To become a hero, let alone a messiah, is to cut oneself off from all others; to watch friends sink into worshipers; to loose forces that may be impossible to control; ultimately, after sowing the wind, to reap the whirlwind.

It had been a while since I read the sequels, so when I finished re-reading [ Dune Messiah] and [ Children of Dune] for this job I continued, and am now enjoying God Emperor of Dune again. Although it is almost completely without water, Dune is a planet of fabulous wealth, for it is the only source of a drug prized throughout the Galactic Empire.It is a place where water is sacred – ‘a substance more precious than all others’ – where to shed a tear is the most taboo of all sacrifices.

It is a universe of ‘traps within traps’, of human computers, secretive witch-cults and fanatic warriors, all with their own intricate histories and intentions. Before Star Wars, before A Game of Thrones, Frank Herbert brought to blazing life a feudalistic future of relentless political intrigue and insidious treachery, a grandly operatic vision – half-Wagner, half-spaghetti western – of a hero discovering his destiny.Frank Herbert’s epic masterpiece—a triumph of the imagination and one of the bestselling science fiction novels of all time. In 1959 he began work on his most famous work, Dune, which was serialised by Analog magazine between 1963 and 1965. Seamus Heaney’s deeply felt interpretation, widely acknowledged as the greatest Beowulf translation of modern times, is presented in parallel with the Old English verse in this fabulous Folio edition.