Wearing the uniforms of the Harkonnen, the Emperor's unbeatable Sardaukar stormtroopers assault the Atreides compound on Arrakis and destroy it, leading the way for the Harkonnen to retake the planet and capture Duke Leto Atreides, who dies in a failed attempt to take the Harkonnen Baron with him. Arrakis is a desert planet largely populated by the nomadic, xenophobic Fremen and inhabited by giant sandworms that destroy anything caught out in the open, and would be of little interest to the rest of the galaxy if not for one thing: it is the only known source of " Spice" (its "official" name is melange), an all-purpose chemical that triples the human lifespan, makes it possible for females (and some few males) to transfer ancestral memories to one another, unlocks or enhances the capacity of humans for telling the future, and therefore makes Faster-Than-Light Travel possible in a culture where computers have been outlawed by religious fiat-all while being ferociously addictive.Īs the story opens, the Atreides family have just gained control over the Arrakis fiefdom from their longtime rivals, House Harkonnen-but this turns out to be a cunning plan by the Harkonnen and the Emperor to eliminate House Atreides, whom the Emperor has come to see as a threat but cannot move against directly.
Much of the action throughout the series takes place on the eponymous planet, Arrakis, commonly called Dune by the native Fremen. The novel is set approximately 19,000 years into The Future, in the year 10,191 AG, or "After Guild" (21,267 AD by our calendar) in a galaxy-spanning empire loosely based on the Holy Roman and Ottoman Empires, ruled by feuding nobles, arcane religious sects, and Byzantine corporate monopolies. Dune is a Hugo Award, Nebula Award and Seiun Award winner. Luckily, Chilton was already well-accustomed to producing Doorstoppers. At two hundred and fifteen thousand words, Herbert's manuscript for Dune was three to four times larger than what the average publishing house was used to, as the printing costs for such a work would be enormous.
note This was not out of rejection of the book's content, but rather of how much of it there was. It was rejected twenty times by various publishers before finally being published in 1965 by Chilton, a publishing house best known for its DIY auto repair guides. Dune is the first book in a popular series of Science Fiction novels written by Frank Herbert.
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