Dune by Frank Herbert

Essay by majikdragon_420High School, 10th gradeA+, May 2004

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The author of my book, Dune, was Frank Herbert (1920 - 1986). Herbert was very smart as a child and in school he was known to everybody as the authority on information. At his eighth birthday party, Herbert stood on top of their dining room table and announced that he wanted to be an author. He went to the University of Washington where he met his second wife, Beverly, and although he was well capable of graduating, he didn't because he didn't want to take the required classes, only the ones that he was interested in. It took him six years to write Dune and 23 publishers rejected it before someone finally accepted it. Herbert wrote nearly 30 popular novels in his lifetime.

The book starts out with the Atreides family on the planet Caladan: a planet full of water and life everywhere. The Atreides soon move to the planet Arrakis, also known as Dune, to take control from the Harkonnens.

On Arrakis, the Atreides encounter many problems. Dune is a desert planet with no bodies of water to be found and the constant threat of enormous sandworms are everywhere. The Duke Leto Atreides is killed due to a traitor leaving his concubine and ducal heir to fend for themselves on this desert planet. The heir of the Duke, Paul Atreides, is thought a to be a messiah among the Fremen (the natives of Arrakis), so they take him in and he faces several tests to prove that he is the Lisan Al-Gaib (their prophet). The Lady Jessica (Duke Leto's concubine, and mother of Paul) and Paul learn what it takes to survive on this planet with the help of the Fremen. Paul becomes the leader of the Fremen and teaches them many things as they teach him and Jessica...