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Narrative
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I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
Popular series of Speculative Fiction novels, originated by Frank Herbert and continued after his death by his son Brian. The original novel, published in 1965 after being rejected twenty times by various publishers, is set approximately 16,000 years in The Future, in a galaxy-spanning empire loosely based on the Holy Roman Empire, ruled by feuding nobles, arcane religious sects, and Byzantine corporate monopolies. Its five sequels by the original author, and further prequels and sequels by Brian Herbert, span nearly 20,000 years of Galactic history overall.
Much of the action throughout the series takes place on the titular planet: Arrakis, commonly called Dune. Arrakis is a desert planet largely populated by the nomadic, xenophobic Fremen, and would be of little interest to the rest of the galaxy if not for one thing - it is the only source in the entire galaxy of "spice", an all-purpose chemical that triples the human lifespan and makes Faster Than Light Travel possible. As the story opens, the Atreides family have just gained control over the Arrakis fiefdom from their longtime rivals, House Harkonnen - but this turns out to be a cunning plan by the Harkonnen and the Emperor to eliminate the Atreides, who the Emperor has come to see as a threat to his own power. The fifteen-year-old Paul Atreides, sole heir to the family line, escapes into the desert with his mother and takes refuge with the Fremen, where, upon adopting their ways and their religion, he becomes the "Kwizatz Haderach", a long-awaited Messiah with the power to see into the future. Taking the name Muad'dib, he unites the Fremen tribes into a jihadist army that eventually defeat both the Harkonnens and the Imperium, and Paul declares himself Emperor as the novel comes to a close.
That's the first novel.
The first two sequels, Dune Messiah and Children of Dune, conclude Paul's story as he comes to realize that prescience is a trap - by seeing into the future, one dooms oneself to live out that vision. In order to prevent the spice from running out and causing the collapse of all human civilization, he must sacrifice himself, and his son Leto merges with several larvae of the soon-to-be-extinct sandworms that produce the spice, becoming one himself.
God Emperor of Dune, the fourth novel in the series, picks up 3500 years later at the end of Leto's reign. The final two novels by Frank Herbert, Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse Dune, occur 5000 years after that, as the distant descendants of the characters from the first novels struggle to escape the destiny created for them. Herbert died before completing Hunters of Dune, the final story in the "second trilogy" beginning with Heretics.
Recently, Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson said they used notes from Herbert found in a safety deposit box to write prequels and one sequel to the Dune series. They were not very well received, - Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear
 and most fans do not consider them canon. They're not bad, although they don't contain that much philosophy or ecology as the original novels, and their plots move much faster. FHM magazine once speculated that while they may have begun with notes from a deposit box, by the time of the last books they were down to a Post-it Frank left on the fridge saying "NOTE: Write more Dune books". Penny Arcade's assessment was a bit more blunt.
The entire series is steeped in Arabic language and culture; it is implied that, in the distant future in which the books are set, Western and Eastern culture and religion have blended together into a homogenous whole. Religions such as "Mahayana Christianity" and "Zensunni" are referred to though not explicitly described, and many Arabic words have found their way into the standard language spoken by the people of the Galactic Empire. (An extensive glossary is included in the first novel, without which many readers might find it incomprehensible. I sure did.) The Bene Gesserit sisterhood, an order of philosopher-nuns that considers itself the guardian of human civilization, extensively manipulate various religions over a scale of thousands of years in order to protect their agenda. Paul Atreides, through his actions in the first novel, effectively creates a religion of his own, with effects that reverberate throughout the millenia.
Dune has been adapted into movie form twice.
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