Herbert was, among other things, an ecologist. He was also notable for incorporating lots of ideas from Arabic culture and Islam. If you are willing to give his work another chance, White Plague is a very entertaining book which also has political overtones, but better integrated and set in a largely modern setting.
I would not encourage reading more Dune. The first book is a masterpiece, but the rest of the series gets very bizarre. If you didn’t like Dune, you will probably not take to the later titles.