Dune

[tagonist]

I reread Dune after maybe sixteen or seventeen years. Wow, I do not like that book. I mean, I don't know much about Frank Herbert as a person, and I certainly appreciate Paul Stamets' analysis of Dune as a hallucinogenic mushroom metaphor ("converting the water"- okay I see that) but the crypto-fascism is just overwhelming. From the very beginning we're separating people from humans (humans good, people little better than animals, difference is ability to regulate emotion) and carried through the whole middle of the novel on the premise that cruelty breeds strength, familiarity and compassion are weaknesses and, by the duel at the end, that direct physical strength, speed and violence are better than negotiation or politics (which is repeatedly symbolized by a poisoned needle.)

Also, and I really mean this as an aside, his hypothetical ecosystem violates the laws of thermodynamics.