The first novel in a series of five, Dune introduces its readers to the Atreides family and the world of Arrakis. Frank Herbert creates in the Dune novels not merely a fictional setting but an entire world, complete with its own ecology, history, religion, and social customs. Winner of both the Hugo and Nebula awards for science fiction writing, Dune bridges the gap between the fictional future and the realistic present. Herbert's themes, while set in the future, clearly relate to the social and historical issues of his own day.
Space travel. In the appendices to Dune, Herbert notes that "mankind's movement through deep space placed a unique stamp on religion.... Immediately space gave a different flavor and sense to ideas of Creation" (Herbert, Dune, p. 501). The novel's sacred regard for the space frontier is a reflection of the author's own times. On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched the world's first manmade satellite, Sputnik. America looked on this aeronautic achievement as a challenge to its own struggling space program. On July 29, 1958, after months of congressional debate, President Dwight D.
