Dune

John Clute has written an obituary for Sterling Lanier in The Independent (you don't expect me to link to them, do you?) Lanier's claim to fame was that he was the editor at Chilton Books who got Dune published. It had been turned down by about 20 pubishers before that.
What can one say about Dune? It is the acme of sf in some ways at least. It is proflix, pompous and utterly adolescent melodrama of Messaianic wish-fulfilment, terrorism, ludicrous philosophy, imaginary history, mind-control, telepathy, martial arts, exotic natives, clan warfare, aristocratic snobbery, cod-profundity, mind-expanding drugs, garbled syncretic religions, vicious monsters. What hasn't it got? It's fantastic. I love it. The sequels get progressively worse. The Dosadi Experiment is my favourite of the non-Dune books by Frank Herbert. I suppose I had better now seek out Sterling Lanier's books.