Dune

Set on the desert planet Arrakis, the only source of the spice that makes interstellar travel possible, Dune follows Paul Atreides after his family is handed stewardship of the planet and then betrayed.

The novel works on several levels at once: ecology and water scarcity, the politics of empire and resource control, and the way religion and prophecy can be engineered and then take on a life of their own.