Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Dune was written by Frank Herbert, and was published in 1965. Here is an excerpt.

In the week before their departure to Arrakis, when all the final scurrying about had reached a nearly unbearable frenzy, an old crone came to visit the mother of the boy, Paul. It was a warm night at Castle Caladan, and the ancient pile of stone that had served the Atreides family as home for twenty-six generations bore that cooled-sweat feeling it acquired before a change in the weather.
The old woman was let in by the side door down the vaulted passage by Paul's room and she was allowed a moment to peer in at him where he lay in his bed. By the half-light of a suspensor lamp, dimmed and hanging near the floor, the awakened boy could see a bulky female shape at his door, standing one step ahead of his mother. The old woman was a witch shadow -- hair like matted spiderwebs, hooded 'round darkness of features, eyes like glittering jewels. "Is he not small for his age, Jessica?" the old woman asked. Her voice
wheezed and twanged like an untuned baliset. Paul's mother answered in her soft contralto: "The Atreides are known to start late getting their growth, Your Reverence." "So I've heard, so I've heard," wheezed the old woman. "Yet he's already fifteen."  (............................)"Sleep well, you sly little rascal," said the old woman. "Tomorrow you'll need all your faculties to meet my gom jabbar." And she was gone, pushing his mother out, closing the door with a solid thump. Paul lay awake wondering: What's a gom jabbar? In all the upset during this time of change, the old woman was the strangest thing he had seen. Your Reverence. And the way she called his mother Jessica like a common serving wench instead of what she was -- a Bene Gesserit Lady, a duke's concubine and mother of the ducal heir. (...................................)There had been so many things to learn. Arrakis would be a place so different from Caladan that Paul's mind whirled with the new knowledge.
Thufir Hawat, his father's Master of Assassins, had explained it: their mortal enemies, the Harkonnens, had been on Arrakis eighty years, holding the planet in quasi-fief under a CHOAM Company contract to mine the geriatric spice, melange. Now the Harkonnens were leaving to be replaced by the House of Atreides in fief-complete -- an apparent victory for the Duke Leto. Yet, Hawat had said, this appearance contained the deadliest peril, for the Duke Leto was popular among the Great Houses of the Landsraad. A popular man arouses the jealousy of the powerful," Hawat had said.

Paul fell asleep to dream of an Arrakeen cavern, silent people all around him moving in the dim light of glowglobes. It was solemn there and like a cathedral as he listened to a faint sound -- the drip-drip-drip of water. Even while he remained in the dream, Paul knew he would remember it upon awakening. He always remembered the dreams that were predictions. The dream faded. (....................)Paul sensed his own tensions, decided to practice one of the mind-body lessons his mother had taught him. Three quick breaths triggered the responses:  he fell into the floating awareness . . . focusing the consciousness . . . aortal dilation . . . avoiding the unfocused mechanism of consciousness . . . to be conscious by choice . . . blood enriched and swift-flooding the overload regions . . . one does not obtain food-safety-freedom by instinct alone . .  animal consciousness does not extend beyond the given moment nor into the idea that its victims may become extinct . . . the animal destroys and does not produce . . . animal pleasures remain close to sensation levels and avoid the perceptual . . . the human requires a background grid through which to see his universe . . . focused consciousness by choice, this forms your grid . . . bodily integrity follows nerve-blood flow according to the deepest awareness of cell needs . . . all things/cells/beings are impermanent . . . strive for flowpermanence within .http://www.dunenovels.com/

5 comments:

  1. i think the video is very interesting
    for me the video is wonderdul I like the scienc fiction

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  2. Dune is really beautiful science fiction novel and I admire someone who is able to create a complex world, imagine in a novel, when I read . At first view, I liked a lot because the novel takes place on another planet, The scenario is so complex, fascinating …of course really interesting. I think this book is very good for somebody who like science fiction .... by Emanuel Saico

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  3. Well, I don't like so much the science-fiction movies or books, but this part of the book that I read is interesting, specially when Paul was relax and can feel all the elemental and corporal characteristics. normally we can not feel this, but we can if we concentrate for long time.

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  4. Dune is a science fiction novel that is set in the future, but does not focus on technological advances but rather focuses on combating the trade in a product that could well resemble the oil of our times. Beyond the desertic planets and the stories of giant animals says a lot about racial struggles. This wonderful history we would read several times to understand better. These stories are fascinating. Enjoy it!

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  5. Well, I am the kind of person who really likes the stories about the future, how will be the life in our world or even in other worlds, I enjoy when a good book makes me feel I am inside the story, Dune is the kind of book which makes you feel like that. I hadn`t heard about Frank Herbert, but now that I have read this little part extracted from the book, I really want to buy it to continue reading. because I think it is fantastic literary work.
    cristobal m.ch.

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