Paul Atreides, the young renegade Duke, and his mother, Jessica, were fleeing across the desert when they got their first good look at a maker. "Where the dunes began ... a silver-gray curve broached from the desert, sending rivers of sand and dust cascading all around. It lifted higher, resolved into a giant, questing mouth. It was a round, black hole with edges glistening in the moonlight." The enormous creature, which had heard the surface-sounds of their footsteps from deep below, had pushed up through the sand to devour them. "The mouth snaked toward the yellow crack were Paul and Jessica huddled. Cinnamon yelled in their nostrils. Moonlight flashed from crystal teeth."

Paul, the hero of Frank Herbert's most popular novel, Dune, did not fear the giant worm. Neither did he find himself in the middle of a waking-dream, viewing a potential future, as he had been since the...