“While we, Chani, we who carry the name concubine — history will call us wives.” Said Lady Jessica, a member of the Bene Gesserit sisterhood and concubine to Duke Leto of House Atreides, to Chani, the concubine of Paul Atreides in the last line of the book.

Good artists copy, great artists steal. Pablo Picasso

Back in October/November, I re-read Dune, the book, which I wanted to re-read in preparation for seeing Dune, the movie. The first time I read Dune, I must have been in my late twenties, early thirties and I didn’t remember much detail and the re-reading sucked me right in. Fortuitously, it turned out, by the time the movie came out, I was only about halfway through the book and that’s close to the point at which the movie ended. The half book and the movie are very different in feel but the plot and the characters are almost the same. I liked them both, but neither one seems groundbreaking.

In the case of the book, though, that’s deceptive, Dune, the book, was groundbreaking. It’s just that Dune’s ideas have been so copied that we’ve become used to them. The Star Wars Universe seems the most derivative, Arrakis (Dune) looks pretty much like Tatooine, there is a mysterious organization – that can tune into a deeper reality and control people with their voice, and the known Universe is ruled by a cruel emperor. In both Star Wars and Dune, the people that count are royalty. With the glaring exception of Star Trek, Science Fiction of this era is right wing if not outright Fascist, even those that aren’t, lean that way. Not all, I know but a lot. My current theory is that it is because Science Fiction is basically medieval fantasy without the princess but with space ships and quasi rational sounding explanations for the magic. Sandworms that produce spice aren’t that much different than dragons.

That is not to say that Dune isn’t a fun read, it is, even if it is somewhat dated. Dune was published in 1966 and I read it sometime around that date. At the time, I didn’t pick up on all the references and I’m sure I still didn’t get them all but the book still almost immediately sucked me in, much like Shogun or Lord of the Rings, or, recently, Reamde by Neil Stephenson. All four have interesting characters and all are episodic, even if the other three have better writing. Still, Dune is original and byzantine in its complexity moving the reader along. It is the kind of book I ended up reading whenever possible, like sneaking a peek at while waiting at a stoplight. It also has some interesting surprises that probably would be cut today, like the Fremen were, at one time Sunnis, their war is called jihad, and the goal of every woman is to be a wife.

Dune, the movie, does not seem at all dated, either in plot or sensibility. For me, it was a welcome relief from the comic book feel of so many huge science fiction or fantasy blockbusters. When I say comic book feel, I don’t just mean the Marvel universe, Star Wars has spaceships that cruise around like airplanes – with no visible source of levitation – and then pop over to the next galaxy. In the movie, Dune, the spaceships have weight and the ornithopters feel real, they actually seem affected by gravity. Sitting home, quarantined, with one day fading into the next and each quarantined movie fading into the others, Dune stands out.