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Dune

Book One in the Dune Chronicles

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Dune

By: Frank Herbert
Narrated by: Scott Brick, Orlagh Cassidy, Euan Morton, Simon Vance, Ilyana Kadushin, Byron Jennings, David R. Gordon, Jason Culp, Kent Broadhurst, Oliver Wyman, Patricia Kilgarriff, Scott Sowers
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NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE directed by Denis Villeneuve, starring Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Dave Bautista, Christopher Walken, Léa Seydoux, Stellan Skarsgård, and Charlotte Rampling
Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, who would become the mysterious man known as Muad'dib. He would avenge the traitorous plot against his noble family—and would bring to fruition humankind's most ancient and unattainable dream.

A stunning blend of adventure and mysticism, environmentalism and politics, Dune won the first Nebula Award, shared the Hugo Award, and formed the basis of what is undoubtedly the grandest epic in science fiction. Frank Herbert's death in 1986 was a tragic loss, yet the astounding legacy of his visionary fiction will live forever.

Long-listed, Audible.com Best of the Year, 2007

Long-listed, Audible.com 100 Audible Essentials, 2007

Audie Award winner, 2008

Adventure Classics Epic Fantasy Fiction Science Fiction Space Opera
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Critic Reviews

“Unique...I know nothing comparable to it except Lord of the Rings.” —Arthur C. Clarke

“One of the monuments of modern science fiction.” —Chicago Tribune

“Powerful, convincing, and most ingenious.” —Robert A. Heinlein

“A portrayal of an alien society more complete and deeply detailed than any other author in the field has managed...a story absorbing equally for its action and philosophical vistas...An astonishing science fiction phenomenon.” —The Washington Post
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The story is excellent, read the book when I was a teenager, seen the movie and could hardly stop listening to this audio book decades later.

The performance was very good in parts but often jarring as voice actors were not consistent with characters. That is the same character would have more than once accent or voice actor which broke immersion in the story.

Exceptional Story, Jarring Performance

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What made the experience of listening to Dune the most enjoyable?

Voice was very easy to listen to and the occasional accompanying music was a good touch.

What did you like best about this story?

The voice actors - although they tend to change occasionally which can be confusing.

Have you listened to any of the narrators’s other performances? How does this one compare?

Haven't listened to others

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The final two chapters are very exciting.

Any additional comments?

The voice actors change which makes the book a little confusing and the language of Dune can be hard to follow. Go with the flow and you'll enjoy it.

Pretty Epic

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The book itself is great, a classic. The narration is a bit disappointing. They have voice actors for the major characters, but in half the book they are absent and all the characters are instead voiced by the narrator.

Great book, inconsistent narration

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Dune is very ambitious, and now that I've finally read it I can see the obvious influence that it's had on lots of subsequent sci-fi and fantasy. Herbert is an excellent world-builder; there's lots of great anthropological detail about the people of Arrakis, and he has a very compelling way of writing about prophetic precognition, which is not only artful but also serves as a convenient workaround for preventing prophet characters from being omniscient and knowing everything that's going to happen in the story. World-building aside, however, I must confess to getting pretty bored with the plot around the mid-point, when Paul is just mucking around in the desert with his Fremen pals. Much like Tolkien, then, I guess Herbert's strengths lay more in "secondary creation" than in plotting. I'm not yet sure if I'll continue with the next entries in the series; I don't know if I want to justify pushing on if I'm going to be bored by those as well. But Dune at least had enough ambition and a sufficiently compelling world to warrant the time I spent there.

Regarding the performance of the audio version, I have to say that it was a truly baffling choice to only utilise a full cast for some portions of the book. I can only assume this was due to budgetary reasons, but this begs the question of why not to simply use a single narrator for the whole thing. The narrator they have is quite good, and could easily have carried the whole thing. The voice cast is quite good too, but the distraction of switching between them doesn't seem at all worth it.

A genre classic with a better setting than story

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I loved the book and sorry it tells, but for me the performances were the best part of the experience! Each narrator with such a grasp on the tones, undertones and intentions of each dialogue, not to mention the main narrator who at times lends his voice to most characters brilliantly. Best audiobook I’ve ever heard!

Performances are outstanding

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