A passing thought about the Folio Society’s edition of Dune

This is an objectively beautiful book, one that also happens to be an edition of one of my top five favourite works of fiction ever. But I don’t think I’ll ever buy a copy of it because it is not to my mind a beautiful edition of one of my top five favourite works of fiction ever. As a Canadian, raised and still living overwhelmingly in the winter, I can never see the black, white, and blue of this edition and not feel cold. There is, for me, literally snow billowing around Paul Atreides on the front cover. I am seeing that exact same colour palette, those exact images right now, looking out my window onto a snowy -30°C landscape. This creates too much dissonance for me to then open up the cover and try to imagine myself on a desert planet as hot and dry as Arrakis. For books as for people, I would argue, often the (still)suit does make the (hu)man.

Image of the “snow” Dune partway out of its “arctic” slipcase. Image from a Folio Society Facebook post about this book. More details and images available on their website at https://www.foliosociety.com/ca/dune.html