Dune’s Covers and Games

One of my favourite science fiction books is Frank Herbert’s Dune. I think it is an amazing book, a great blend of the hero’s journey, technology and clashes of culture. But it also takes on other great issues – the ecological discussion, the issues of colonialism and the nature of authority. A total classic. I’m not so keen on the following books, which seem to hit the second difficult album syndrome. Now this is the cover of the version I first read (bought from a charity shop):

It shows a close-up of a Fremen in the desert. But in reading about the book on Wikipedia I saw the cover image for the first edition, which is really beautiful! A semi-expressionist take on Dune:

Following on from this you notice how many variations of the book’s cover have been done over the years, from the minimal…

To the maximal…

We should also remember that the Dune universe was the basis for the first distinct Real Time Strategy game, Dune II, which kept me up all night several times playing it (on the Sega Mega Drive)…