Cultural Differences: International Releases

After posting the new artwork for the next Dune book on this site, and reading a post on the Dune 7 blog by Kevin Anderson (co-author of the current series' of novels), I became curious about the covers used for the international releases of the Dune-iverse novels.

Like many fans, when first becoming interested in the Dune mythology, I performed some global on-line searches for all things Dune. Among the myriad of images I came across were some of the covers Kevin speaks of in his post entitled "Cultural Differences":

Previously, when describing the development of cover art for the US and UK editions of HUNTERS, I made it clear that the two editions -- and the two audiences -- have entirely different ideas about what makes a good cover.

How fascinating that a novel composed of a thick internal dialect all its own should be itself translated into existing languages. In fact, the Dune novels have been published in many languages, including most European tongues. So where am I going with this?

Periodically, I will post a few of the covers prepared for the international releases of the Dune novels (focusing primarily on Frank Herbert's original series).

"There is probably no more terrible instant of enlightenment than the one in which you discover your father is a man--with human flesh."
--from "Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan