u/NoAlternative8614

I'm new here, so you all may have discussed this before, but I'd love to get people's recommendations for science fiction works that are actually funny. I realize there's nothing more subjective, but still. I've heard Robert Silverberg is an example but I've never read him. I wasn't crazy about The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but I was crazy about Snow Crash.

Other examples?

What is "the jihad"? Is it a campaign, conducted by the Fremen and led by Muad'Dib, throughout the galaxy? To overthrow the Empire itself? Is the Spacing Guild--whose services I assume they'd need to travel to other planets--okay with that? Does it pit the Fremen against all the Great Houses and the Landsraad? To what end?

In book 1, as I understand it, Paul has visions of it that make it seem both terrible and inevitable. Do I have that right? This will really matter when we get to Dune 3, right? Thanks to all.

I've been re-watching DV's Dune 1 and had a Deep Thought about weaponry. When the Sardaukar attack, the battle is conducted with bombs, science fiction missiles and shimmery wave weapns, and SWORDS. This is another example of the Duniverse's combination of advanced and medieval technologies.

We know why: It's much more dramatic and heroic to have Guerny vanquish bad guys with skilfull moves and muscle, than simply to blast away with a futuristic ray gun. It reminded me of three things:

1. The silly burp guns in Starship Troopers--which is, admittedly, more of a satire than anything else. But they have interstellar travel to deliver foot soldiers to confront the bugs with guns resembling a 1950s children's toy.
2. Indiana Jones dispatching that fighter who brandishes a scimitar by offhandedly drawing a gun and shooting him. I think I read that was improvised. And, of course--
3. Light sabers. Same principle as in Dune: for all the space ships and Death Stars, it's more dramatic (and cinematic) to pit the Jedi heroes and villains against each other with swords. It also enables them to trade dialogue while they fight.

I first read Dune in 1985 and now I'm reading it again. I liked it back then and, to my slight surprise, I like it even more today. I'm trying to figure out why. Although maybe it's no more complicated than the fact that, as with many novels, at first you read for plot, and subsequently you read for subtler things.

One thing I've noticed this time through is that Herbert takes us into the minds of some of the main characters (Paul, Jessica, Leto, Kynes, Feyd-Rautha) via their italicized thoughts--but not all. E.g., I don't think we ever get inside the head of any Fremen. When I mentioned this elsewhere (on a Facebook group) someone said that it demonstrates or dramatizes how, for Paul, etc., the Fremen (and Arrakis itself) are mere instrumentalities, people and resources to be used to attain certain ends.

That's not a bad point. Although it could also be seen as Herbert's way of maintaining the otherness (if not the strangeness) of the Fremen. We (the reader) come to Arrakis like Houses Atreides and Harkonnen--as visitors and exploiters. Regardless of Paul's and Jessica's (and our) special powers, the Fremen will always be something of a mystery. We can be among them, but not of them.