Before we get into it, a quick dedication.

I was recently a guest on the Dune Minute Podcast, where John, Zach, and I set a new record for the show: talking for four hours about Dune. Specifically, about the last episode of the SyFy miniseries: The Golden Path.

If that's your idea of a good time (it's certainly mine), go have a listen.

And if you’re a regular listener, you’ll also know that they happen to be the two biggest glowglobe fans this side of the Scattering - so this one's for you, John and Zach.

Glowglobes are undoubtedly the most ubiquitous piece of technology in the Known Universe. You’ll find them in Castle Caladan, in every sietch between the two poles of Arrakis, in Leto II’s crypt fifteen hundred years after Paul, and they’re still bobbing around the Bene Gesserit Chapterhouse 3.5 thousand years after Leto.

And in true Frank Herbert fashion, we don’t ever get a good info dump on who invented them and what makes them tick.

So I went lore diving and here are all the details I found across the six books.

What are glowglobes?

As usual, the appendix of the original Dune provides a quick summary to get us going.

GLOWGLOBE: suspensor-buoyed illuminating device, self-powered (usually by organic batteries).
‍— Terminology of the Imperium, Dune [1965]

So it’s a lamp, and it works without an electrical grid. Every globe carries its own juice, so you don’t need to bother with cumbersome AC adaptors - just pack up your lighting on Caladan, and it works just as well in a cave on Arrakis.

And mind that "usually" in brackets. That means that organic batteries are the standard (whatever they might be), but there's at least one other power source out there - even if it’s never mentioned.

What makes these lamps cool, of course, is that they float, using the same in-universe science and tech that creates shields, folds space, and lets the Baron Harkonnen move around.

SUSPENSOR: secondary (low-drain) phase of a Holtzman field generator. It nullifies gravity within certain limits prescribed by relative mass and energy consumption.
‍— Terminology of the Imperium, Dune [1965]

The first book often calls these "suspensor lamps" - Paul's bedroom in the very first chapter is lit by one, "dimmed and hanging near the floor."

But the term quietly disappears → from Messiah onwards, it's glowglobes all the way down.

What do they look like?

Balls, mostly.

It's in the name, after all - the Baron's quarters, for example, are lit by "golden balls hanging in mobile suspensor fields."

Size-wise, they run from pocket to palace. On the small end, there's the miniglobe, which we see Odrade wearing on a cord at her shoulder, like a fancy head torch, when she goes for a night walk in her favorite orchard. On the other end, in the same book:

A glimpse of the past in the chandeliers — gigantic glittering things imitative of electric devices but furnished with glowglobes. Two of them dominated the ceiling like imaginary spaceships descending in splendor from the void.
‍— Chapterhouse: Dune [1985]

And as with everything, the housing is where the money shows. Castle Corrino has globes that are lacking a suspensor but are made from "crystal from another age," while Leto II lights his secret spice hoard with globes "of an ancient design with arabesques of metal scrollwork upon them."

How do they move?

However you want them to, really.

They can gently bob around the room, like in Leto’s crypt, where the only light was provided by “the random drifting of a few suspensor-borne glowglobes,” but they can be fixed in place as well, anchored and arranged in patterns.

What’s more, they can be set to follow you around.

Chani entered bearing his coffee service on a platinum tray. Two slaved glowglobes followed her, darting to their positions: one at the head of their bed, one hovering beside her to light her work.
‍— Dune: Messiah [1969]

They even do notifications. Leto had a blinking one in God Emperor - which turned out to be Moneo, signaling his Lord that the latest Duncan was on his way.

What colors can they do?

If it isn’t specifically mentioned, we can safely assume that they’re some shade of yellow - it's the muted color of the Sun, from Paul's quarters in Sietch Tabr with "glowglobes tuned to yellow overhead bobbing against draped yellow ceiling fabrics" all the way to Mother Superior Taraza's bedside light five thousand years later.

But note the word "tuned" - because the dial goes to all the colors of the rainbow. Jessica waits for Hawat in “pale rose light” in Arrakeen; Leto II keeps his crypt in "low” orange and the tunnels under Onn in deep orange; the great hall of Siaynoq is lit by globes "tuned high into the red" and there are "harsh white globes" on the balcony of Leto's desert aerie

My personal favorite? Gurney Halleck showing up in Children with "a bright blue glowglobe in the crook of his left elbow."

The man might be the ugliest you’ve ever seen, but he has style.

With this in mind, it’s weird to find a storage room under Onn where the fixed globes "could not be tuned away from their blank white glaring." Why would you ever buy single-color glowglobes?

Speaking of which: where do you buy them?

Who makes them?

It’s never really explained where people get their glowglobes from. Are they mass-produced by House Glowyglobe? Do the Fremen make them with spice plastic? Who knows.

The only manufacturer we ever get is Ix, and they apparently specialize in the pro max luxury edition.

Leto II's audience chamber is lit by "the false sunlight of Ixian glowglobes," and the fancy crystal ones I mentioned earlier, the ones in Castle Corrino, well they’re also made “of the purest Ixian crystal."

Do they come in other shapes?

Yes, we have a few variations for the discerning customer.

The glowtab is the baby of the family - the self-lighting tab on the Fremkit's micromanual, and the fitting that fills a stilltent with dim green light.

The glow-tubes are wall fixtures - the temple portico in Messiah is "lined with tall, slender glow-tubes simulating candle flame."

And then there's the glowstrip, which is the fanciest of them all. When the latest Duncan Idaho ghola arrives at Leto's Citadel, it's the corridor lighting that gives him culture shock:

Idaho had never seen glowstrips before coming to the Citadel; they had been considered impractical in his day, requiring too much energy, too costly to maintain. Glowglobes were simpler and easily replaced.
‍— God Emperor of Dune [1981]

They have strings?

The question of how exactly you’d set a glowglobe to a color or a position remained unanswered until Heretics where Herbert introduces us to their toggle cords.

Now maybe this is a retcon of galactic scale, maybe it’s just these specific glowglobes that have it, but in a scene where the only way out is jumping down, Odrade robs the room of its lighting to escape.

Leaping up, she gathered glowglobes, grabbing them in bundles by their toggle cords. She thrust several bundles into Sheeana's hands and Sheeana felt her body grow lighter with the lift of the globes' suspensor fields.
[…]
"Hold the globes close to get the maximum field effect," Odrade said. "Push them away to lower yourself. In you go."
‍— Heretics of Dune [1984]

Sheeana goes over the sill with the cords in a sweaty fist, drops, panics, pulls the globes in tight - and above her, a light comes sliding down the shaft. It's Odrade, following her down on a fistful of lamps.

And the only thing I can think about is the house from Up.