With the release of Denis Villeneuve’s new version of Frank Herbert’s Dune brought to the big screen, it seemed a terrible oversight to not have a post here at the Butterflies & Aliens Library about the original book, in many ways a key piece of our origin story…

For me, Dune would probably be the book I would name as my favourite book, if forced to make such a choice. For our Butterfly-in-Chief, she has declared Dune to be “one of the few books I would ever re-read,” which, if you know her, you know to be the highest of praise.

Both of us first discovered and read Dune when we were in junior high, and it was one of the books we bonded over when we first met. Its impact on our developing young minds was profound in so many ways.

One oft-quoted piece is the Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear:

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

I started repeating this litany a lot when I first heard word of yet another adaptation for the screen. No surprise I’m sure, but full disclosure on our biases… we are both “the book was better than the movie” people by hard default. All the more so when it’s such a personally influential book.

For us, Dune was about the books and our experience of reading them. We both still own the full six-book original series, in what I consider to be the most classic and iconic of covers…

As a kid, reading these adult AND science fiction paperbacks under the covers, late into the night – what at the time seemed a supremely transgressive act with what, at the time, seemed a supremely transgressive book – influenced me deeply.

The book explores complex themes on both a galactic and eminently human scale, including political intrigue, family dynamics, friendship and loyalty, leadership and power, religion and belief, ecology and economics, the limits and potential of humanity. The world/galaxy-building rivals the level of detail of The Lord of the Rings, and in fact I and many others have described Dune as being to science fiction what LOTR is to fantasy.

And on a much more personal level, the exploration of the clash of cultures, the effect of environment on culture, and the subtleties of dual/multiple identities, or of trying to navigate an identity that crosses group lines, was especially powerful for me as a youth.

So #SpoilerAlert, a small plot reveal ahead, but there is one scene in particular that still... haunts me? Shakes me? Resonates with me and continues to colour my view of the world?

A central premise of Dune is that it’s set on a desert planet, so for the indigenous people there the most precious substance anywhere is water. There is a scene early in the book where the new planetary governor from off-planet meets the local leader for the first time, and as soon as the local leader walks in he spits on the table directly in front of the new governor and his council. Everyone jumps up and starts to draw their weapons, to kill this man for this affront, when the emissary of the off-planet governor leaps in front and yells "HOLD! HOLD!" Then turning to the local leader, he says "we thank you for the gift of your body's water" and also spits on the table.

This rocked my world when I first read it... the idea or illustration or maybe proof that I was not insane for seeing the world differently than most people around me... or so I felt at the time. That there were layers of meaning and nuance and vastly different ways of perceiving and interpreting the world around us. This came to mind again in recent discussions I've had about impact versus intention and questions of cultural sensitivity. Dune helped me… made me… question the world around me.

All this from a beat up paperback book that few people seemed to consider important or ‘literary’ or worth much care or concern.

So imagine my surprise, years later, in my early days of university as an English major, seeing a catalogue arrive in the mail from the Easton Press advertising this…

The red leather, gold embossed cover of the Easter Press edition of *Dune*.

Still caught in the old traditional thinking of literary canons and definitions of ‘high art’ versus ‘low art,’ I was literally confused over seeing my favourite book presented in a physical form theretofore reserved, in my mind then, only for ‘real literature’ like your Shakespeares and Miltons and King James Bibles. My first reaction was actually to wonder “are you even allowed to do this?” Looking back, the level of unconscious bias at play was staggering.

Because this was, in fact, exactly how I felt this book should be treated, venerated, cherished, protected. Not only did it have a gorgeous red leather cover with a simple but elegant gold embossed illustration and typography, it also had the gilt edges and ribbon bookmark built in, fancy endpapers, nice paper that you wanted to rub your fingers on. Re-reading Dune in this format was an entirely new experience, one that I would later describe as hearing your favourite indie band’s music, first heard in some smoky bar as venue, now being performed by a symphony in a concert hall… same music, a much different performance. This was one of the moments that seeded the idea of the symphony of the book and the book as performance.

Side view of the Easter Press edition of *Dune*, showing off its heft and gilded edges…

My collection of Dune editions has continued to grow since then. It is not a huge collection, but it brings me an overabundance of joy for its size…

Five different print ‘performances’ of Frank Herbert’s *Dune*.

The wall display where the collection currently resides…

The latest addition is this amazing Ace hardcover edition, with its stunning use of teal blue on both the dust jacket and the book block edges.

Rounding out the collection… for now… is the recently-released graphic novel version (covering just the first half of just the first Dune book, just like the new Villeneuve movie) and an edition that’s part of the Penguin Galaxy series of six science-fiction/fantasy classics (somewhat ironic as a part of a ‘new canon’ of annointed literature).

One closing note, about an edition of Dune that I am expressly NOT going to buy… the Folio Society Collector’s Edition (as distinguished from their Limited Edition, which at CAD$945, is not in our collection for purely financial reasons… hashtag SantaBaby or anyone else who’d like to make a donation to the cause!). But as beautiful as it is, the Folio Collector’s Edition was, surprisingly to me, produced with a cover that is blue and grey with flecks of white in the illustration.

Image of the Folio Society Collector’s Edition of *Dune*. Image courtesy of the Folio Society website because this edition is definitely *not* in our collection.

As a Canadian, this cover is so completely evocative of snow and cold, and so completely unevocative of heat and sand, that I physically recoiled from my screen upon first seeing it. It just feels viscerally wrong.

Put another way, you can’t play the Imperial March from Star Wars on a banjo and still have it work. Sometimes form and function do need to align more closely.

But to end this post on a high note, and to give credit where credit is due in spades, I will close this post with an image of the aforementioned Folio Society Limited Edition that does achieve that alignment of form and function, and how. The design of both included books, the relative weight of design between book and commentary, the AMAZING presentation box, the accompanying ephemera… it’s all just so so well done.

Perhaps one day I will get to see this ‘Sydney Opera House’ performance in person.

But in the meantime, happy enjoyment of whatever performance of Dune to which you have access. Yes, even the Villeneuve one…

– Winston

From water does all life begin…

A miniature fairy library…

Know Your Weird: The Organization of Information