Everything you say about the film is also true of the novel. There is no heart, no emotional centre, and this is intentional.

The novel is about aristocratic family and intrigue, on one level. Close relationships in such families take on a different meaning. Anyone and everyone is to be regarded, first and foremost, as a potential threat. Is Jessicas' ultimate loyalty to House Atreides, or the Bene Gesserit? Will Paul eventually plot to murder his father and take the Dukedom? Might Duncan or Gurney or Thufir Hawat be more loyal to Paul than to his father? Should Duke Leto marry and sire another male child, will it be necessary for him to 'dispose' of Jessica and Paul? Doesn't make for cosy family dinners!

You're not supposed to care about the characters, merely observe them and possibly judge them. The Atreides are no different from the Harkonnens or Corrinos, they just hide their ruthlessness and brutality better.

On another level, all these characters, whatever their intentions, are, asJessica later ruminates, pebbles caught in the landslide of history. In Herberts' world, humanity has grown stale and suffocated and inbred (thanks to the class system and the Bene Gesserit breeding programmes), and a primal urge to revitalise the race by uncontrolled mixing of genes is rising. This is the root of the Jihad, the Holy War that Pauls' prescience warns him of. The war he tries so hard to avoid, but which every action he is allowed, forced or able to take makes more inevitable.

Throughout the first four books of the series, Paul follows the path of the clasical Hero. Chosen by the Gods to fulfill a terrible task. Forced by the Fates to perform that task even as he struggles against it. Cast down at the moment of his greatest height. Exiled, then dying ignominiously. Only for his son, the amoral Leto II, to do what Paul refused to do, and take control of history in the only way possible, by becoming a God.