Editing Dune (section)

== The books ==
* '''''Dune''''' - The original novel. <del>The [[Lord of the Rings]] of sci-fi.</del> Very influential? Yes! Defining the Genre the way Tolkien did? No. Don't forget that sci-fi helped shape modern Fantasy where pre-modern Fantasy helped shape sci-fi (eg; fairies and elves = aliens, alchemy = chemistry). The first book serves as a stand-alone story in the style of a traditional epic and a follows typical dramatic structure (the sequels... eh). It reads well, and each chapter centers around a particular character or topic without feeling disjointed. You know the plot. Paul controls the spice and controls the universe.
* '''''Dune Messiah''''' - Detailing Paul's jihad and rule of the Imperium. While Dune is a story on its own, this sequel was hacked off of the first book when it became too long and turned into a sequel. If you at least agree that the first book was good, then problems start to show here but not by much.
* '''''Children of Dune''''' - Detailing the rise of Paul's children. The third book and the end of the first trilogy, except ''Messiah'' is under half the length of ''Dune'' and ''God Emperor'' making this one feel like the second book of a trilogy. Paul is gone and the story switches to his son Leto II as he struggles with the prescience powers he inherited from his father on the inside and everyone and their sister trying to get his place and/or influence him on the outside. This book reads like the main character is high and does not know where he is for most of the story (which is actually fine, considering he's an 8 year old kid struggling with becoming almost omniscient, people trying to kill him, and he is both high and kidnapped), and it is disjointed enough that the reader feels the same (which is not, because a constant [[meme|"WTF am I reading?"]] feeling as one wrestles through the book makes for a poor reading experience).
* '''''God Emperor of Dune''''' - Leto II of the House of Atreides has fused with a sandworm and become immortal in what is probably the most iconic thing outside of the first book. Disappointed in the mildness of his father's jihad, he creates the most oppressive regime that he can to tap into humanity's basest and darkest instincts so that a eugenics program can strengthen humanity to the point where it can never go extinct, followed by them scattering away from his empire and becoming completely decentralized throughout the universe. That is the 'Golden Path' thing. The entire book started off as a continuous monologue by the main character with the rest written in later and it shows. What were the characters actually doing again? Killing one another?
* '''''Heretics of Dune''''' - Humanity has scattered away from known space after being oppressed for so long, and no one thing can kill them now... maybe. ''God Emperor'' was actually the start of a trilogy centered around a girl named Sheeana and the clones (or gholas, because the cells started off dead) of Duncan Idaho. The Bene Gesserit take center stage and they and the reader must deal with their inability to be anything but clandestine antagonists.
* '''''Chapterhouse: Dune''''' - The Bene Gesserit make one of their primary planets into a new Dune because they need the spice to use their abilities. The Honored Matres, worse Bene Gesserit returned from the Scattering, have conquered pretty much everything with mind-control sex and regular violence. Can our heroes thwart them? No one knows, as Duncan calculates/foresees something that neither he or the readers know about and flies a ship off to who-knows-where, followed by Frank Herbert's death.

=== The others ===
* '''''Hunters of Dune''''' and '''''Sandworms of Dune''''' - Based on Frank Herbert's rough draft for the unfinished ''Dune 7'', these two works function as a direct sequel to ''Chapterhouse: Dune''. If you really want the series to have an ending... this is what you get. Requires reading ''Legends of Dune''. Though debatable if the new antagonist the authors' invention.
* '''''Prelude to Dune''''': A prequel series set right before the events of the first novel when all the adults from that book were the age that buys young adult novels. Not that bad, but all the villains are evil mustache-twirling sadists and all the heroes are good people.
* '''''Legends of Dune''''': Prequel series that takes us back to the early days of the Imperium and shows the Butlerian Jihad not as a conflict where religious Luddites win, but as a war where wargame-loving hacker teens take over mankind's servant robots and cause a robot war that overthrows the Old Empire on Earth and enslaves humanity. The League of Nobles (note that unlike the many pages of justification Frank produced for the original Imperium, feudalism just seems to naturally happen at this point in human history) rallies around manufactured religious zealotry to eventually win at great cost (like ''losing 1% of our fleet every jump'' cost).
* '''''Heroes of Dune''''': A series of interquels about this and that.
* '''''Great Schools of Dune''''': Prequel series set after ''Legends of Dune'', focusing on the creation of the Bene Gesserit, Mentats, Suk School, and the Spacing Guild in the wake of the Butlerian Jihad. 
* '''''Caladan Trilogy''''': Three more prequels, focusing on Duke Leto, Lady Jessica, and Paul in the run-up to ''Dune''.