The Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien disliked Dune "with some intensity"

J.R.R. Tolkien published his Lord of the Rings books between July 1954 and October 1955, and they've been inspiring readers and writers ever since. Elves, dwarves, dark lords...these tropes have appeared in many fantasy works over the years. Without The Lord of the Rings, we don't get Dungeons & Dragons or A Song of Ice and Fire, which author George R.R. Martin has said he wrote partially as a response to Tolkien's work. Their influence on pop culture cannot be overstated. And of course, they remain great reads to this day, and have yielded some great screen adaptations.

Dune is the sci-fi counterbalance to The Lord of the Rings. Published in 1965 by author Frank Herbert, it has a similar epic scale, but the story plays out in Earth's distant future rather than its distant past. On top of being one of the best-selling science fiction novels of all time, Dune has been very influential; you can see its influence on seminal works like Star Wars, for instance.

Tolkien and Herbert were alive and working at the same time, although we don't know if they ever met. We do know, however, that Tolkien didn't think much of Dune, as he revealed in a 1966 letter to a man named John Bush, as published in Tolkien's Library: An Annotated Checklist by Oronzo Chili. "Thank you for sending me a copy of Dune," Tolkien wrote. "I received one last year from [Sterling] Lanier and so already know something about the book."

"It is impossible for an author still writing to be fair to another author working along the same lines. At least I find it so. In fact I dislike Dune with some intensity, and in that unfortunate case it is much the best and fairest to another author to keep silent and refuse to comment."

"Would you like me to return the book as I already have one, or hand it on?" Tolkien finished, eager to be rid of the thing. I kid, obviously, although it's interesting to think about why Tolkien may have disliked Dune. Looking at the letter, it may have had nothing to do with the quality of the work but with professional rivalry, based on him writing that it's "impossible" for him to be "fair" about Dune given that it's roughly in the same genre as The Lord of the Rings: an epic tale about war set in a fantastical world. If that was his concern, he needn't have worried, since history has proven that there's more than enough room for both The Lord of the Ring and Dune in the hearts and minds of the public.

Or maybe Tolkien had other concerns he didn't mention in this letter, which I remind everyone was a private letter he never intended to show to the world. Tolkien kept it classy and never went public with his criticisms; this letter was found decades later and published long after Tolkien's death.

The Lord of the Rings and Dune are certainly very different sorts of books. Maybe Tolkien didn't approve of Dune's bleaker tone, or its warning about the dangers of charismatic leaders, or...I don't know, all the sand. We will likely never know.

Dune is having a moment right now because director Denis Villeneuve is about to release Dune: Part Two, which will finish his two-part adaptation of Herbert's original book. Meanwhile, Amazon will air the second season of its Lord of the Rings TV show, The Rings of Power, sometime this year. Both of these series are thriving even today.

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