Dune is a science fiction novel written by Frank Herbert and published in 1965. A joint winner of the 1966 Hugo Award and the winner of the first Nebula Award for Best Novel, Dune is popularly considered one of the greatest science fiction novels of all time, is frequently cited as the best-selling science fiction novel in history and was the first bestselling hardcover science fiction novel ever. Dune spawned five sequels written by Herbert, and inspired a 1984 film adaptation by David Lynch, two mini-series made by the Sci Fi Channel, computer games, board games, and a series of prequels and sequels co-written by the author's son Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson.
Dune is set far in the future amidst a sprawling feudal interstellar empire where planetary fiefdoms are controlled by noble Houses that owe allegiance to the Imperial House Corrino. The novel tells the story of young Paul Atreides (heir apparent to Duke Leto Atreides and scion of House Atreides) as he and his family relocate to the planet Arrakis, the only source of the spice melange, the most important and valuable substance in the universe. In a story that explores the complex interactions of politics, religion, ecology, technology, and human emotion, the fate of Paul, his family, his new planet and its native inhabitants, as well as the Padishah Emperor, the powerful Spacing Guild, and the secretive female order of the Bene Gesserit, are all drawn together into a confrontation that will change the course of humanity.
In 1957, after the publication of The Dragon in the Sea, Herbert had begun the initial stages of planning his next novel. He took a plane to Florence, Oregon, where the USDA was sponsoring a lengthy series of experiments in using poverty grasses to stabilize and slow down the damaging sand dunes, which could "swallow whole cities, lakes, rivers, highways"; his article on that, "They Stopped the Moving Sands", was never completed (and was only published decades later in an incomplete form in The Road to Dune) but it interested Herbert in the general subject of ecology and related matters; he spent the next five years continuing research and writing and rewriting what would eventually become Dune, though it was Spice Planet before the novel was serialized in the magazine Analog from 1963 to 1965 as two shorter works, Dune World and The Prophet of Dune. Herbert's dedicatory remarks were, "to the people whose labors go beyond ideas into the realm of 'real materials'- to the dry-land ecologists, wherever they may be, in whatever time they work, this effort at prediction is dedicated in humility and admiration." The serialized version was expanded and reworked; this version was rejected by twenty publishers prior to its eventual publication, although at least one editor realized the possible mistake: "I was unhappy to learn that Scribner's rejected Dune. The editor's comment that he may have been mistaken (in doing so) — let us hope that's prophetic."