Hey, kids! Welcome back to the Book Report.

Today I want to talk about a book — and the series that followed it — that covers a vast array of ideas, including the problems with godhood, ecological and environmental concerns, the philosophy of religion, power in political maneuvering, and the pros and cons of eugenics. The story was written over the span of more than forty years, and with the inclusion of side stories and prequels, the series can be considered still in progress.
The series inspired a movie, two miniseries, computer games, a board game, and a song by Iron Maiden. George Lucas cited the book as an influence when he made Star Wars in 1977.
The series has been called the science fiction equivalent to The Lord of the Rings. The first book is titled Dune, by Frank Herbert.

Dune was published in 1965, and the following year it won the Hugo Award and the first ever Nebula Award for Best Novel. The book is set 20,000 years in our future, and humanity has spread across the galaxy. There is a Galactic Empire, however true political power is managed through corporations. When not just nations, but entire planets, desire your product, your ability to influence political policy increases.
And there is no product more desired in the galaxy than the spice melange.

Melange (the spice in the books, and not the peppercorn spice shown here) extends the life of those who ingest it, as well as grant slight prescient abilities. The spice is crucial to space travel, as well as to the Bene Gesserit. The Bene Gesserit are a matriarchal religious order who use their power and influence in subtle ways to preserve and advance the human race.
Yet it seems that anyone who has a use for spice also has a hidden ulterior goal within their spice usage. That melange is the most desired product in galaxy, then, means that plenty of political maneuvering surrounds spice production. That the only source of spice is the desert planet of Arrakis means the political maneuvering often turns violent.

The book opens with control of Arrakis being given to House Atreides, headed by Duke Leto and his Bene Gesserit wife Jessica. What follows is a tense, exciting novel filled with betrayal, political upheaval, and fulfilled prophecy.

There are quite a few themes I could write about in conjunction with this novel, but the one that I keep coming back around to concerns what it means to be human.
A significant back-story event of the novel (which gets explored more thoroughly in a prequel) is the Butlerian Jihad, a war between humans and thinking machines (computers and artificial intelligence) occurring approximately 10,000 years in our future, the result of which is the prohibition of any type of thinking machine. A revised version of the Bible came out with a new commandment after the hundred year war: “Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind.” In the fourth Dune novel, God Emperor of Dune, the Jihad is described as a semi-religious upheaval initiated by humans who felt their reliance on machines was usurping their humanity. “The target of the Jihad was a machine-attitude as much as the machines,” the main character states.

The actual war against machines isn’t what concerns me. Tell me if this picture looks familiar:
You are walking down the street, and you see a young teenager walking your way. Ipod headphones are stuck in their ears, dark sunglasses cover half their face, and they practically run into you because rather than watch where they are going, their attention is focused on the constant stream of text messages they tap into their phone. And you just know, if you were to look at the content of their messages, there abillity 2 spell wouldnt B 2 good
I’ve decided to start calling this Media Sensory Deprivation (MSD). Have you heard of sensory deprivation tanks? Essentially you float inside a dark capsule of liquid, so that any sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch gets filtered out. MSD then would be filtering your five senses through the variety of media available to “connect” us even deeper to the rest of the world. In 2006, the University of Wyoming was granted more than $10 million by the National Institutes of Health to determine how sensory deprivation (such as can happen in cases of extreme neglect) may lead to abnormal brain function in adults.

If sensory deprivation can lead to abnormal brain function, what possible side effects could MSD have on brain function? Are people losing their humanity by becoming so connected to their machines?
A few months ago Mr. Wolff put up a post on robots, filled with paranoia of just how close Skynet may be to becoming active.
A more interesting dilemma to me would be the self-enslavement of humanity to machines in order to make life easier and more “connected”. Skynet-type paranoia would be unnecessary.

The Butlerian Jihad, then, is a symbol of humans wresting back control over their lives — of regaining their humanity, as it were. The Dune novels are awash with this theme of humanity, and Frank Herbert explores this theme in a variety of intriguing ways throughout the entire series.

So give this award-winning series a read. Or, even better, download the series to your Kindle, Nook, iPad, or e-reader of choice!

Until next time,
still paddlin’ the old knew…
_-Akatzen-_