In college, I took a Lit class where the professor gave us a list of books, told us to pick three of them, and write a report about each by the end of the semester. As a YA fantasy and scifi reader, I had little interest in any of the classics on the list, but I noticed Dune by Frank Herbert and decided to make it one of the three.
I burned through it in less than a week, and when the professor told us to present one of our reports to the class for our final, I knew exactly what I would do.
I’d never read a story that felt so fantastical and so real at the same time. Here was this strange world with giant worms, interstellar travel, and drug-fueled magical powers, and yet the people felt more human than a lot of “realistic” fiction I’d read.
What’s more, it was a cautionary tale about the dangers of hero worship, and how easy it can be for the people who obtain power to be consumed by it. Given that this was shortly before the 2016 election, that struck me like nothing before it.
In college, I took a Lit class where the professor gave us a list of books, told us to pick three of them, and write a report about each by the end of the semester. As a YA fantasy and scifi reader, I had little interest in any of the classics on the list, but I noticed Dune by Frank Herbert and decided to make it one of the three.
I burned through it in less than a week, and when the professor told us to present one of our reports to the class for our final, I knew exactly what I would do.
I’d never read a story that felt so fantastical and so real at the same time. Here was this strange world with giant worms, interstellar travel, and drug-fueled magical powers, and yet the people felt more human than a lot of “realistic” fiction I’d read.
What’s more, it was a cautionary tale about the dangers of hero worship, and how easy it can be for the people who obtain power to be consumed by it. Given that this was shortly before the 2016 election, that struck me like nothing before it.