20 Things You Didn’t Know About Dune
14. It Was Originally Called ‘Spice Planet’
As stated before, when Dune was originally serialised it went under a two-part title; Dune World and Prophet of Dune respectively. When it came to publishing it as a single piece of work, Herbert no doubt went through many iterations and titles for his seminal piece. Most authors cycle through various names for their projects so this comes as little surprise.
The name nearly settled on however was Spice Planet. Apart from conjuring up mouthwatering images of a planet made entirely of smoked paprika, it just feels more generic and less iconic than our monosyllabic final title. 'Less is more' is the crucial factor here.
It’s unclear why or how Herbert settled on the singular ‘Dune’ as the proper name, but I think we can all be glad he did. Incidentally, if they ever do discover a smoked paprika planet I’m heading straight there with a tub of Hummus, Wallace & Gromit style.