I'm in the mood to read some sci fi. Help me choose (I assume people on this site ought to know) out of these two classics! Which one's better, and more interesting? Which did you think was better written?

Dune, IMO, is more interesting and well written.  Either series is great though.  Stay away from any of the Dune books that were not written by Frank.  Those are pretty much just drivel.

Agreed.

Plus one from me.

FTR, can someone tell me why I should choose one over the other (without any spoilers please, as I found that the little you know about a book/movie/video game, the better it is when you read it/watch it/play it)

I wasn't really paying attention when I opened this thread and I expected a poll

Anyhow - this really can't be an either/or! As Jagged said - they are both great series -or at least - they are both great books. I'm not wildly keen on ANY of the Dune sequels tbh even the ones that were written by Frank Herbert himself whereas the Foundation series is all pretty good.

They've both got a really huge scope - encompassing the whole galaxy, but they also both manage to keep you interested in a small set of characters as well. I think Dune is the better book though because of the grandness of its ideas, the better writing, and the fact that Frank Herbert does a much better job of characterisation.

The foundation series however, is much more believable, and is definitely better if you don't want to have to read the glossary to keep up with what all of the words mean!

The first few times I tried to read Dune - I didn’t like it, whereas Foundation was really easy to get in to. Now however, Dune is probably my favourite sci-fi book.

Well said. Brian Herbert is a fucking disgrace.

Dune has the most amazingly realized world in all of fiction. Read it or beat it!

I really do not read much and I haven't read Foundation, but I couldn't put Dune down.  I didn't make it through Messiah so I can't comment on the rest of the series.

Dune is deeper, Foundation flows better.

I really need to read Dune. I keep avoiding it for some reason.

With that said, the original Foundation trilogy is awesome. It's an interesting (and somewhat realistic) take on molding a society and how it copes with religion, science, and predetermination.