I intended to have this counterpart to the previous thread posted tomorrow, but I figured why not now.

I am a lifelong fan of the Dune series, from the Lynch 1980s movie to the book (that I read years later and loved) to the unfinished works in the Path of Dune collection. Some of the post-Frank Herbert stuff isn't so good to me, but the setting and story and worldbuilding as a whole were always an inspiration for me. It lead me to believe that science fiction didn't have to always be stuffy, that it could be loaded with powerful pathos moments and compelling complex characters.

I admired Isaac Asimov and his overall body of work, but characters in his stories were almost like walking talking plot devices leading to what he really wanted to talk about, by contrast.

It went over a lot of people's heads, but the message that messiah figures and chosen ones and Great Man Theory in general was a dangerous and even ruinous concept was quite a novel message to weave through Dune's themes, especially in its Frank Herbert-written sequels.

Some of Dune aged very poorly, especially stuff like the gender essentialist woo about what women could do versus what men could do in the Bene Gessarit versus the Mentats, respectively. It also has a sort of "the gays are evil" old people bias, as presented with Baron Harkonnen. Even so, I'm a full believer in the idea that it's possible to accept criticism of things we enjoy without going full treat defender against such criticisms.