and continued political upheaval in the oil-rich Middle East, it is possible that Dune is even more relevant now than when it was first published." Praising Herbert's "clever authorial decision" to excise robots and computers ("two staples of the genre") from his fictional universe, he suggested that "This de-emphasis on technology throws the focus back on people. It also allows for the presence of a religious mysticism uncommon in science fiction." Environmentalism and ecology The originating novel Dune has been called the "first planetary ecology novel on a grand scale". After the publication of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson in 1962, science fiction writers began treating the subject of ecological change and its consequences. Dune responded in 1965 with its complex descriptions of life on Arrakis, from giant sandworms (for whom water is deadly) to smaller, mouse-like life forms adapted to live with limited water. Dune was followed in its creation of complex and unique ecologies by other science fiction books such as A Door into Ocean (1986) and Red Mars (1992). Environmentalists have pointed out that Dune popularity as a novel depicting a planet as a complex, almost living, thing, in combination with the first images of Earth from space being published in the same time period, strongly influenced environmental movements such as the establishment of the international Earth Day. Declining empires Lorenzo DiTommaso compared Dune portrayal of the downfall of a galactic empire to Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which argues that Christianity allied with the profligacy of the Roman elite led to the fall of Ancient Rome. In "History and Historical Effect in Frank Herbert's Dune" (1992), DiTommaso outlines similarities between the two works by highlighting the excesses of Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV on his home planet of Kaitain and of the Baron Harkonnen in his palace. The Emperor loses his effectiveness as a ruler through an excess of ceremony and pomp. The hairdressers and attendants he brings with him to Arrakis are even referred to as "parasites". The Baron Harkonnen is similarly corrupt, materially indulgent, and a sexual degenerate. Gibbon's Decline and Fall partly blames the fall of Rome on the rise of Christianity. Gibbon claimed that this exotic import from a conquered province weakened the soldiers of Rome and left it open to attack. Similarly, the Emperor's Sardaukar fighters are little match for the Fremen of Arrakis because of the Sardaukar's