Dune

Dune by Frank Herbert is sometimes called the greatest science-fiction novel of all time. I have not read many science-fiction novels, but I have read a few that are, in fact, greater than Dune. Ursula Le Guin, for example, is a stronger writer with a better knack for multi-layered characters. Dune characters are distracting with their silly names, like Duncan Idaho or Princess Irulan; their gravely sophomoric dialogue; and their single-minded, unambiguous motivation. Too many times to count, one character would say something ominous, only to have his listener "swallow" in fear. There was a lot of swallowing. Unfortunately, Dune had many of the clunky problems that has kept me away from science fiction in the past. 

However, while distracting to read page by page, the novel as a whole is a successful exercise in imagination and world building. Like Le Guin, Herbert blends space travel with religion, anthropology, government, economics, and ecology. His universe is comprehensive and, once you get past the individual characters, believable. There's quite a bit of backstory in Dune that is at times alluded to and at times fully explained in the appendix, and it's legitimately interesting. This Fall, a film version of the novel will come out, and I will go see it, so engaged was I by the world Herbert created. If the screenwriters improve on the dialogue, it should be a good one.