The worlds of Dune : the places and cultures that inspired Frank Herbert

n the decades since its publication, Frank Herbert's Dune has become arguably the best-selling and certainly the best-known science fiction novel ever written. So how did an ex-Navy newspaperman from Washington State come to write such a world-conquering novel? And how was he able to pack it with so many layers of myth and meaning? Herbert's boundless imagination was sparked by a dizzying array of ideas, from classical history to cutting-edge sci...