As sci-fi books go, Herbert’s “Dune” is legitimately impressive in its treatment of international relations. The interstellar jockeying for power between the Emperor, Landsraad, Spacing Guild, Bene Gesserit, and Houses Harkonnen and Atreides is compelling. The lead characters have varying but believable degrees of strategic acumen, with feints inside of feints. Herbert is attuned to the role that religion and the environment can play in international politics. His discussion of “desert power” is more sophisticated than 95 percent of the instances a pundit mentions “geopolitics” in an op-ed.