Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
Dune  By  cover art

Dune

By: Frank Herbert
Narrated by: Scott Brick,Orlagh Cassidy,Euan Morton,Simon Vance,Ilyana Kadushin,Byron Jennings,David R. Gordon,Jason Culp,Kent Broadhurst,Oliver Wyman,Patricia Kilgarriff,Scott Sowers
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $33.74

Buy for $33.74

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

Soon to be a major motion picture directed by Denis Villeneuve, starring Timothée Chalamet, Josh Brolin, Jason Momoa, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Javier Bardem, Dave Bautista, Stellan Skarsgård, and Charlotte Rampling.

Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, who would become the mysterious man known as Maud'dib. He would avenge the traitorous plot against his noble family - and would bring to fruition humankind's most ancient and unattainable dream.

A stunning blend of adventure and mysticism, environmentalism and politics, Dune won the first Nebula Award, shared the Hugo Award, and formed the basis of what is undoubtedly the grandest epic in science fiction.

Frank Herbert's death in 1986 was a tragic loss, yet the astounding legacy of his visionary fiction will live forever.

©1965 Frank Herbert (P)2007 Audio Renaissance, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers LLC

Critic reviews

Audie Award Winner, Science Fiction, 2008
Nebula Award winner, Best Novel, 1965
Hugo Award winner, Best Novel, 1966

"Unique...I know nothing comparable to it except Lord of the Rings." (Arthur C. Clarke)

"One of the monuments of modern science fiction." (Chicago Tribune)

"Powerful, convincing, and most ingenious." (Robert A. Heinlein)

Featured Article: The Definitive Dune Explainer


The new Dune movie is based on the classic sci fi novel, the first book in an extensive series launched by author Frank Herbert and kept going by writers who took up the helm after his death. The trailer for the upcoming film was released last fall, and since then, speculation and excitement have been swirling around the movie. At three minutes long, the trailer itself is a beautiful masterpiece, and it teases many of the important characters and aspects from the story. This post will give you a basic understanding of the book, its history, and everything you need to know about Dune to get you ready for the movie!

What listeners say about Dune

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    90,173
  • 4 Stars
    19,757
  • 3 Stars
    5,454
  • 2 Stars
    1,394
  • 1 Stars
    1,022
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    72,941
  • 4 Stars
    18,385
  • 3 Stars
    6,867
  • 2 Stars
    1,891
  • 1 Stars
    1,325
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    81,409
  • 4 Stars
    13,979
  • 3 Stars
    4,079
  • 2 Stars
    1,113
  • 1 Stars
    720

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

This classic deserves better

Some passages from the text are omitted entirely , this is unacceptable. Even though the multicast performance is well read/acted it is not consistent. Some chapters are read by only the narrator and some utilize the multicast. Some chapters start with the multicast then part way through it switches to being read only by the narrator. This means that characters have different voices from one minute to the next, this is jarring and confusing.

I have read this book multiple times, it is a classic, one of the greatest sci-fi novels of all time. It deserves an audiobook with much more attention to detail and care then what is shown in this audiobook.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

880 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars

Read the reviews

I wish I had read the reviews. not the full story even though they bill it as unabridged. and voice acting and music. I want an audio book. Not a dramatization. I bought it over a year ago so I can't return it.

Morale of the story, read who is the narrator (of more than one name don't get it), and read the reviews.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

654 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Deceptive - not full book, full cast

Only parts of the book have a full cast of actors, most of the time the narrator does every characters voice and sometimes even the voice actors themselves change between chapters. Very jarring, completely misleading.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

470 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars

Unlistenable

This is not an unabridged audiobook. It's a really badly done audio drama. The voice acting sounds unnatural and unconvincing. The narrator isn't so bad but the dialogue is grating and difficult to follow. There is also this weird ambient background effect that I guess was supposed to be for dramatic effect or something, but it comes off as amateurish and is very, very distracting. The whole thing is a complete mess. I only made it about 15 minutes before I gave up.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

389 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

One of the all time greats marred by spotty audio

The story itself is fantastic. Deservedly hailed as one of the greatest stories ever told, sci-fi or otherwise. A fully realized and richly detailed alternate universe filled with science, religion and political intrigue. A must read.

Unfortunately, the audio recording does not fulfill expectations. While far better than the original single reader audiobook (be glad you didn't spend 25 hours listening to THAT) the 2007 version is marred by the bizarre decision to have each reader read a chapter or section rather than have each reader read a character's part throughout the book. In other words, the voices for each character change throughout the book!!! Why? Baron Harkkonen's voice suffers the most. At one point it sounds like Michael Clark Duncan is voicing him and others it sounds like a sleepy Orson Welles.

It's a shame that one of the greatest books ever written has never received a proper translation into another medium. David Lynch's movie was stylistically and visually fulfilling, but the story edited and changed dramatically. The Sci-Fi channel's 3 part miniseries held more closely to the original plot, but the budget and casting left alot to be desired. The original 1997 audiobook was read in a horrible monotone and finally the 2007 version's inconsistent readers. Hopefully someday Dune will receive a treatment that it deserves.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

322 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Pretty Cool Story - Very Original

The story is fantastic.
The only reason I give it 4 stars instead of 5 is because of the structure of this audio book.
It is theatrical with many characters (many voices) and then it changes to the main narrator who will also do his own versions of the character's voices.
It would have been better if it was either narrated by one person or a theatrical presentation with many actors, but not both.
I hope that I made this review clear.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

319 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

brought an old classic to life

I first read this book in 1980 in the back seat as my family did a two week camping road trip, and I loved this story. I must have read Dune over 20 times, it was that good to me. When I heard about the audio book I was a bit hesistant that they might ruin one of my favorite stories (like they did with the movie!!).
But the narration and characterization of the actors, were wonderful, giving the story a richness and fullness, a 3D immersive experience.
It made a great story that much better.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

293 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Utterly Horrific

Why? Why was the book butchered and the audio cast so discombobulated? I love Dune, and was excited to hear it come to life in an audiobook with a diverse cast, but this rendering is absolutely atrocious. The music is not in line with the narrative. The cast comes in goes, chapter to chapter, sometimes paragraph by paragraph. If you can, find another adaptation audiobook of Dune, not this disconjointed mess that is not a true rendering of Frank Herbert's book. What an utter mess.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

291 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Good book!

Overall this was a great listen. However, I was somewhat annoyed how sometimes the voice of different characters were spoken by different actors, and sometimes they weren't. At one point even within one chapter they switched back and forth which mad it somewhat confusing. I did enjoy some of the sound effects though. Great listen!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

282 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Please. Do You Really Need Another Great Review?

Frank Herbert, I OWE you. I owe you a LOT. This was one of the very first books that truly stirred my love for science fiction. You SPOILED me. You made me demand better writing from the authors I followed, and better development, as well. From this book on, I became harder on myself, to read works that challenged me, that made me ponder well after finishing the novel. I hungered for better writing that combined story, action, flow, cadence and for God's sake, CREATIVITY. Thanks, Frank.

THAT'S what good writing demands of us, and if the author excels at his or her craft, this book is the perfect example of what can happen.

In Dune, you get galaxy-sweeping politics, messianic jihads, genetically-enhanced warriors and spacefarers, pirates hiding ruling classes, clones that psychically destroy their victims, fantastic ecologies and creatures, religions that manipulate families and bloodlines, and countless castes intertwined with ruling houses that all depend upon a drug found only on one desolate planet - A planet with its own secret and massive agenda, hidden within the howling desert plains covering its surface. And wait, it's followed by yet ADDITIONAL novels in the series, some better than others, and then yet ANOTHER series by the author's SON, done decades later, that provides tremendous PREQUELS, based on his father's notes? Finally, throw in excellent male and female narrators that fit the characters they portray, and individualize each character.

Come on. Do you really need another great review to buy this audiobook?

Please.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

273 people found this helpful