Maggie's Farm

While you're taking the time to let your fear pass over you and through you, the lion who constitutes the legitimate basis of that fear will snack down on your overly-philosophical arse. Or the warrior from the next tribe over puts a spear or a bullet through your brain.

Dune is without a doubt one of the most pretentious and over-rated novels of modern times. It's a space opera with a dash of Philip K. Dick tossed in, and we get very ill-considered plot holes tossed in among the pretensions to profundity. An example, just off the top of my head: We are told with all solemnity that the loyalty of the trainees of a certain school cannot be broken. The first character we encounter who is a product of this training is already compromised by the farm-fresh innovation of holding his wife hostage.

Seriously, the series just isn't that great.