Dune is a science fiction novel taking place in the distant future where some form of space feudalism runs the galaxy. The book thoroughly explores many interweaving plot elements and themes, from politics, to religion, to industrialization, ecology, and more. All relating to a harsh desert planet named Arrakis. Arrakis is the only source of an important drug referred to as "the spice" which enhances the mind of its user and is treasured by the elites. Forcing a dangerous competition among spice dependent elites for control of the planet.
Dune tends to focus on its more high-brow subject matter, like its commentary on religion, its in depth political power struggle, heavy moral themes, and its characters. It takes its time setting up well thought out themes, meanings, and storylines which cohesively interact in the complex world to make its events deeply effective. Where other sci-fi works are seemingly only interested in endlessly stimulating you with the most ridiculous technology, lore, and non-stop action, dune exercises a great restraint to avoid describing too much technology and only uses action tastefully to contribute to or complete some meaningful thematic element of the story. Making many action scenes incredibly climactic both on the surface and on the many layers beneath. The book makes a unique use of worldbuilding where the ecology of the planet is viewed as the primary driving force behind its culture, which makes the culture of the native fremen very detailed, cohesive, and consistently interesting.
Dune is one of the best works of science fiction out there, perhaps even the single best. It is written with competence and subtlety, in a genre which is usually just brute forced attention grabbing action. It's so different from normal sci-fi that the author prefers to just call it a traditional epic adventure. You might think this would make the book boring, but I found myself fully engaged by it every step of the way. The reader can sense the themes at work before they've found a way to quantify what those themes are. That thematic sense keeps the reader constantly imagining, thinking and processing interesting information, contemplating what it all means. Sometimes I even had to stop reading and just sit there and think about what I had just read, because it was just filled with perfectly interesting information to chew on. I highly recommend this book.
SPOILERS BELOW
One of the themes I enjoyed the most from the book is the character arc of paul, he starts out as a well off kid in a wacky situation then ends up leading a dangerous jihad that usurps the empire. A combination of things allowed him to do this. Firstly his mother being a member of some shadow-government cult which abuses the spice to gain superhuman abilities. She teaches him that he may have a great destiny within this cult but doesnt reveal that this destiny she is presenting as a prophecy is just a breeding program designed to create a genetic masterpiece that will wield powers such as prescience. This cult intends to present their "Kwisatz Haderach" as a messiah, encouraging him to grab all the political power in the universe.
He then gets involved with the fremen, the extremely religious natives of arrakis who give him high doses of spice, which opens his mind to some future events. He is worshipped as the fulfillment of some sort of prophecy and becomes preoccupied with analyzing the future and guiding his followers to his ideal future. Here is when he begins to show his tendency to dismiss moral issues in favor of his selfish needs like revenge and power. He uses his leadership position to guide the fremen in a jihad against the empire's best soliders, who's financial motivations can't compare to the fremen's religious fanaticism, so the fremen prove to be the better soliders. Paul revels in this power of his. He feeds this fanaticism with some dishonesty as his goals clearly extend beyond the needs of arrakis and its natives, until the end of the book when he usurps the throne and is forced to recognize the danger of the jihad that he started out of a sort of selfishness but is no longer able to stop.
Paul's character is constantly in a struggle where his free will influences his destiny but his destiny influences his will. The book does a good job of critiquing the concept of destiny through this struggle, viewing it largely as a tool of paul's ego.
One theme at play is the limitations of gender. The bene gesserit are a matriarchal society, their understanding of fear in particular is inherently feminine. The destiny of the kwisatz haderach, as the perfect male engineered by this matriarchal society is to conquer both the masculine and the feminine visions of fear. He is the fusion of both modes of existence. This can be seen when he drinks the water of life and survives despite it being deadly to males. He has conquered the limitations of masculinity and the limitations of femininity, which manifests as pretty unsubtle superpowers which allow him to conquer the galaxy as he does.
Many struggles take place between some characters and some danger of arrakis, the whole mining operation is endangered by sandworms, the fremen struggle to survive with the scarcity of the water and the terrible weather, etc. These struggles point to a theme of humanity vs nature. This interacts with another common theme of the book, fear. The characters learn in various ways to consciously defeat their fear, this discipline is why humans can compete with nature as much as they do. The book often explores the idea of humanity destroying nature, and makes it feel like a real conflict when the characters defeat their fear. Whether nature or humanity is more dangerous is uncertain, but what can be certain is that this struggle will continue to the bitter end.
Outside of themes and symbolism and all that, the political power struggle plot is also extremely well done. What stood out to me is the competition between characters to fulfill various roles in the political game. Such as the competition between feyd-rautha and paul, which ends spectacularly. Or paul's father vs the baron harkonnen, which ends tragically then converts into the competition between feyd-rautha and paul. All of these competitions are intense to watch and make for a consistently interesting plot.
There is more to unpack in this book but I barely felt qualified to write what I've already written, so I will stop here before I get into something I'm certainly not capable of analyzing.