THE SHORTENING OF THE WAY

With a new Dune movie in cinemas and a TV series in the offing, BOB RICKARD dons his still-suit and probes the origin of Frank Herbert’s protagonists – the Kwisatz Haderech – and their mysterious ability to transcend space and time.

Every other year, I re-read Frank Herbert’s Dune books1 because I thoroughly enjoy their richly crafted, imaginative worlds and always find something new in their intelligent writing. Now we also have a fresh film adaptation, this time directed by Denis Villeneuve (reviewed p.66), who is also overseeing a companion TV series Dune: The Sisterhood. The engine of Dune’s main story arc – the mysterious process or person Herbert calls Kwisatz Haderech – is introduced early on in an encounter between Leto (Duke of House Atreides), his concubine Jessica (mother of the boy-hero Paul) and Liet Kynes (the Imperially-appointed planetologist to the ultra-dry world of Arrakis).2 The story of Dune begins some 20,000 years into our future and Paul Atreides is no ordinary lad. He is the product of a eugenics programme spanning…

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Fortean Times (Digital) - 1 Issue, 411

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