Chapter House (Dune #6]

by Frank Herbert

Unknown Binding

Published January 1, 2012

About the author

Franklin Patrick Herbert Jr. was an American science fiction author best known for the 1965 novel Dune and its five sequels. Though he became famous for his novels, he also wrote short stories and worked as a newspaper journalist, photographer, book reviewer, ecological consultant, and lecturer.

The Dune saga, set in the distant future, and taking place over millennia, explores complex themes, such as the long-term survival of the human species, human evolution, planetary science and ecology, and the intersection of religion, politics, economics and power in a future where humanity has long since developed interstellar travel and settled many thousands of worlds. Dune is the best-selling science fiction novel of all time, and the entire series is considered to be among the classics of the genre.

Reviews

[Mathijs]

Finally after close to 2000 pages and 4 months I concluded the “second great Dune trilogy”! I had high hopes after Heretics but to be honest, the book dragged and then built to a rushed conclusion.

Insights into the workings of the Bene Gesserit were fun, albeit felt repetitive. Endless conversations that were mostly rethreads of earlier discussions were a bit boring in my opinion.

The ending was open, but felt rushed in a few pages which left me a bit dissatisfied.

Still these books are classics for a reason, and there were a lot of interesting parts, so I am happy to have read them in the end!

[Carl Barlow]

The worst thing about Chapter House Dune is that it's the last Frank Herbert wrote in the sequence, and he was clearly ramping up for Big Things with it.

Dune is a lifeless husk, but on the secret Bene Gesserit planet of Chapter House, an equatorial desert waxes, and the new worms -offspring of the Leto II, Tyrant, God- are starting to rise...

The usual plethora of loaded -indeed, weaponised- conversations, plans within plans, resurrections (though, wonder of wonders, we still have the same Duncan as featured in Heretics of Dune!), unlikely latter-day references and hangers-on, and impossibly fast fight sequences, are all present and correct. The Honoured Matres are back, still a bit vampish and camp and boo-hiss, still after the eradication of the BGs... but we all know they're no match for the ladies in black, don't we? There are also hints at feedback from the David Lynch adaption of Dune (which would have been in production during CHD writing), with descriptions of Guild Navigators and practice fighting machines very reminiscent of those featured in the film.

So the set-up and promise for the seventh book are all there (indeed, there are tantalising suggestions of an new and great Peril out in the universe, something not even the God Emperor envisaged), but we can only dream what may have followed. Sadly.

[Cristina Fountaine]

The story follows from where Dune #5 left off. The Bene Geserit are hunted by the newcomers, Honoured Matres. The plot is good, and the characters are well-developed. Some of the details of the political theme are sketchy and/or difficult to understand. The story ends in a cliffhanger with some of the main protagonists escaping into the unknown, physically and metaphorically freeing themselves from their creators and their past. The end is also a bit confusing, introducing the old couple ( Face dancers ) right at the end with no explanation as of how and why, leaving the reader to assume. Unfortunately, there is a lot of mumbo-jumbo and pretentious dialogue in this book, which makes the reading cumbersome. Pity.