Dune - classic sci fi or classic space fantasy?

[Grunkins]

I think it's solidly space fantasy. There's almost no science in the book at all.

 

[Bick]

I think the difficulty of placing Dune in a category doesn't lie with the book, its lies with the category. If SF were well defined, it would be easy to assign literature to it or not. As SF is so loosely defined, we find it difficult. I've stopped trying to categorize the books I read - they are often fantastical, speculative or imaginative but I don't need to define them more than that. Whatever Dune is, its bloody good isn't it? This thread reminds me how great it is and makes we want to revisit it.

 

[Ogma]

Bick,

I agree. Dune is a great book and one of my favourites.

It sometimes seems to me that somebody put the definition of science fiction in a washing machine, put it on the wrong setting, washed out all the 'soft' elements, and shrunk it to a subgenre. If Dune does not qualify as science fiction then a lot of other science fiction classics (e.g. the original Foundation Trilogy) would not count as science fiction either.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

It is a fantastic book, and there's not much point in truth to deciding what exactly it is. It's just a great book.