will set the boy on a journey toward a destiny greater than he could ever have imagined. And as he evolves into the mysterious man known as Muad'Dib, he will bring to fruition humankind's most ancient and unattainable dream. A stunning blend of adventure and mysticism, environmentalism and politics, Dune won the first Nebula Award, shared the Hugo Award, and formed the basis of what is undoubtedly the grandest epic in science fiction.
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193recommend
630mentions
512people
2007–2026years
34% recommend60% neutral6% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Which books did you read at least twice? Please give author, title, and how often you have read it.
For me the (probably incomplete list) is:
Connie Willis: Doomsday Book (three times)
Neal Stephenson: Cryptonomicon, Anathem, Quicksilver, The Confusion, The System of the World (twice or three times)
Frank Herbert: Dune (three times)
Tolkien: Lord of the Rings (three times)
Stephen King: Salem's Lot, The Shining, It (three times each)
Stephen King & Peter Straub: The Talisman (twice)
Vernor Vinge: A Deepness in the Sky, A Fire Upon The Deep, Rainbow's End (each twice)
Tracy Kidder: The Soul of a New Machine (twice)
Larry McMurtry: Lonesome Dove (twice)
Ross Thomas: Chinaman's Chance (twice)
William Gibson: Neuromancer, The Peripheral, Agency (each twice)
- Frank Herbert Dune, book, there is a graphic novel of the latest edition which I glanced through. Machiavelli The Prince Sun Tzu The Art of War Epictetus The Enchiridion Tao Te Ching- different editions The Odyssey in variety of formats, illustrated, graphic novel, book The King James Bible-- Different pieces at various points. Proverbs many times. Lewis Carroll-- Alices Adventures In Wonderland, book, annotated edition
- The best treatment of AI in the Dune universe I ever found, by far, is by Timothy O'Reilly (yes, that O'Reilly):
- There are 2 sets of Dune books.
The originals, all of which I've read and which I think are pretty good, are by Frank Herbert, between the mid-1960s and mid-1980s.
Then, 20+ years later, his son Brian Herbert and prolific author of tie-ins Kevin J Anderson started writing sequels and prequels.
Now TBH I have not read any of these, but the reviews are terrible, and I have read one Brian Herbert novel and one Kevin Anderson novel, and both of those were among the worst books I have ever read in my life. In the pre-internet era I read a huge amount -- I'd guess 20 thousand or more -- and both authors are in my top 5 worst ever books I ever finished.
You're referring to stuff that never happened in the original novels. In those, the Butlerian Jihad was ancient nearly-forgotten memory, many millennia ago. Longer before the times of the novels than Ancient Egypt is before us today.
So, the comment and the discussion is IMHO mainly about the original novels, and you're talking about stuff from the awful cash-in books by the author's son and a writer mainly known for cashing in on movie franchises.
That's why I said you read the wrong books.
- I am surprised at how little Frank Herbert's Dune factors into conversation like this.
The Butlerian Jihad occurred not because of an AI uprising, but because the AI was controlled by a few powerful corrupt people known as the Titans. When people handed over their critical thinking and decision making to machines, it allowed a small group of people to disrupt society and take control of it.
This is precisely what is happening today.
- The word "relying" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. The point I'm making is that "relying" on human experts, as opposed to AI experts, is the same thing: you're giving up your autonomy for the illusion of productivity, and in the process courting disaster. To put it another way: Every single one of you who downvoted me has clearly never read Frank Herbert's Dune. Machine-think is not limited to machines.
