> For me, it's definitely _Dune_, and *NOT* the Dune series. I read the > first three, I think, possibly even 4, but it was definitely a mistake > for me. > -- > David Dyer-Bennet It would have been the fifth book that you stopped at. To be honest, I thought that way as well for the longest time -- I hit the fifth book, 'Heretics of Dune', and came to a dead stop by the third or fourth chapter. So I dropped it, came back to it a few years later, and still couldn't do it. Then -- eventually -- I tried it again, went through those chapters, and I burned through 'Heretics' and 'Chapterhouse: Dune' like a Colorado wildfire. (Ahem.) IMNSHO, these last two books are very much what the entire series is about: the Bene Gesserit and the desire for humankind to 'grow up'. Having read and re-read them, oh, a dozen or more times each, and the first four books (for y'all unfamiliar with the series, these are 'Dune', 'Dune Messiah', 'Children of Dune', and 'God-Emperor of Dune') three or four times in a row each, I have to say that Herbert started out basic and worked his way up the complexity scale with each book. Yes, one can say that 'Dune' is complex on many levels, that Herbert wanted to write a book about the dependence on oil (which is what he says in one of the fore- or afterwords, IIRC), the Messiah effect, all that sort of thing, but to be honest, 'Dune' is a very straightforward book in comparison with those that follow. If I can encourage you to do one thing in regards to books (considering that you already like Steve's writing), it would be to force yourself to read through the slow beginning of 'Heretics of Dune' and get to the meaty stuff. There are times I want to be Bene Gesserit ... but I'm the wrong gender. Felix Eisen aka Thomas Crain