Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

Duna by Frank Herbert

8 reviews

wickedgrumpy's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful reflective tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

Well, if that isn't the spiciest book I've ever read.

🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️

All jokes aside, I wasn't expecting to cry while reading this book but dang, it got me in my feels.  I was familiar enough with the plot due to seeing so many versions of it, including the most recent adaption, and while the adaptions are quite faithful, there was nuance that was omitted and I appreciated the journey of reading this to find those little bits.

---

Content Warnings

Minor: Addiction, Body horror, Body shaming, Child death, Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Genocide, Mental illness, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Racism, Self harm, Sexism, Slavery, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Blood, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Colonisation, Dysphoria, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

qfb12449's review against another edition

challenging reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror and Pedophilia

naomi_k's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Death of parent, Murder, Colonisation, and Classism

Moderate: Addiction, Body horror, Torture, Xenophobia, and War

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Fatphobia, Homophobia, Racism, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, and Religious bigotry

luminifera's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I find some of the characters very annoying for many different reasons, but the worst for sure is Chani. She simply

has no personality outside of being Paul's love interest

, which is kind of outrageous.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, Cultural appropriation, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, War, and Classism

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Cursing, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Incest, Miscarriage, Pedophilia, Rape, Vomit, and Medical content

It's about the colonization of a planet, and the main character is The Chosen One. Expect violence, war, and of course plenty of misogyny - this book is from the 1960s and was written by a man. Some things are simply offensive.

scrubsandbooks's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Fatphobia, Violence, and Death of parent

Moderate: Pedophilia

Minor: Rape and Slavery

thevampiremars's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

“Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic.”

I didn’t really know what to expect going in. I knew it was a science fiction classic featuring a young man called Paul on a desert planet that may or may not be called Dune, and I knew that there were big worms and something to do with spice – a rough outline, nothing more.

I think Dune can best be described as sci-fi for history buffs. It’s full of political intrigue, factions and dynasties, empire building, and so on, but also of note are the incessant spoilers courtesy of Princess Irulan. We are told who these characters are and what they will go on to do, to the extent that it sometimes feels like watching a reenactment of what happened or a dramatisation of a well-known legend rather than events unfolding in real time. At first I was thrown off by it but I adjusted and learnt to accept the writing for what it is instead of getting hung up on what I thought it would be.

Dune is, above all else, a story about expectations and adaptation. Having to adjust my own perspective in response to this curveball of a novel meant there was a neat parallel between my own reading experience and the experiences of the characters on the page having to adjust to life on Arrakis – a good avenue for sympathy and connection.

Paul, our protagonist, is entirely shaped by the expectations placed upon him.

He takes on various names and titles over the course of the story (Duke Paul Atreides, the Kwisatz Haderach, the Lisan al Gaib, Muad’Dib, Usul) and these personas seem to supersede any true sense of self he may have once had. His identity fractures and frays at the climax; not only does he flit back and forth between multiple selves, he also refers to them in the third person and assigns them different motives and personalities (“You have the word of a Duke [...] but Muad’Dib is another matter.”) I don’t know if I’d insist that Paul is plural, but his selfhood is certainly compromised and complicated by all these assumed identities.

Of course, while I’m on the topic of identity, I have to talk about gender – this book is riddled with it. I wouldn’t be the first to point out that women exist in this narrative only as they relate to men, and that they’re portrayed as intuitive, emotional, nurturing, and, above all, passive. I also wouldn’t be the first to note the queerness inherent to the Kwisatz Haderach, a boy with access to powers normally possessed only by women, who can see “both masculine and feminine pasts” – “the male who can truly become one of us.”

Paul has a drug-induced epiphany late in the novel wherein he claims women are givers and men are takers, and that he himself is “the fulcrum” who cannot give without taking nor take without giving.

That moment serves as a good demonstration of Dune’s strange synthesis of essentialism and transgressiveness. And I must say, the fulcrum quote really resonated with me as a genderqueer person.

I’ve talked about Paul, now it’s time to talk about Baron Harkonnen.

He starts off as a vague force of evil that influences the actions of others, only becoming a fully fledged character after the betrayal of Duke Leto.

Herbert could not have made it any clearer that this guy is a villain we’re supposed to loathe. Not only is he a power-hungry capitalist, he’s also an incestuous pedophile and (even worse!) he’s very fat. Yeah, the fatphobia is... not great. And that’s not the only thorny issue here. Dune is inseparable from its Orientalist manner, genocide is treated as set dressing, and eugenics (though criticised) does seem to be granted some legitimacy within the narrative. I don’t want to dwell on these problematic elements but at the same time I can’t disregard them.

Does Dune deserve four and a half stars? Probably not. Am I going to give it four and a half stars anyway? You bet. It’s not beyond criticism (far from it) but I thoroughly enjoyed it nonetheless. I’m curious to see where the story goes from here and I’ve already ordered Dune Messiah, but I won’t be reading it just yet because I have quite a backlog of unread books to work through first. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Sexism, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Ableism, Addiction, Body horror, Child abuse, Genocide, Gore, Incest, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Racism, Rape, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicide, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, and War

Minor: Alcoholism, Animal death, Child death, Gun violence, Homophobia, Self harm, Excrement, Islamophobia, Cannibalism, Fire/Fire injury, and Alcohol

claudiamacpherson's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Embarking on the odyssey that is this book, my only expectation was that I would be confused, having been warned (correctly) by Booktok that Herbert’s worldbuilding is of the variety that throws you in the deep end and expects you to figure it out. With Zendaya and Timothee Chalamet as my motivation, however, I flew through the first hundred pages or so (which, in my opinion, were the most confusing), and was quickly sucked into the world of Arrakis. The first 100-or-so pages of confusion aside, the worldbuilding was incredible—not only did the scientific explanations in this science fiction novel make sense (as a former biochemist, poorly researched or explained science is one of the biggest reasons I rarely read this genre), but I also found myself becoming extremely conscious of my own water use. In the (likely not-too-distant) future, water will be a much rarer and more valuable resource. This made me wonder whether Herbert suspected as much when Dune came out, or if this all came from his imagination.

I’ve heard about a lot of controversy surrounding the content of the novel, and I’m still not sure where I fall in the debate. My initial impression was that this is a classic white savior story (it definitely gave me blue-people-Avatar vibes), and Herbert definitely uses some orientalizing imagery—yikes. On the other hand, Paul doesn’t seem to be the glorified hero that so many stories have; in fact, as the story progresses, he becomes more and more clearly flawed. If this was Herbert’s intention (and I confess, I don’t know enough about Herbert or the historical context of the novel to determine whether or not it was), then the novel could be a critique of the white savior narrative. But then again, if it’s not obvious enough, then this message is lost of many readers and will be used to justify that which it critiques. To me, the much more obvious problems were the rigid gender roles (this man really wrote a novel set far in the future and thought men would still be in charge of everything?). Of course, the Bene Gesserit have power, and I did find that whole concept fascinating (not the eugenics, but the idea that they planted folktales and prophecies in various communities that could be used as protection for their own whenever they might need it). But despite their power, they have all taken a backseat role, and besides their order, we meet only a few other named female characters. I also don’t like the concept of multiple wives/concubines (again, this feels problematically orientalizing).

The added information at the beginning of each chapter (usually from Princess Irulan) was interesting (though sometimes confusing). I have never minded spoilers in the way that some people do, so I kind of liked that  Dune essentially spoils itself with this framing.

I was surprised, however, when we learn (somewhere around halfway through the novel) that Princess Irulan is actually alive concurrently with Paul—I had been imagining her as a scholar farther in the future, recording this history a generation or two later.

As a side note, I found it very funny that Herbert named whole planets and invented multiple new civilizations, but named his main characters Paul and Jessica (rather along the lines of Tolkein coming up with several entire languages, but calling the location of the story’s climax “Mount Doom”).

Happy ending meter (no specific spoilers, just the general vibe of the ending):

I don’t know that this could really be called a happy ending, though it’s honestly better than I was expecting (I wouldn’t have put it past Herbert to kill Paul in the end). It’s not exactly a cliffhanger, but definitely feels unfinished, and I’ve already put the sequel on hold at my library!

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Murder, Colonisation, and War

Moderate: Body horror, Death, Drug use, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, and Death of parent

Minor: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, Child abuse, Child death, Homophobia, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Kidnapping, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, and Alcohol

owenwilsonbaby's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

I really liked this book! It's the first book I've read for fun in almost two years and I think it may have reset something inside my brain. It is very long and the pacing drags at times but the plotting and narration more than make up for it.

I would definitely say I found the first two sections of the book - Dune and Muad'Dib - much more interesting. I think that might just be my personal preference for

tragedies and survival narratives

but the last part felt comparatively weaker, mainly owing to strange pacing, as information was released very slowly and then very quickly. I LOVED the themes of self-loathing and foreboding around an individual's own capabilities. In particular, the

dark prescience and subsequent self-loathing

Paul experiences. The

burdened with 'a great and terrible purpose' line

feels like it was specifically written in for my angsty tastes!

I did struggle with the scope of the world building. Often, in order to motivate myself to keep reading, I would just have to accept that I didn't really grasp all of the wider political and social contexts for the events of a scene. I also had to make peace with the fact that it's a book from the 1960s, so sometimes it's tricky to tell if it's pro or anti capitalist, and also that sometimes its Islamic influences can read a bit islamophobically. Also the blatant homophobia of having the villain

be the only camp and queer coded character but also a paedophile!

Overall it's definitely a good book and a well-deserved classic - I'm more excited for the movie now I kind of understand the plot and world! It is going to be interesting to see how Villeneuve cuts the book in half. I definitely think the first two sections are stronger and will make an excellent film, but I'm not sure the final third will work as a standalone.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship and Violence

Moderate: Body horror, Pedophilia, Torture, Medical content, Grief, and Religious bigotry

Minor: Homophobia and Islamophobia

I was really surprised by the homophobia and Islamophobia in this book. It's not massively present but it is there. And the Baron's queer-coding is often directly linked to his inherent evilness and paedophillia, so tread lightly when reading.