Throughline - Winter Book Club: Why You'll Love 'Dune'

Episode Date: December 30, 2025

As a kid, Ramtin fell in love with Frank Herbert's 1965 epic sci-fi novel, Dune. Today, he joins NPR's Books We’ve Loved crew, Andrew Limbong and B.A. Parker, to make the case for why he thinks you'll love it too.To access bonus episodes and listen to Throughline sponsor-free, subscribe to Throughline+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/throughline.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This message comes from Ear Hustle, a Radiotopia podcast. Check out recent episodes which delve into the juvenile prison system. Ear Hustle is available anywhere you get your podcasts. Hey, everyone, it's Ramteen here. So if you've been listening to the show recently, which I hope you all have, you know we've been running episodes as part of our Winter Book Club series. And it just so happens that I was recently a guest on another NPR show where I got to talk about an actual book I really, really love.

So we're going to share that conversation with you all today. Here we go. I saw myself projected into the future, or it felt like a world that somebody like me could live in. You're listening to Books We've Loved from NPR. The book show where we reread old favorites and tell you why they still matter today. I'm Andrew Limbong. I'm B.A. Parker.

This is a big one. This is a hefty. This is a hefty. Flip into this right here. Andrew, it's so much. It's a hefty boy. It's so, it's so much. And it's our guest's fault.

And, I mean, I did it. I, 617 pages. Uh-huh. Is that not counting the appendices and all that? I, uh, um, okay. So, like, almost 700 pages. Yeah. Who do we have with us that we can...

Thank for this. We have here. Ramtin Arablui from NPR's through line. Romitin, what's up? Hey, how you doing? Thank you for this assignment. We're about to get through this heavy book. The book we're reading today...

In many ways, it's heavy. The book we brought us today is Frank Herbert's Dune. Yes. All day, all day. I've been waiting decades for this. This is bizarre. It's all going to pour out here, okay? I've been waiting for years to talk about this book, which...

I would tell you that, and Yolga might be completely disturbed by this, had a major part in building my worldview. No, I believe it. What? I get it. Yeah. How old did you? I was 13. Okay.

I was in middle school when I first read this. Reading came late for me. I struggled with it a little bit. Uh-huh. I mean, partly it's because of my second language. You know, I moved here. I just got out of being a toddler when I moved to the U.S. And so it was hard to learn English.

And so I kind of was delayed a little bit in reading. But once I started reading, I really got to sight. five books. Yeah. And I had a teacher who was like, hey, if you really want to get into some deep stuff, Dune. So I read it and I became obsessed. I read it like twice in a summer.

For listeners who haven't read it, I'm just going to run through. I read this quick synopsis. We've been doing these quick like, you know, summaries of the books. This is by far the longest synopsis. Oh. But I'm going to try to get through it. And this is, here's, here's Dune summed up. It goes, so Paula Trades is a 15-year-old boy next in line to,

lead the Atreides family, who they rule over their water planet Caledan, right? And Paul's dad, Lido, gets a call from the emperor, says, guess what? You're now in charge of this desert planet called Aracus. Arachus kind of sucks there. It's dry and it's hot, but it is rich with this drug resource called Spice. Turns out, you find out midway through the book that the emperor was working with the Harkinen, who are rivals to the Atreides family. There's a big attack, and now Paul's dad is dead, and Paul and his mom, Jessica, are alone in the desert. There, Paul and Jessica intermingle with the Fremen, who are the indigenous people of on Iraqis, and it turns out, turns out, it's just so happens that Paul is this savior figure

that they've been waiting for. Paul falls in love with a Fremen woman named Chani, and he eventually leads the Fremen to defeat the Harkinan and then, like, overthrow the emperor in a marriage in some sort of I can't quite understand the deal that's made there but Paul's at the top of the top of the castle at the end. Is that a fair once over? Yes. Okay. Yeah. I mean, Robinson has a better understanding

of what, he's read it more than once. I read it once and I thought Aracus and Atreides were the same thing for it, first 80 pages. So I was like, wait, did they name the planet after themselves? And I was like, no, girl. Just different stuff, yeah.

So I trust yeah. Yeah, no, I I think that's one of the things I think that I loved about the book, but I think is a weak spot of it is it's like basically mostly context and world building. Yeah. It is building this world that is then expanded upon the next five books that Herbert himself wrote. Right. But I think that part of it, for my mind at that time, I was super into this kind of context world building. What does it say about our world?

What does it say about geopolitics? I was in that place. And so it has that. But there's a ton of names and a ton of concepts. and things are returned to, and there isn't, like, narrative driving it the way that, like, a typical sci-fi novel would. So I can understand how you get those two mixed up.

But I'm thankful for the glossary in the back of the book as you moved forward. Yeah, exactly. So, Parker, like, since you weren't, were you, like, a sci-fi kid growing up, or you reading sci-fi kid growing up? Are you reading, like, Rall Dahl and, like, John Cheever's short story? Interesting.

So, like, what was your impression of doing? Like, did you know about it? I knew it existed. I saw, I've seen the, the two movies. The David Lynch. The Timothy Chalamee movies, I've never seen the David Lynch, Dune. Well, I'm just curious because, like,

so I, when I was a teenager, I was big into sci-fi. I was reading, like, Ender's Game. I was reading, like, Philip K. Dick. I was reading, you know, Ursula Quinn, da, da, da, da. I remember, I gave Dune a shot because I knew this was, like, a big book

in the genre. And I have this sense memory. I remember being in the back seat of the car we were driving to church, and I'm reading my copy from the library. And I get, like, 30 pages into it. And I'm like, nah, bro. Yeah, I'm done.

I'm out. What made you want to be like, I'm out? I just think I got confused. I was like, I don't know what was going on. I didn't know who is who. And there was no, at the time, I just, like, couldn't grab onto anything driving me through, like, the rest of the book. And so I was wondering, like, maybe it is possible that you were just built different, right, as a kid. But, like, do you remember as a kid being like, oh, I don't really know what the world of the emperor is and, like, his big corporation thing?

But I'm very attracted to this one thing that is driving me. Yeah. That's why I read it twice, because I also obviously was like, what is going on at times? I didn't understand how to keep going back, which is obviously not what you want as a writer, I think, to have people doing that. But at the same time, for me, it was personal. What this book had, for me, that appealed to me personally, is like one of the first books, sci-fi books that I read that projected the modern world into the future in the way that it did. Specifically for me, Islam was a big part of the book. I mean, very quickly into the first, like, 100 pages,

there's Arabic words coming up, Islamic concepts. And I'm, I was very much more than, they're going on Hajj. Yes. I was like, what's happening? For me, it was like, wow, I saw myself. And because you're a kid, you're a narcissist. You're really into yourself at that point. I saw myself projected into the future.

Or it felt like a world that somebody like me could live in. That's so lovely. I feel so bad for, like, growling and being something. mad while reading this. No, no, no, no, no. Because that's legit, too. Like, I can hold both things, right? Like, at the same time, I understand that the book's weaknesses is it's just not as narrative-driven. Like, what you're saying is. That totally makes sense. There isn't a thread that pulls you all the way through. It's not per se a, like, classically well-written book. But what it has is the level of detail and research that went into it. If world building

and if sci-fi for you is a way to understand the world today, it has, in my opinion, a lot. to offer there. Meaning the way it projects, you know, economics, ecology, religion, gender dynamics, all of that into the future, I think, is really prescient in a way that a lot of other sci-fi books aren't. All right. I just want to take a quick break right here, and then we'll get into all of that. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Dignity Memorial. When you think about the people you love,

It's not the big things you miss the most. It's the details. What memories will your loved ones cherish when you're gone? At Dignity Memorial, the details aren't just little things. They're everything. They help families create meaningful celebrations of life with professionalism and compassion. To find a provider near you, visit DignityMemorial.com. All right, we're back before Ramteen just laid out the big ideas that Herbert was working with in Dune.

I'm just going to run through some quick bio stuff for Herbert to understand. this interesting guy that we've been working with that we've been thinking about. So really quick, so he was born in Tacoma, Washington. So he's a Pacific Northwest guy. He was growing up, I believe, during the Great Depression. His parents are alcoholics, so he ran away from home. As an adult, he was a journalist, a photographer, a speech writer, and he was writing sci-fi on the side. And he was originally working on a magazine article about the U.S. Department of Agriculture's efforts to stabilize sand dunes in Oregon.

He never finished that article because he got too obsessed. with this image of the sand dunes and how to, like, live and survive in a desert world. So he spent six years world building, and he was just, like, working on this draft. It was originally published in serial form in sci-fi magazines. The full novel was rejected by 23 publishers before Chilton Books accepted it, which is a company, a publishing company, mostly known for auto repair manuals. I also read that the guy who worked at that company and bought the book for the publisher company. The book was such a flop that he got fired. Yep. It's a bono, dude. But eventually,

you know, the book was published in 65 and it became, it won the Hugo and the Nebula, which are the big sci-fi awards to this day. And it is, I think, up there in the sci-fi canon. From since you were like a big fan as a kid, have you seen June's influence throughout the years? Are there any things that you saw in culture, be like, that's Dune, that's Dune. That's Dune. Yes. I mean, I think for me, is retrospective, right? Like, after I read the book, I was like, let me go back and read, like, where the idea for Star Wars

came from. Like, immediately. Oh, we got to talk about Star Wars. Okay. Right? That's the big one. I was like, yo, this is one-to-one concepts. I mean, I think it goes beyond inspiration.

So you could argue Herbert was inspired by the foundation series, by Asimov. Like, there is a lot of previous books, and all art is a remix of some other art, in my opinion. It's influenced by something else. But some of the, like, Jabba the Hut and the Worms, The desert planet.

Oh, like the Barron. Yeah. Yeah. Luke's story, Paul's story. Like, it's just a rip-off in a lot of ways. And of course, you know, this hard to prove that or whatever. Frank Herbert, I think almost, he's been on the record and be like, he ripped me off. And I don't think he ever sued, but he definitely, like.

Lucas films ain't got a check? No. No. They did not. Lucas denied it. He said, like, you know, of course I read it like everyone else, but like, no way I was thinking about while I was, you know, writing this idea. Through osmosis.

Yes. I will say this. It makes me happy that, or sad, that Herbert didn't live long enough to see the rebirth and rise of Dune as a film and as a, like, a franchise and the death of Star Wars. Because I argue, Star Wars is just gone too far. It's, wow. Like the Disneyification of Star Wars, whereas, you know, Dune is in the hands of, like, a great filmmaker, like, Denneville Nouve. So I just think, Herbert got the last lap.

Hot take, I will say when the first Dune, the part one came out, I had a friend and I was like, this is the only time I will let you mansplain something to me. I need you to explain June to me before I see this movie. And he was like, well, it was basically Star Wars for God's. And it's about, it's about like this spice and imperialism. Yeah. And I was like, okay, okay. And then I got in and saw the movie and then I was like, oh, I understand even less.

But beautiful gowns, great score. Yeah. And everyone's hair was fantastic. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, awesome. The movie's from a production standpoint, all that's A plus plus. I really love that the film has made it like a franchise.

Like, it's entered the popular parlance. Like, people are using those words. Yeah, there's an HBO series about the Benegenerate. The Sisterhood, which was, I watch. which I thought could have been better, but it was solid. So, wait, are you thinking we're close to the marvelification of the? I hope not. I hope not.

I mean, it could. It could go that way. I could. Can I ask you? Like, have you read all of the Dune books? I've read all of them. Like, even the ones that's like P-O-V of the sandworm. Yes.

I've read all of them. I mean, the first six are considered canon because they were written by Herbert. The rest were written by his son. But I'm just here for the universe. if I'm being honest with you. And I love the first book because I, again, the themes, one of the things I love is culture follows ecology. That is really explored in the first book.

The themes of how to view leadership, how to view someone proclaiming that they are Messiah, to basically be suspicious of all leadership. The fact that this was presented also in the context of the 1950s and 60s in America, a time where, you know, the U.S. has. essentially presented itself to itself as the Trades family. Yeah. And that the Soviets are the Harkinans. It's a warning, a complex warning.

And what I find really fascinating is the reason why Herbert went on to write, apparently he didn't want to write all those additional books. He wanted to go in a different direction. But he felt like critics and the fans really misunderstood the first book. Okay. On that note, so I've got here this interview from 1982 who's on NBC. So he's a few books into the Dune series. he says a couple of funny things in this interview.

First off, he says, I want to write sci-fi for the non-ci-fi audience. And I was like, it's an interesting approach. For a guy who wrote this. It's a guy who wrote this. Yeah. And then he's asked about like, okay, what is like your goal with these books?

What did you want to accomplish? This is what he says. Don't trust leaders to always be right. I work to create a leader in this book who would be really an attractive, charismatic person for all the good reasons not for any bad reasons then power comes to him he makes decisions some of his decisions made for millions of people millions upon millions of people don't work out too well here's where i struggle with this book which is that that is an interesting

concept that back half of that deconstruction of the hero myth none of that really happens in book one all that happens right as i understand all that happens i'm i'm like kind of kind of interested in like buying doom messiah and i'm interested in like but none of that if we're talking about specifically just about dune this first book it's all about the come up and nothing about about the crash yeah so it's like is he successful if that is his goal with his book well i think this is my interpretation was trying to do the illustration of the visions that paul is having about the future once he you know goes through the kind of the ritual basically being inculcated with the spice in its pure its form he sees that there's like

multiple different futures, that there isn't one. And some of the futures he sees are horrible, and it's haunting him, and it's scaring him. And I think Herbert thought people would then extrapolate, like, yeah, he came up, but now he's got an army of, like, fanatics, basically, wiping out the known galaxy in his name, and he's not, he understands the darkness of this, but then gives up to, like, it's inevitable. I can't do anything about it, et cetera. So I think he assumed that. But people misread it.

People sometimes, and I think even with the movie, saw it as like a white savior story, et cetera. But I think he meant it as the opposite. From what I understand, he had real problems with the hero journey itself. Yeah. The hero's journey, which I do. And this is what I said about its worldview. I think it is picking apart that fundamental kind of deep, I would say European sense of story. All right, quick break.

And then we're going to get into how Dune approaches technology. All right, we're back. I want to talk more about Herbert's approach to technology. I watched a couple interviews with him and read some stuff. And he was interested in technology. He said, you can't run away from it. You have to engage. You have to interface.

So he wanted to write, again, this is the thing that's tripping me up. He wanted to write about technology. But the story he chose to tell is like, after these people have eradicated technology, sort of. Yes, but the idea is humanity itself is a technology. The ideas are a technology. I don't mean to get all, like, weird and academic here. I think what he's trying to express is that we tend to think of technology as something we build,

something that physically exists in the way that, like, a telephone will or a computer. But what I think he's saying is that when you don't have those things, you're forced to develop the mind as a technology. So the book, the world of the book, depends on human beings and their mental capabilities to do things like travel from one star system to the next, right? And so two things. The human mind is a technology and natural resources are a technology. The ecology becomes a technology.

So the spice melange is the technology that fuels space travel. It fuels long life. It fuels the ability of people to like mentally. Hats, basically, they're all Spice Melange addicts, right? Is that what they are? Yes. That's why they have the certain, they have like lips that reflect a constant consumption of spice melange and eyes, obviously, the eyes of a bad.

So. Were they human computers? Yes. Ha! Yeah, well, they're trained. They're trained. Okay, okay. So they're trained from a young age with the use of Spice Malange as like a, um...

Like a lost adult and on Adderall. Yes, exactly. It's like next level Adderall. Yeah. If you try to come off off, you die. Okay. So the idea is that humanity itself and our ideas and the way we develop our own mental state is a form of technology and that we should view it that way. You know.

No, no, no, no, no. I'll probably sound crazy. And I think what's interesting is, like, I associate his generation of sci-fi writer with, like, right-leaning libertarianism. That's, like, kind of, like, easy to, you can generally, like, map on to, like, what Heinleyn is thinking about and I find what he's cooking way more complex and yeah it's in an interesting and fascinating way yeah it's profoundly morally dubious the book yeah it's morally complex one example is the way the fremen are portrayed right like yeah he became very i think infatuated by bedouin culture berber culture mongolian culture and the way

they're portrayed is at once it shows that he has a sort of um nostalgic view of like Marxism and collectivism, right, like that people can live collectively and literally give their bodies back to each other, the water from their bodies to survive at that level. But then at the same time, they are vicious and brutal and merciless towards each other and towards their enemies when they need to be, meaning that like the Fremen are basically like no nonsense people. They are not sentimental. They are very much about survival and they will kill enemies on the battlefield if they need to. If you're weak, they will drop you. And I think what is as a morally complex view and not like necessarily romanticizing any of the characters in

the book. It's pushing the listener in a time of black and white thinking in the United States during the Red Scare and all of that stuff to start thinking a little bit more complex about world affairs and understanding these things come from somewhere. Yeah. So I want to move and start talking about religion here because you could read this as an anti-religious book, right? You could say like, oh, messias are bad because like, you know, Paul is going to lead them all into like hell and kill a bunch of people in the name of religion. And religion is sort of like the psychology of religion and how people get swept up in these stories.

They're all like brainwashed. You know, you can do the whole anti-religion thing. And yet he treats it with such dignity and respect. Like there is a beauty to what like the Fremen people are doing. I mean, while reading it, I was distracted. I was like, wait, this is a quote from Ecclesiastes while we're going along. I think it also speaks to, I think in the book,

there is a respect for death. In a way that I found, interesting, like, there is a moment when Paul has to kill someone. Yes. And Jessica, his mother lady, Jessica, has to be like, you just killed someone. How do you feel about that? Like, it's not discarded in a way that I feel, like, in contemporary art, it's kind of like, you kill someone, like, isn't that cool, go past, like, no, this is a life-changing thing that happens. And the Fremen treated as such and respects the body. When you, like, pause, like, the ritual of getting the water from the body,

there is, like, a ceremony and a respect to it that shows a spirituality, called spirituality. Yes, yeah, for sure. That I was really drawn to and thought interesting. What I think is fascinating about that is Herbert read, like, in preparation for this, did years of research. That's what's interesting. Like, he took courses, I think, at University of Oregon and read about Islam. comic history and military history. And one of the things, I think it's a commentary on his, like, pre-modern warfare.

I mean, he's writing this on the heels of, like, atom bomb being dropped and of the horrors of World War II, where a lot of those deaths were happening either through a gun or a bomb. And I think what he's basically doing is harkening back to pre-modern warfare. You had to kill someone with a sword or a knife. There's no distance to it. Exactly. And so it conjured this sense of, like, honoring the person you killed, that, like, the death itself, it was so. up close and so up front that you had to develop some kind of mythology around it to justify it in your human brain. But I will say this. I think he's less anti-religious and more anti-determinism,

anti-propathy. It's like he respects faith systems as so far as they serve us in our lives, like meaning you make sense of death through a ceremony. You make sense of the fact that you don't have any water around you by creating a religion around water, right? That all to him seems to make sense. But then when it comes to someone saying, I see the future, follow me, he seems really deeply suspicious of that, which makes sense in an era of Stalin and Mao and American mythology, right? Yeah, and very questionable of fundamentalism and being like, question everything, but also, like, have your rituals. All right, let's take one more quick break. And then let's talk about whether or not Herbert is a good writer. And then we're going to give out some book.

recommendations to stick with us. Where I sort of want to almost wrap up here is ask, is Herbert a good writer? If we're talking about on a sentence level, right, there's the chapter where kinds, who's like a C-tier character, he plays an important part, but he's not like a main character. But when this character dies, I don't know if that's what, but it like sort of deviates really quick from like the main thrust of the narrative and there's this like intimate conversation that he has i can't quite tell if he's imagining it but like with his father right as he's facing death and i was like oh for for all of my dogging on this book about like being too mired in like

history and world building this is like a moment of quiet beauty if like i can get like four more of those yeah you know what i mean this would be a 10 out 10 book well have you read all of This is the only book in a series. I have never read a single one of these. I'm Messiah curious. Okay. All right. So if you can get to God Emperor of Dune,

which I think is the fourth book. Fourth? Yes. If you can get there, or the third book. My God. Children of Dune is the fourth book. The third book, that book is like philosophical banger after philosophical banger. The writing in that book, I think, is the best of the series.

But there are moments of it in the previous book, which is what you're pointing out, where it's like deeply thoughtful and philosophical and emotional and just like beautiful. It's like a pretty section to read. 100%. Or I mean, the litany against fear, which is in the first book, right? The, you know, fear is the mind killer. Like, that's the reason why it's like people have a tattooed on their bodies or that it's like, had this kind of extended life is because it's a beautifully written paragraph.

But I agree with you. In this book, is he the best writer in the world? No. What makes the book special are the ideas in it versus the way that those ideas. ideas are expressed. I got to get through like 1,200 more pages. This is like when someone recommends a show

and it's like, oh, season one or two is asked, but like season three of baby. It's like, there are 10 seasons. No, I would, you know, I hear you. I wouldn't go, I still do really love the book. And I think the reason why everybody should read it is that it will give you a better. Why should we read this today?

It gives you a better understanding of the world we live in now. Why the world is the way it is? why certain wars are being fought, why certain resources matter, why we are in the place we are, and it gives you kind of both a, my opinion, meta view of that, but also a deeply personal one, that in the end, all of us are living within circumstances that none of us decided. And every day we have to make decisions based on outside influences that are in our head, that are in our bodies, that dictate everything around us, and that we should be a little bit more forgiven, of ourselves because we're living within that context and we should be really suspicious of

anyone that tells us that they have all the answers. And I think the final thing I'll say, for me, this is very personal, but I think its portrayal of Islamic thought is the most respectful, even though it's flawed at times and shows some of his misunderstandings of it, it still portrays a deep respect from a white American author writing in the 1950s and 60s and beyond. I think it's really important for people to understand Islam from this perspective, from one that doesn't otherize it, that paints it as an integral part of the future world. And so for that reason, I think it's really important for people as an exercise to read this book, especially when they're young. Yeah. I think this book is definitely worth reading today because, like I said,

I've been like getting dune pilled. Like my immediate reactions to it were a little rude, like, you know, the text of the boys at the group chat, who were all Dune fans. I was like, boys, what do you want? What do you want today? Right. But then it's like, oh, I had a question. I was like thinking about, oh, let me go back and read more about what this question he poses. And let me go think about that thing.

This week has been a lot of fun just like thinking about this freaking book. Yes. And just like, unwrapping it and being like, wait, what is it saying? It's not saying nothing. But I was like, but then I gave it a couple days. It's like, he's saying a lot. It's saying a lot. It's saying a lot.

Maybe too much. I mean, that's one of the critics is like it's a lot of ideas mashed into it. Yeah. Parker, are you, how are you feeling? Okay. earlier this week I was really hostile towards the book

I will say I enjoyed then I realized I enjoyed the first and second book and then I felt book three inside of the book jumped the shock a little bit with the abomination child and then I was like

what is this? The precocious dog yeah running around like with an adult's voice like fighting people and killing people I was like all right Herbert but I will say

because I enjoy two-thirds of it, I would recommend it. Nice. We did it. We did it. I can say I read Dune. Now when a guy at a party is like, but have you read Dune? No, you can say, but have you really read Dune? Have you really read Dune? Do you understand

that ecology drives technology and culture? All right, let's wrap up by saying, if you like this, recommend that. Parker, do you want to go for yours? Okay. All right, so this is full circle for me because so our first episode was about prejudice.

Okay. Which is related. I'm seeing a lot of threads. It's related. So years ago, I watched the movie The Jane Austen Book Club. Okay. And in it, there's a guy in the book club who is a big sci-fi fan. And is trying to convince a girl in the book club to read Ursula Le Guin.

Okay. And because of that, it got me to read Ursula Le Guin in my early 20s. And so I recommended, like, the very popular left-haired. hand of darkness by Earth's a little bit I just that was

that wasn't an excited no I have never read it it's about like gender on different

planets and it involves like a guy coming onto a planet and not trying to be a Messiah or anything but just trying

to understand the people in is stuck in such a binary mindset that he's trying to like navigate this

world yeah Mine is a comic book series. I brought it with me because I write it on the train called Saga by Brian K. Vaughn and illustrated by Fiona Staples. It is a, it is similar Montague Capulet, like two warring tribes, the two fall in love, have a child, and then they're just like on the run. And one of the people in their relationship is a pacifist. And that gets like tested a lot throughout the book about like how how much he's willing to sacrifice for his beliefs in, in pacifism.

It's been recommended to me. It's so good. When you're, when you think about like grand space operas, this doesn't have like as much of like the politics in it, but it is like a vast scape of like cultures and peoples and worlds that they're running away from. Yeah.

My turn? Yeah. So it's a completely different story. But for people who like the detail and the world building of Dune in the entire series, another very popular sci-fi book from a little bit later than this first book is rendezvous with Rama, which De Neville Nouve is actually apparently making a film out of this. I've never heard about this, but what is this?

Rendezvous with Rama. It's by Arthur C. Clark, another very famous sci-fi writer at that time. It's a short book, and without giving too much away, basically what it's about is an oblong shape, what they think is a meteor, kind of rock or something basically appears in our solar system. And so a ship is sent to intercept it, get on board, and see what it is, because it's behaving like a spaceship. And it's about the astronauts who board it, what they see,

and it's very richly detailed. And it's immersive, right? You feel like you're there with them and you're in their heads the way you do in Dune. Damn, Ronte. Thanks a lot. This has been a lot of fun. Are you kidding me?

I was waiting for this call. This is so much fun. I really enjoyed talking about books, so this is a lot of fun. Thank you. Thank you.