About Jessica in “Dune” — & Why She’s Still Kickass After 50 Years

Francesca Annis as Jessica

On Mother’s Day a few year’s back I decided to write a feature post on some of the great mothers in speculative fiction — only to discover how few there really were, certainly cast as major characters in the stories.

But there was still Jessica from Frank Herbert’s Dune. She is one of the most kickass women characters I can think of in SFF and still one of the very few (I know: 50 years later!) where being a mother is central, not peripheral, to her part in the stor...