Frank Herbert is a must read for any serious sci-fi fan. The Dosadi Experiment is one of his better books. Books 1-3 in the Dune series were excellent, but I think he lost focus or purpose in the later books.
Yes Dean, the story took a long time to develop, was complicated and multi-threaded. He delves into religion and cultures in conflict, both of which are complicated subjects. I read the first two books 3 times to take everything in. I rarely do that.
I sympathize with your condition Dean. I have no trouble reading, but suck at a lot of card games because I can't pick out patterns well when there is a lot of visual information presented. I also get lost easily when looking at lines of code in a program. Very frustrating at times.
