The Stars and Planets of Frank Herbert’s Dune: A Gazetteer by Joseph M. Daniels

Astronomical appendix for diehard fans only

Images from the movie Dune (1984)

Atypical of this blog, today’s review is not about a book but rather about an article. The Stars and Planets of Frank Herbert’s Dune was written by Joseph M. Daniels, about whom I know nothing, and published in 1999. I know not where this paper was originally published, perhaps in some fan-fiction zine, but the 44-page essay can be found online. In this article, Daniels tries to nail down the actual stars that might correspond to the fictional stars and planets mentioned in Frank Herbert’s novel Dune and its sequels. To accomplish this, Daniels relies on evidence quoted from Herbert’s six Dune novels, as well as from the non-canonical Dune Encyclopedia compiled by Dr. Willis McNelly and published in 1984.

The Star Trek television and movie universe mostly populated its United Federation of Planets with worlds revolving around real-life stars in our galaxy. Spock’s homeworld Vulcan, for example, orbits 40 Eridani A. On the other hand, the Star Wars universe, as far as I know, uses entirely made-up planets and stars. The Dune universe falls somewhere in between these two extremes, with a combination of both real and imaginary celestial bodies. Author Frank Herbert makes it clear in the first novel that Arrakis, the planet nicknamed Dune, revolves around the star Canopus, also known as Alpha Carinae. For other major recurring planets in the Dune saga, Herbert only hints at the stars they might orbit. Daniels’s mission is to turn these hints into conclusions, and he goes to great lengths to do so.

Unlike Star Trek, Herbert often changed the names of stars, assuming that tens of thousands of years in the future they might go by different appellations. In some cases it is pretty easy to decode the stellar references. For instance, it is a pretty safe bet that the repeatedly mentioned planet Bela Tegeuse likely has a relationship to the star we know as Betelgeuse. Most of Herbert’s star names, however, are more obscure than this. Thus, Daniel’s analysis of Herbert’s fictional planets is less about astronomy than one would expect, and more about linguistics. Daniels traces references to Latin, ancient Greek, Arabic, Persian, and Indian languages. In doing so, he reveals some complex relationships between the cultures of Dune and real Old Earth history. The inhabitants of the multiplanetary Dune universe, remember, are our descendants tens of thousands of years in the future. One of the most important events in Dune history is the Zensunni Wanderings, by which earthlings migrated for thousands of years from planet to planet, eventually becoming the Fremen of Arrakis. As Daniels traces this path of migration, he draws attention to the many references to Arabic and Muslim culture that Herbert snuck into the Dune books.

Some of Daniels’s planetary revelations are commendably well-founded on textual evidence, but many come across as mere educated speculation. Herbert himself was deceased by the time this was published, so he couldn’t comment on the subject. What Daniels does well, however, is compile a sort of concordance of astronomical shout-outs from the Dune texts. There is a whole list of planets briefly mentioned that are purely fictional, but Daniels reminds you of what happened there and why they were mentioned. If you are a big fan of the Dune books like I am, then it is good fun to relive Herbert’s fictional universe through this approach. One gains an even greater admiration for the thought and detail he put into his imagined worlds. Daniels’s rather obsessively detailed prose, however, will only appeal to the most diehard Dune fans. Those who haven’t read the Dune Encyclopedia will have trouble following his reasoning at times.