THE SCIENCE OF DUNE
Arid deserts, alien worlds, mystical powers and galactic conflicts – all phrases that might call to mind images from the Star Wars universe. And yet they’re at the root of an older, equally epic sci-fi saga that began more than a decade earlier, in 1965, when writer Frank Herbert published his debut novel Dune.
Set in the far future, when a human empire rules the Universe, Dune tells the story of a desert world wracked by conflict – and of the rise of an unlikely saviour.
On 22 October this year, director Denis Villeneuve, who directed two of the last decade’s best science fiction films Arrival and Blade Runner 2049, is set to bring his own bold adaptation of Dune to UK cinema screens.
Get ready for space opera, superhumans, and more visual effects than you can shake a sandtrout at.
Oh, and maybe some science too.
THE ORIGIN STORY
Dune is a landmark in science fiction. It mixes stories about political greed, ecological abuse and unchecked technological progress in a fully realised universe. Award-winning science fiction author Stephen Baxter tells us where Frank Herbert’s idea came from and how it shaped what came after it...
WHERE DOES THE NOVEL DUNE SIT AS A MOMENT IN SCIENCE FICTION?
It’s 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 ‘campus novels’ because every trippy student used to read them. Dune, Lord Of The Rings, Stranger In A Strange Land... 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.
WHAT WERE FRANK HERBERT’S INFLUENCES?
Herbert was born in 1920, and the Dune saga began with serials published in sci-fi magazines, in around 1963. So he was already 43 years old and he’d 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’ve got Isaac Asimov and his Foundation series, but there were a couple of more fantastical galactic empire sagas too, such as EE ‘Doc’ Smith’s Lensman saga.
There had also been some world-building exercises before Dune, trying to go beyond the kind of cartoonish world-building of previous generations. Hal Clement’s Close To Critical in 1964 is one example, about a planet with very heavy gravity.
DID HE TAKE ANY INSPIRATION FROM SCIENCE?
At the time was being developed, you also had the first space probes to the nearby planets. Today, we’re 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 by Rachel Carson was published in 1962, and I think that was a big eye-opener.
