Creepy Uncle: The Baron, completely obsessed with his young nephew. Somehow worse that he considers him an adopted son. I tried getting through the House trilogy about 15 years ago and lost interest even though there’s a lot of interesting world building there.

Language Equals Thought: The Fremen culture has dozens of words describing various types of sand, and Liet-Kynes intentionally introduces a language based in the terms of ecology, with the express purpose of making the Fremen into an army of terraformers.I have to commend Brian and Kevin though. Hunters exceeded my expectations. They said it themselves that they wish Frank could have been the one to conclude the series, and that all they could do was try their best based off of Frank’s notes. In an interview at the end of the audiobook they said Frank could say more with a sentence than most could with a chapter, and that really diffused some of my hesitations with the differences between writing styles. As I understand it, the final book in the Dune series written by Frank Herbert ends in a cliffhanger. Years later, Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson allegedly found some sort of manuscript hidden away by Frank Herbert and based off of information found in the manuscript they wrote two more books to finish off the original series: "Hunters of Dune" and "Sandworms of Dune". Higher Understanding Through Drugs: The appendix to Dune lists several "awareness-spectrum narcotics" that increased the user's understanding and mental abilities, including melange (by Guild Navigators), the Fremen "Water of Life" (which affected Paul Atreides and his sister Alia), and the drugs used by Bene Gesserit Truthsayers (who were Living Lie Detectors). The Clan: Feuding Houses of noble families play a large part in the first book, though the Atreides name carries down through the millennia.

Asymmetric Multiplayer: The original board game Dune features six factions, and all of them are wildly different with their own Game-Breaker abilities. invoked Death Is Cheap: The dead can be resurrected as clones reffered to as "gholas." The memories of their past lives are restored through a combination of mental conditioning and Genetic Memory. Duncan Idaho is a perfect example. The Dune Encyclopedia (1984), edited and largely written by Dr. Willis E. McNelly and approved by Frank Herbert

Worldbuilding: One of the most developed examples, right here with Tolkien. Considered to be the very first science fiction novel of its kind to do this. Frank Herbert stated that he had done six years of research before writing the first novel, according to a radio interview he made before his death. https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF/comments/wqb31/how_the_hell_do_i_read_the_dune_series/?utm_source=amp&utm_medium=&utm_content=comments_view_all Mentats as well are "human computers". They are trained to possess photographic memories and deduce perfectly logical conclusions from the barest minimum of information. A Mentat Advisor is one of the most valuable assets that a noble house can have; when he first landed on Arrakis, Paul had just found that he had potential Mentat capabilities himself note and, in fact, that his father had been training Paul to become a Mentat his entire life, but to complete the training Paul had to knowingly embrace the rest of the program—which he does without hesitation— to quote Duke Leto, "a Mentat Duke would be formidable indeed". And, later, a Mentat Kwisatz Haderach. Miles Teg in the later novels is a mentat generalissimo. But just try using one as an iPod. Does This Remind You of Anything?: A (nearly) orphaned young man, begins receiving visions, becomes an exile from a desert-based center of commerce and religion, marries a notably older widow, granting him status among his adopted tribe, becomes a powerful religious leader by uniting a nomadic people with a history of in-fighting, and eventually leads an army of the faithful to claim control of the city from which he was exiled by political rivals. After solidifying this base of military and mercantile power, the new religion sweeps across most of the known world (sometimes violently, but with many civil reforms in their wake), eventually playing an essential role in discovering and then preserving caches of precious knowledge through a dark age of human history.

Really 700 Years Old: Heavy use of spice can extend lifespans by a factor of three or more. The Emperor Shaddam is described by his daughter Princess Irulan as looking around 50, though being in his late 80s. He dies due to work-related stress rather than old age. None of the characters bat an eyelash at practices such as slavery, concubinage, gladiatorial fights, and institutionalized child abuse (specifically, the Bene Geserit gom jabbar test used on would-be initiates).Bio Data: A distrans is a device for producing a temporary neural imprint on the nervous system of bats or birds. The creature's normal cry then carries the message imprint which can be sorted from that carrier wave by another distrans. In other words, it implants a message into the animal which can be later read in its normal vocalization, sort of like a modern-day telephone/radio scrambler. Feudal Future: The Empire is intentionally set up this way. The novels themselves are considered to be the Trope Codifier. Bastard Understudy: Feyd attempts this role with his uncle, the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, but the attempt fails. Standard Time Units: Years are known as "Standard years", or SY, and are described as being about 20 hours less than the "so-called primitive year". Bene Gesserits depend on some drugs and the Spice for some of their abilities, each Reverend Mother is addicted.

Leto II: It has occurred to me more than once that holy boredom is good and sufficient reason for the invention of free will. Finally, the Ithaca was captured and brought to Synchrony, with all of the crew and the ghola children and teens aboard. First off, as Harkonnen was sent to "welcome" the crew of the vessel, he noticed the ghola of Alia, and viciously stabbed her to death.

Tabletop game adaptations:

Paul ends up marrying Princess Irulan for political reasons, but keeps his true love Chani as royal concubine. In the Old Imperium, it was known by Murbella, leader of the New Sisterhood, from scouting reports from the edges of human-kind out in The Scattering worlds, that the Machines had launched a million starship armada against humanity. That armada, guided by Omnius, began to destroy human-kind system-by-system, planet-by-planet towards the heart of the Old Empire, Chapterhouse and Junction. I've read through a couple of Reddit threads and the overall consensus for the original Dune series seems to be that the first book is a masterpiece, the next two are good, and the final three books go in a different direction that isn't for everybody.