Dune

I'm not usually a huge fan of sci-fi novels but this one was OK. It took me a long time to finish it due to the fictional place names and people but once you got through that the story was quite entertaining but it's a little complicated.

It revolves around a aristocratic family and their community who move from their home planet to a sandy planet at the behest of the Emporer. This planet is the soul home of the spice Melange and the people that control the planet control the spice production.

The son of this noble family is some prophicised saviour of the native inhabitants of the planet and the final half of the story tells the tale of how he passes a number of tests to claim his place as the head of the population.

I can image that George Lucas used this story as inspiration for the Star Wars movies with it's stories of the "chosen one", trade rights and intergalactic wars. There's a series of these novels but I think I will leave them unread. Too many other literary classics to get through.