Dune is an epic science fiction tale about religion, inter-stellar politics, and the awesomeness of riding around on giant worms that crap out the greatest drug ever.*
The drug in question is called melange, or spice; in addition to extending lifespan, spice allows human beings to see into the future and travel between stars, thus always being able to find a source of Cheetos. Unfortunately, the spice can only be found and mined on the desert planet, Arakis.
Enter Paul Atreides, heir-apparent of the noble family that has just been given control over the planet by the interstellar emperor. In addition to having kick-ass mentors, Paul has a mother who is an ex-supernun (of the order Bene Gesserit). His father, despite being an interstellar Duke, and a fascist, is kind of cool. Oh, and Paul may be the messiah, because he was in utero when his mother was all tripped out on the prescience-inducing melange.
But he may not live long enough to fulfill this destiny, because the House Harkonnen doesn’t really want to give up the lucrative planet to his father. The head of the Harkonnen clan is Vladimir, who has an apocalyptic eating disorder. He requires anti-gravity devices to move and he is so depraved, he actually enjoys having his disturbed human-computer (mentat) lance his numerous boils. He also lusts after his nephew, 1980s Sting; to be fair, Sting likes to dress in a leather breechclout kind of thing, so if you swing that way … well, ring-a-ding. So yeah, the Harkonnens are bad. Obscene. Naturally, they try to have the Atreides killed.
Luckily, Paul manages to escape death (unlike his dad) and he is rescued by the desert-dwelling Freemen. They are basically a mix of Jihadis, Zen masters, and seriously kickass ninjas who wear rubber suits. They teach Paul how to drink his own piss and ride around on giant worms. But not in a gay way.
Worst of all, the Harkonnens have a stranglehold on the Cheetos shipments to Arakis. (How else to you think Vladimir got all his boils?) It is up to Paul, or Muad’Dib, as he is known to the ultra-butch Freemen, to avenge his father’s death, and free all the Freemen (and Cheetos) on the planet.
*Actually, it’s the larval stage of the giant sandworms that crap out the spice.
I’ve never actually read Dune; I keep meaning to but I’d like to tackle the books in the right order and have never taken the time to work out what that actually is. Still, whichever one has a central pop-up of Sting in his underpants is the one I’m saving to last.
That would be the David Lynch edition 🙂
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