Dune

It's a neat story of deserts, ginormous worms, drugs, prophecy, politics, power, totally different way of life, and the first Jedi ever :-P It has nothing to do with star wars, but a handful of the characters have a few Jedi-like qualities in them. It's a solid sci-fi book, with some good points about public opinions and personal interaction as well as some interesting aspects borrowed from Islam. Unfortunately it didn't have a very good reader so I'm not particularly inspired by it, but I can see that why it lends itself to a 6 or 7 book series. ~~Update:~~ I think the reader stuck with me, he had a pretty unique voice and I think his pronunciations really stuck with me...weird.

---