If you can't be great, be big! Frank Herbert's Dune (1965) is certainly big, and many people have found it great.

Dune is enjoying something like the same success as [Robert Heinlein's] Stranger in a Strange Land, and probably for the same reason, because its readers can indulge in a fantasy life of power and savour a strange religion. But there is more than that to Dune and its successor, Dune Messiah (1969). Although Campbellian science fiction is still present, so, too, is an attention to sensuous detail which is the antithesis of Campbell; the bleak, dry world of Arrakis is as intensely realised as any in science fiction. The obvious shortage of water, for instance, is presented not just diagrammatically, but as living fact which permeates all facets of existence. (pp. 274-75)

[Dune and Dune Messiah] are dense and complex books, repaying careful reading. While they contain many ideas...