SOURCE: "Dune," in Frank Herbert, Starmont House, 1985, pp. 15-26.

Miller is an American educator and critic. In the following excerpt from his study of Herbert that was originally published in 1980, Miller examines Dune's complex structure, its literary devices, and its characters and themes.

Most of Herbert's novels seem designed to be read once; hence, story lines are clear, there is little parallel action, genre markers are unequivocal, and proleptic clues are relatively obvious. Such is not the case with Dune, for Herbert's masterpiece is essentially a series of overlays. The first page tells us that we are entering a gothic novel: "Castle Caladan … the ancient pile of stone … bore the cooled-sweat feeling it acquired before a change in the weather." And sure enough, down a "vaulted passage" comes an "old woman," "a witch shadow—hair like matted spiderwebs … eyes like glittering jewels." But the gothic "half-light" is...