It\u2019s of its time. But it also transcends that time, in a way. I think in the 1960s it was one of what they used to call \u2018campus novels\u2019 because every trippy student used to read them. Dune<\/i>, Lord Of The Rings<\/i>, Stranger In A Strange Land<\/i>\u2026 all immersive worlds, often with messianic heroes and expanded consciousness. That will be its pin in time. But also, I think it built on a lot of what had been going on in science fiction earlier, and it anticipated what came later.<\/p>\n What were Frank Herbert\u2019s influences?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n Herbert was born in 1920, and the Dune<\/i> saga began with serials published in sci-fi magazines, in around 1963. So he was already 43 years old and he\u2019d clearly grown up on a diet of the magazines and pulp literature that preceded what you might call modern sci-fi. And among the tropes that he picked up was the idea of galactic empires. At one end you\u2019ve got Isaac Asimov and his Foundation<\/i> series, but there were a couple of more fantastical galactic empire sagas too, such as EE \u2018Doc\u2019 Smith\u2019s Lensman<\/i> saga.<\/p>\n There had also been some world-building exercises before Dune<\/i>, trying to go beyond the kind of cartoonish world-building of previous generations. Hal Clement\u2019s Close To Critical<\/i> in 1964 is one example, about a planet with very heavy gravity.<\/p>\n Did he take any inspiration from science?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n At the time Dune <\/i>was being developed, you also had the first space probes to the nearby planets. Today, we\u2019re used to the visions of Mars and Venus we have now, but I think at the time it was quite shocking to find that Mars was an arid desert, and Venus was this hellhole. Previous generations had extrapolated from Earth, so Venus was a hot, wet Earth and Mars a cold, dry Earth \u2013 but now they seemed completely different. Also the famous environmental book Silent Spring<\/i> by Rachel Carson was published in 1962, and I think that was a big eye-opener.<\/p>\n But there\u2019s a specific incident in Herbert\u2019s life that seems to have set him off in this direction. He made his living as a reporter before his fiction writing took off. In 1957, when he was in his 30s, he was sent to write about a system of dunes in Oregon that were migrating and therefore endangering towns.<\/p>\n The US Department of Agriculture were using grasses to try and stabilise the dunes. And Herbert had been really struck by this \u2013 modifying an ecology to achieve a goal, as opposed to using technology, such as big fences. He became fascinated by deserts, and developed theories about how major religions often emerged from the deserts, which I guess is true \u2013 Islam, for instance. And it\u2019s thought that TE Lawrence \u2013 Lawrence of Arabia \u2013 was one model for Dune<\/i>\u2019s hero, Paul Atreides.<\/p>\n Read more:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Dune<\/i> is often lauded as a pioneering work of \u2018ecological science fiction\u2019\u2026<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n You can see that Arrakis \u2013 the planet in Dune<\/i> \u2013 is an ecology. It\u2019s got fairly simple elements but it does actually fit together as a living entity in an authentic way. And where Herbert may have really been a pioneer is showing this complete working world with a reasonably plausible ecology as a single vision. You could argue that it\u2019s like a precursor of the astronaut photographs of the Earth and the Moon \u2013 seeing the whole Earth as a system. Dune <\/i>was published in 1965, a few years before those photos emerged in 1968 with Apollo 8. I think the world was ready for that. We were going to the Moon, we were ready to look back at the Earth and Herbert caught the zeitgeist there.<\/p>\n What notable science fiction works has Dune <\/i>since inspired?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n Certainly Star Wars<\/i>. I think with George Lucas it\u2019s not just the galactic empire stuff, but he seemed to love desert visuals. Tatooine in Star Wars<\/i> is a version of Arrakis in a way. But also there\u2019s the other side of Dune<\/i> \u2013 the telepathy and the messianic, superhuman side. Once again there were these in Star Wars<\/i>, humans with superhuman powers that they have to discoverand master.<\/p>\n Also, the work of Ursula Le Guin perhaps. Her novel The Word For World Is Forest<\/i>, published in 1972, is Dune <\/i>with trees. Later on is Kim Stanley Robinson\u2019s Mars <\/i>trilogy \u2013 all about ecologies and building ecologies. And space opera has definitely continued to prosper since Dune<\/i>. Nowadays, it\u2019s stronger than ever.<\/p>\n By Paul Parsons Published: Tuesday, 26 October 2021 at 12:00 am Where does the novel Dune sit as a moment in science fiction? It\u2019s of its time. But it also transcends that time, in a way. I think in the 1960s it was one of what they used to call \u2018campus novels\u2019 because every trippy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":144,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"5"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/10\/the-science-of-dune-where-the-ideas-behind-the-storys-strange-universe-came-from.jpg",1200,804,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/10\/the-science-of-dune-where-the-ideas-behind-the-storys-strange-universe-came-from-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/10\/the-science-of-dune-where-the-ideas-behind-the-storys-strange-universe-came-from-300x201.jpg",300,201,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/10\/the-science-of-dune-where-the-ideas-behind-the-storys-strange-universe-came-from-768x515.jpg",768,515,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/10\/the-science-of-dune-where-the-ideas-behind-the-storys-strange-universe-came-from-1024x686.jpg",800,536,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/10\/the-science-of-dune-where-the-ideas-behind-the-storys-strange-universe-came-from.jpg",1200,804,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/10\/the-science-of-dune-where-the-ideas-behind-the-storys-strange-universe-came-from.jpg",1200,804,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Paul Parsons Published: Tuesday, 26 October 2021 at 12:00 am Where does the novel Dune sit as a moment in science fiction? It\u2019s of its time. But it also transcends that time, in a way. I think in the 1960s it was one of what they used to call \u2018campus novels\u2019 because every trippy…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/143"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\""Frank\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/4\/2021\/10\/frank-herbert-9d93217.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C902"\" "\\"\"Frank\\"\/")
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