When Will Frank Herbert Ruin Dune For You?

Frank Herbert, eh? Maverick author, apparently a terrible dad, political oddball, and simultaneously the genius creator of the Dune series and the franchise’s own worst enemy. If you want to moved beyond the various movie or television adaptations of Dune (David Lynch’s version having been previously covered here) and delve into the books themselves, you need to accept that sooner or later, a decision Frank Herbert made will ruin the series for you. It might come early, it might come late, it might even not really take effect until his death, but it will happen. Dune as a series of novels has one jumping-on point and a plethora of jumping-off points. Although masses and masses of prequels have been published by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson after Frank Herbert’s death, I don’t think anyone seriously expects you to tackle them unless and until you’ve read the first book. And assessing the first book becomes even easier when you realise it was originally published as two distinct…