Sure it is. Even the weird things like presience, the 'prana-bindu' training, and memories from your ancestors have a relationship with science [some relationships more...umm...loose than others]. And the entire ecology of the planet is built around actual desert ecology. There are errors/extrapolations/limits based on his knowledge (and the science at the time of the writing). Not to mention the sociological/anthropological aspects [though some don't consider sociology 'real' science, that's their problem]jacob Raver, sinTempter wrote:Is Dune even really sci-fi?
I'm only slightly familiar with pre-1975 sf, but he's the first in sf that I know of to consider chaos as a necessary part of survival.
Oh, and Dreaming, there are blast waves in space, and most are radiation based as you say...but they do have physical effects as soon as they hit something. And very hot matter does some pretty strange things. Radiation should be light-constant theoretically, but in practice different kinds arrive at different times...Still...all that effect from one ship, and noticeable lag at those distances?
Oh, well...I love a space battle.