Frank Herbert

Frank Herbert was born in Tacoma, Washington, in 1920 and worked as a newspaper journalist, photographer, book reviewer, ecological consultant and lecturer alongside his fiction. His first novel, The Dragon in the Sea, ran in Astounding in 1955–56 under the title Under Pressure. Dune grew out of a magazine assignment on the Oregon Dunes near Florence, where real efforts to manage shifting sand gave him the basis for the ecological plans of the Fremen, the desert people of Arrakis.

Dune was serialized in Analog, turned down by nearly twenty book publishers, and finally published in 1965 by Chilton, a company known mainly for auto-repair manuals. It won the first Nebula Award for Best Novel and shared the Hugo. Herbert followed it with five sequels, from Dune Messiah (1969) to Chapterhouse: Dune (1985), and died in 1986 before writing a planned seventh book. His recurring subjects were ecology, how harsh environments shape people, consciousness-altering substances such as the spice, and the danger of submitting to charismatic leaders. Outside Dune he wrote The Dosadi Experiment (1977), The White Plague (1982) and Destination: Void (1966), whose sequels he wrote with Bill Ransom.

Start with Dune. Young Paul Atreides's family takes charge of Arrakis, the only source of the spice melange, and the novel follows the political, religious and ecological struggle for control of the planet. It tells a complete story, so readers who want only one book can stop after it.

Read Dune Messiah next, even if you plan to stop there. It answers the first book directly: Paul has accepted the role of messiah, and the jihad waged in his name has conquered most of the known universe with excesses he cannot stop. Parts of it were written before Dune was finished. Children of Dune completes that arc. God Emperor of Dune is set after Leto II has ruled as a tyrant for 3,500 years, so it works as a fresh decision point.