Frank Herbert

American science fiction author — author of the Dune series — who created the most complex SF world and the most sophisticated SF treatment of ecology, religion, and messianic leadership.

Creates Dune as the most world-complete science fiction epic — Herbert's Dune is the first SF novel whose world (Arrakis, its ecology, its politics, its religion, its economics) is as internally consistent and detailed as Tolkien's Middle-earth; the novel's political sophistication (the dangers of messiah-worship, resource politics) exceeds all contemporary SF.