In the beginning I had no idea there was actually a book series. I thought Dune was a single book.
I couldn’t be more mistaken; or misinformed about it.
As soon as I started reading the first book I had to find my way through the universe of Dune. I looked at the encyclopedia in the end of the first volume, but it wasn’t enough. I wanted to know more about the characters and the groups they represented.
And by doing that online research — mostly in Wikipedia — I learned there were 6 books that compose the original set from chronicles written by Frank Herbert himself. Then I learned about the other 2 additional books written by his son and a co-author years after Herbert’s passing.
I struggled to read the first book. The language was hard for me to get. I wasn’t used to it at all. I was far from internalizing the particular terminology, so I had to stop my reading many times to lookup for terms — like, glowglobes or a sietch — then come back to where I was reading and build meaning. It was hard.
I finished the first book and re watched the two movies, from 1984 and 2021. I felt a lot of the concepts and most of the story line to crystalize in my head, and I though I was ready for the book 2, Messiah.
From that point onward I felt my reading capacity has improved a lot, to the point I could increase speed and comprehension at the same time.
I finished the 8th book last night after almost 300 days of reading. I think I have skipped a couple of days here and there but, overall, it was a non-stop literary adventure, something I could have never imagined doing.
I feel happy and motivated to continue reading other book series.
I’m taking some days off to think about options. Asimov’s “Foundation” is a good contender. Let’s see.