Yes, Sam Jordison’s journey through the list of Hugo winners has reached Dune. And at last we discover than poor Sam has been thoroughly corrupted by The Dark Side.

More intriguing yet is the planet Dune itself. Herbert deftly builds a vivid impression of a living, complex and fragile ecology. The place is also, more simply, pretty damn cool. Like many of the best sci-fi writers, Herbert understands and fully exploits the wonder of the weird.

Yep, that’s science fiction all over, that is. Welcome to geekdom, Sam.