"Shaddam Corrino IV, Emperor of the Known Universe, has risked everything to create a substitute for the spice melange . . .The substance that makes space travel possible . . . That prolongs life . . . That allows prescience . . . A substance that is found only on the desert planet Arrakis, a harsh world of storms and monstrous sandworms. Shaddam has used the noble houses as chess pieces for his scheme, causing the overthrow of powerful families,...

"Covid-19 has arrived in London, and the entire world quickly succumbs to the surreal, chaotic mundanity of screens, isolation, and the disasters small and large that have plagued recent history. As our unnamed narrator--a classics academic immersed in her studies of ancient prophecies--navigates the tightening grip of lockdown, a marriage in crisis, and a ten-year-old son who seems increasingly unreachable, she becomes obsessed with predicting the...