Just Finished Reading: The Science of Dune – An Unauthorized Exploration into the Real Science behind Frank Herbert’s fictional Universe by Kevin R Grazier

How could I possibly resist this book? Not only does it ease me into reading science based books again but it’s about the science in one of my all time favourite SF novels. Dune by Frank Herbert seems to be on my mind a lot lately. I keep thinking about reading it again (after the best part of 30 years) but part of me wonders if it’ll still have the same effect on the adult me as it did on the teenager. Anyway, I’ve recently bought some more books based in the Dune Universe so I’ll get around to reading the original trilogy at some point.

But, back to the book pictured above: This was actually a pretty good collection of articles written by people with both a love of the subject and more than a passing acquaintance with science – indeed 11 of the articles were penned by PhD’s (which says a lot about the relationship between science and science fiction I think). The subjects tackled are: The drug Melange, Precognition/Second Sight, Sandworm biology and Arakeen ecology, breeding programmes and genetic engineering, Dune Universe cosmology and stellar mechanics, the practicality of stillsuits, pain and where it comes from, navigating folded space, the suspensor field, cloning and memory recovery in golems, and the possibility of FTL.

As you can imagine I enjoyed this book quite a bit. I don’t think that any of the articles was long enough or off base enough to bore or irritate me. The authors had certainty read at least Dune itself and often many more of the books in the series – including the new batch. Some admitted to being die-hard Dune fans and even mentioned the effect of Dune on their career choice. This was not a thrown together volume designed simply to get money from Dune fans. The authors themselves fell into this category. Although often critical of the science in Dune – which was when all is said a done a work of fiction – they almost universally praised the scientific ideas presented in the original trilogy and beyond. I would hesitate to say that this is a must-read for any self respecting Dune fan but it is a worthy addition to any SF fans science of pop culture library. Recommended.