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Dune #8
Sandworms of Dune
At the end of Frank Herbert's final novel, Chapterhouse: Dune, a ship carrying a crew of refugees escapes into the uncharted galaxy, fleeing from a terrifying, mysterious Enemy. The fugitives used genetic technology to revive key figures from Dune's past--including Paul Muad'Dib and Lady Jessica--to use their special talents to meet the challenges thrown at them.
Based directly on Frank Herbert's final outline, which lay hidden in two safe-deposit boxes for a decade, Sandworms of Dune will answer the urgent questions Dune fans have been debating for two decades: the origin of the Honored Matres, the tantalizing future of the planet Arrakis, the final revelation of the Kwisatz Haderach, and the resolution to the war between Man and Machine. This breathtaking new novel in Frank Herbert's Dune series has enough surprises and plot twists to please even the most demanding reader.
Based directly on Frank Herbert's final outline, which lay hidden in two safe-deposit boxes for a decade, Sandworms of Dune will answer the urgent questions Dune fans have been debating for two decades: the origin of the Honored Matres, the tantalizing future of the planet Arrakis, the final revelation of the Kwisatz Haderach, and the resolution to the war between Man and Machine. This breathtaking new novel in Frank Herbert's Dune series has enough surprises and plot twists to please even the most demanding reader.
494 pages, Hardcover
First published August 7, 2007
446 people are currently reading
25124 people want to read
About the author
Brian Herbert
239 books2,140 followersBrian Patrick Herbert is an American author who lives in Washington state. He is the elder son of science fiction author Frank Patrick Herbert.
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March 28, 2011
***CONTAINS SPOILERS***
This is part two of Dune 7, or at least Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson's interpretation of how Frank Herbert may have intended it based on a supposed outline and notes they'd found of the book. I ripped apart part one of Dune 7, Hunters of Dune, in my previous review, but believe it or not, that book was better and more enjoyable than this one, but not by much. Sandworms of Dune was one of the worst books I've ever read, in terms of plot, pacing, character development, dialogue, writing style...basically, in any category in which you would judge a book's worth, this book was the pits. I must note that I am placing 99% of the blame squarely on the shoulders of Kevin J. Anderson, who's horrendous writing style, apparent in every one of his "100 books, half of them bestsellers, selling over 20 million, etc" in his own words, is smeared and slapped on every page of these awful, awful books.
In a nutshell, this story tells, again, in excruciatingly boring detail, the story of the struggle between humans and thinking machines. Yes, it's really that basic, and really as stupid as a Terminator-style fight between evil robots bent on slaughtering humans for no apparent reason other than revenge, and people fighting back. Throughout it all, we get more gholas, more characters from the old books brought back for no apparent reason other than "it would be cool," (more on this later), and more one-dimensional character "development," or in the case of KJA's style, character "devolution." Because, you see, the characters in these Dune 7 books act and talk NOTHING like they did in the previous 6 real Dune books by Frank Herbert. Here we have Bene Gesserit sisters showing loads of emotions, for example, when they had always been in complete control of their feelings and expression of them in previous books. The entire "Dune babies" storyline has dialogue so stiff and lame that it makes young Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: Episode I seem eloquent by comparison. And the stupid midichlorian tangent from that movie is better than a lot of the reasons given in this book for why things happen (too many for me to detail, not that you'd want me to, anyway...trust me).
The characters in these books act so STUPID you're shocked they survived beyond a few chapters previously. Example: Face Dancers had infiltrated the no-ship and were sabotaging it. One of the characters says he can create a poison that only kills Face Dancers and doesn't affect true humans. He says he can make it into a gas. Another character, who's supposed to be a military genius, asks "what good will that do?" After some back and forth, he exclaims "Oh, I get it! We can run it through the air vents and it will only kill Face Dancers!" Really? A supposed legendary military mind in these books, the great Miles Teg, is that dense? This is but one of numerous examples in these books.
I could go on and on but I'm so sick of these books that I don't want to. However, what truly makes them awful is the last 100 pages or so, when every defeat of the villains is accomplished so easily that it's amazingly anticlimactic, and there are seriously six to seven deus ex machina solutions to every problem such that the entire books ends up being wrapped up so neatly and tidily that it's absurd. It has one of those "and they all lived happily ever after" feelings, which, after what is supposed to be described as the final struggle for the survival of humanity, is again limp and anticlimactic. Humans and machines living in harmony singing Kumbaya and holding hands...gee, how nice!
Anderson's typical introduction of the "ultra" or "ultimate" anything gets so ridiculous that I literally laughed out loud ("ULTRAspice," ULTIMATE Kwisatz Haderach," etc). Seaworms, sandworms morphing into giant "Monarch" worms, Duncan Idaho described as a "superman." As one poster on an internet message board stated, these books pass the KJA "wouldn't it be awesome?" test, in that you can find every new thing they introduce and picture him thinking "wouldn't it be awesome if worms lived in the sea?" for example.
The most infuriating this about these books is that it's clear they COMPLETELY misunderstood everything Frank Herbert was trying to get across in his 6 books. The Butlerian Jihad was a crusade against thinking machines such that humanity was becoming too dependent and complacent with the assistance of mass automation, and they rebelled against it such that they vowed never to let their inherent and natural abilities and talents go to waste again. It was a way to ensure humanity would flourish and evolve over the millennia. KJA and BH turned this into a mindless fight against killer Terminator robots (who just appear out of nowhere) and humans. Stupid. And Frank Herbert had said REPEATEDLY that he introduced "hero" characters who turned out to be eminently flawed and corruptible to shatter the myth of the hero who saves the day and conquers all and the blind devotion of humans throughout history to follow such a character, often to ultimate ruin. And what to KJA and BH do? Introduce the newest superman, ULTIMATE Kwisatz Haderach Duncan Idaho. And get this...near the end of the book, he contemplates how he will not be corrupted by his immense power as so many before him have, and solves the problem buy simply stating to himself, "I won't let that happen." Problem solved. Case closed. Ludicrous. Equally galling are the CONSTANT references to the non-canon events in the stupid "prequel" books KJA and BH have written, repeated AD NASEUM in these Dune 7 books to the point of making me angry enough to slam the book down. How many times to we have to read about Paul "almost being assassinated" by Fenring? Or the ridiculous histories of their laughable "Oracle of Time" or "Serena Butler?" And don't get me started on the ridiculous ENEMY, who turn out to be cross-dressing smarmy robots, again their own creations, Omnius and Erasmus (yes, the names are that stupid), who also end up being so easy to defeat. We're to believe they've spent 15,000 years plotting revenge on the humans, and have slaughtered trillions of humans throughout Dune 7, yet Omnius is simply whisked away by the Oracle in a matter of a paragraph, while Erasmus cuts a deal with Duncan basically over a handshake ("I'll stop slaughtering humans if you promise to be nice to us."). I couldn't make stuff this idiotic up. And the constant attempts to tie-in more of their fanfic as canon is truly disgusting. Basically, these two books would make an excellent film for Mystery Science Theater 3000 to rip apart, and at least then, they'd be slightly enjoyable!
I'm going to stop now because I could go on forever, but if you read my review of Hunters of Dune and this book, you'll get a clear picture of how I really feel about these bastardizations and how I and LOADS od others worldwide do not consider anything these guys have written as canon or "real" Dune. It's fanfic aimed at Young Adult/Tweens that is being passed off as legit, but it's not. Don't fall for it.
And as with Hunters of Dune, there are a smattering of interesting ideas or plot threads that I attribute to Frank Herbert himself (based on his outline, which they claimed to be doing for these entire books), but these are few and far between. In fact, if you add them all up, they'd amount to what you'd expect from...an outline. And not the "copious notes" they claimed to have found for this book. No one buys that excuse from them anymore, and no one buys their books anymore, either, judging from the dismal sales and the cancellation of the latest series of "interquels."
Stick to the 6 original Frank Herbert books and use your imagination to come up with how he may have finished the saga in Dune 7 had he lived. He certainly wouldn't have changed it into a cheesy planet-hopping whizz-bang-pow shoot 'em up space opera ala Star Wars the way these guys did. I may read their "prequel" and "interquel" Dune books just for some laughs, as I know I'll never accept them as canon, although after reading their insipid attempt at Dune 7, I'm not sure I want to put myself through that.
This is part two of Dune 7, or at least Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson's interpretation of how Frank Herbert may have intended it based on a supposed outline and notes they'd found of the book. I ripped apart part one of Dune 7, Hunters of Dune, in my previous review, but believe it or not, that book was better and more enjoyable than this one, but not by much. Sandworms of Dune was one of the worst books I've ever read, in terms of plot, pacing, character development, dialogue, writing style...basically, in any category in which you would judge a book's worth, this book was the pits. I must note that I am placing 99% of the blame squarely on the shoulders of Kevin J. Anderson, who's horrendous writing style, apparent in every one of his "100 books, half of them bestsellers, selling over 20 million, etc" in his own words, is smeared and slapped on every page of these awful, awful books.
In a nutshell, this story tells, again, in excruciatingly boring detail, the story of the struggle between humans and thinking machines. Yes, it's really that basic, and really as stupid as a Terminator-style fight between evil robots bent on slaughtering humans for no apparent reason other than revenge, and people fighting back. Throughout it all, we get more gholas, more characters from the old books brought back for no apparent reason other than "it would be cool," (more on this later), and more one-dimensional character "development," or in the case of KJA's style, character "devolution." Because, you see, the characters in these Dune 7 books act and talk NOTHING like they did in the previous 6 real Dune books by Frank Herbert. Here we have Bene Gesserit sisters showing loads of emotions, for example, when they had always been in complete control of their feelings and expression of them in previous books. The entire "Dune babies" storyline has dialogue so stiff and lame that it makes young Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: Episode I seem eloquent by comparison. And the stupid midichlorian tangent from that movie is better than a lot of the reasons given in this book for why things happen (too many for me to detail, not that you'd want me to, anyway...trust me).
The characters in these books act so STUPID you're shocked they survived beyond a few chapters previously. Example: Face Dancers had infiltrated the no-ship and were sabotaging it. One of the characters says he can create a poison that only kills Face Dancers and doesn't affect true humans. He says he can make it into a gas. Another character, who's supposed to be a military genius, asks "what good will that do?" After some back and forth, he exclaims "Oh, I get it! We can run it through the air vents and it will only kill Face Dancers!" Really? A supposed legendary military mind in these books, the great Miles Teg, is that dense? This is but one of numerous examples in these books.
I could go on and on but I'm so sick of these books that I don't want to. However, what truly makes them awful is the last 100 pages or so, when every defeat of the villains is accomplished so easily that it's amazingly anticlimactic, and there are seriously six to seven deus ex machina solutions to every problem such that the entire books ends up being wrapped up so neatly and tidily that it's absurd. It has one of those "and they all lived happily ever after" feelings, which, after what is supposed to be described as the final struggle for the survival of humanity, is again limp and anticlimactic. Humans and machines living in harmony singing Kumbaya and holding hands...gee, how nice!
Anderson's typical introduction of the "ultra" or "ultimate" anything gets so ridiculous that I literally laughed out loud ("ULTRAspice," ULTIMATE Kwisatz Haderach," etc). Seaworms, sandworms morphing into giant "Monarch" worms, Duncan Idaho described as a "superman." As one poster on an internet message board stated, these books pass the KJA "wouldn't it be awesome?" test, in that you can find every new thing they introduce and picture him thinking "wouldn't it be awesome if worms lived in the sea?" for example.
The most infuriating this about these books is that it's clear they COMPLETELY misunderstood everything Frank Herbert was trying to get across in his 6 books. The Butlerian Jihad was a crusade against thinking machines such that humanity was becoming too dependent and complacent with the assistance of mass automation, and they rebelled against it such that they vowed never to let their inherent and natural abilities and talents go to waste again. It was a way to ensure humanity would flourish and evolve over the millennia. KJA and BH turned this into a mindless fight against killer Terminator robots (who just appear out of nowhere) and humans. Stupid. And Frank Herbert had said REPEATEDLY that he introduced "hero" characters who turned out to be eminently flawed and corruptible to shatter the myth of the hero who saves the day and conquers all and the blind devotion of humans throughout history to follow such a character, often to ultimate ruin. And what to KJA and BH do? Introduce the newest superman, ULTIMATE Kwisatz Haderach Duncan Idaho. And get this...near the end of the book, he contemplates how he will not be corrupted by his immense power as so many before him have, and solves the problem buy simply stating to himself, "I won't let that happen." Problem solved. Case closed. Ludicrous. Equally galling are the CONSTANT references to the non-canon events in the stupid "prequel" books KJA and BH have written, repeated AD NASEUM in these Dune 7 books to the point of making me angry enough to slam the book down. How many times to we have to read about Paul "almost being assassinated" by Fenring? Or the ridiculous histories of their laughable "Oracle of Time" or "Serena Butler?" And don't get me started on the ridiculous ENEMY, who turn out to be cross-dressing smarmy robots, again their own creations, Omnius and Erasmus (yes, the names are that stupid), who also end up being so easy to defeat. We're to believe they've spent 15,000 years plotting revenge on the humans, and have slaughtered trillions of humans throughout Dune 7, yet Omnius is simply whisked away by the Oracle in a matter of a paragraph, while Erasmus cuts a deal with Duncan basically over a handshake ("I'll stop slaughtering humans if you promise to be nice to us."). I couldn't make stuff this idiotic up. And the constant attempts to tie-in more of their fanfic as canon is truly disgusting. Basically, these two books would make an excellent film for Mystery Science Theater 3000 to rip apart, and at least then, they'd be slightly enjoyable!
I'm going to stop now because I could go on forever, but if you read my review of Hunters of Dune and this book, you'll get a clear picture of how I really feel about these bastardizations and how I and LOADS od others worldwide do not consider anything these guys have written as canon or "real" Dune. It's fanfic aimed at Young Adult/Tweens that is being passed off as legit, but it's not. Don't fall for it.
And as with Hunters of Dune, there are a smattering of interesting ideas or plot threads that I attribute to Frank Herbert himself (based on his outline, which they claimed to be doing for these entire books), but these are few and far between. In fact, if you add them all up, they'd amount to what you'd expect from...an outline. And not the "copious notes" they claimed to have found for this book. No one buys that excuse from them anymore, and no one buys their books anymore, either, judging from the dismal sales and the cancellation of the latest series of "interquels."
Stick to the 6 original Frank Herbert books and use your imagination to come up with how he may have finished the saga in Dune 7 had he lived. He certainly wouldn't have changed it into a cheesy planet-hopping whizz-bang-pow shoot 'em up space opera ala Star Wars the way these guys did. I may read their "prequel" and "interquel" Dune books just for some laughs, as I know I'll never accept them as canon, although after reading their insipid attempt at Dune 7, I'm not sure I want to put myself through that.
March 20, 2022
"I don't know how to put this, but I'm kind of a big deal. People know me. I'm very important. I have many leather-bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany."
- Ron Burgundy
However you cut it, Dune is kind of a big deal. From Frank Herbert’s first publication of the genius god-emperor masterpiece in 1965 to Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson’s collaboration to complete his vision, this book, this idea, this series is huge for the speculative fiction genre. Frank’s posthumous notes for the series were found on an old dot matrix file in a safe deposit box and Brian and Kevin, having already expanded his dream into various prequels and expansionist projects, were the obvious choice to complete Frank Herbert’s Dune vision. Brian opined that Frank’s notes and outline might call for a mammoth 1300 pages, they decided ($$$$) to make two books. Thus we had the penultimate Hunters of Dune in 2006 and the final Sandworms of Dune first published in 2007. And just like Frank began each chapter with a quote from some book or treatise from his great Dune universe, so too did Brian and Kevin continue that theme in the final two.
“I drank what?”
- Socrates
It must have been tough bringing the colossal Dune storyline to a conclusion. Bringing together and tying up all the many and sundry loose ends would have been a tall order even for the literary genius of Frank. Brian and Kevin do yeoman’s work in completing the series and it was not too bad. True, the ending was … anticlimactic, but within the friendly confines of the Dune ballpark, they wove together a tapestry of a rug that really tied the room together.
Using the Tleilaxu science of ghola development to full effect Brian and Kevin brought back most of the old cast and had a final showdown of epic proportions, one fitting for Frank’s inimitable creation.
“It’s not easy being green”
- Kermit the Frog
Sandworms was a good book by itself and a better book when considering the sandworm sized baggage they had to drag along with it. The authors put together a fun book with plenty of action, lots to think about and an abundance of opportunities to relive the epic fantasy that is Dune. It was not easy, certainly, but they brought it all together and made it good enough for this fan.
*** 2022 reread -
Full disclosure, those four stars are from a serious Dune fan and I typically upgrade a rating if I've reread it. But, if you're also reading, or rereading Sandworms, you're also probably a serious fan as well, far afield as it is from Frank's original.
Interestingly, among Dune fans, I have noticed a distinct schism, a dividing line in the sand - Frank Herbert purists and Dune Universe expansionists. Purists will tell you, sometimes with priggish zeal, that Dune is comprised of six books. They may grudgingly accept that there have been two films adaptations and a mini-series, but that’s it! Frank wrote six Dune books. Period. That’s all folks!
The expansionist crowd accept as canon Brian and Kevin’s ending to the admittedly truncated original series due to Frank’s death in 1986; as well as their prequels and many other expansionist books.
I can see it both ways, yes Frank’s writing is superior to Brian and Kevin’s collaboration, and it is his vision and imagination that brought all this to life. But, it’s a story, a damn fine one at that, not religious scripture, and while I can see the point of the purists argument, if not their sometimes vehemence, I find myself on the side of the expansionists.
If you compare the Dune universe, Frank’s world building, to other expanded works – Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel, DC – there is a fecundity of story opportunity. Literally thousands of years of possible histories and characters to develop and explore. And each of these other fictional universes have had a myriad of creative talent to expand the original brilliant ideas.
I’d like to see Brian allow a franchise to encourage other writers to help expand this wonderful creation.
If you’re a purist and my words are heresy, then so be it. I’ll be a Heretic of Dune and insist that the spice must flow.
- Ron Burgundy
However you cut it, Dune is kind of a big deal. From Frank Herbert’s first publication of the genius god-emperor masterpiece in 1965 to Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson’s collaboration to complete his vision, this book, this idea, this series is huge for the speculative fiction genre. Frank’s posthumous notes for the series were found on an old dot matrix file in a safe deposit box and Brian and Kevin, having already expanded his dream into various prequels and expansionist projects, were the obvious choice to complete Frank Herbert’s Dune vision. Brian opined that Frank’s notes and outline might call for a mammoth 1300 pages, they decided ($$$$) to make two books. Thus we had the penultimate Hunters of Dune in 2006 and the final Sandworms of Dune first published in 2007. And just like Frank began each chapter with a quote from some book or treatise from his great Dune universe, so too did Brian and Kevin continue that theme in the final two.
“I drank what?”
- Socrates
It must have been tough bringing the colossal Dune storyline to a conclusion. Bringing together and tying up all the many and sundry loose ends would have been a tall order even for the literary genius of Frank. Brian and Kevin do yeoman’s work in completing the series and it was not too bad. True, the ending was … anticlimactic, but within the friendly confines of the Dune ballpark, they wove together a tapestry of a rug that really tied the room together.
Using the Tleilaxu science of ghola development to full effect Brian and Kevin brought back most of the old cast and had a final showdown of epic proportions, one fitting for Frank’s inimitable creation.
“It’s not easy being green”
- Kermit the Frog
Sandworms was a good book by itself and a better book when considering the sandworm sized baggage they had to drag along with it. The authors put together a fun book with plenty of action, lots to think about and an abundance of opportunities to relive the epic fantasy that is Dune. It was not easy, certainly, but they brought it all together and made it good enough for this fan.
*** 2022 reread -
Full disclosure, those four stars are from a serious Dune fan and I typically upgrade a rating if I've reread it. But, if you're also reading, or rereading Sandworms, you're also probably a serious fan as well, far afield as it is from Frank's original.
Interestingly, among Dune fans, I have noticed a distinct schism, a dividing line in the sand - Frank Herbert purists and Dune Universe expansionists. Purists will tell you, sometimes with priggish zeal, that Dune is comprised of six books. They may grudgingly accept that there have been two films adaptations and a mini-series, but that’s it! Frank wrote six Dune books. Period. That’s all folks!
The expansionist crowd accept as canon Brian and Kevin’s ending to the admittedly truncated original series due to Frank’s death in 1986; as well as their prequels and many other expansionist books.
I can see it both ways, yes Frank’s writing is superior to Brian and Kevin’s collaboration, and it is his vision and imagination that brought all this to life. But, it’s a story, a damn fine one at that, not religious scripture, and while I can see the point of the purists argument, if not their sometimes vehemence, I find myself on the side of the expansionists.
If you compare the Dune universe, Frank’s world building, to other expanded works – Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel, DC – there is a fecundity of story opportunity. Literally thousands of years of possible histories and characters to develop and explore. And each of these other fictional universes have had a myriad of creative talent to expand the original brilliant ideas.
I’d like to see Brian allow a franchise to encourage other writers to help expand this wonderful creation.
If you’re a purist and my words are heresy, then so be it. I’ll be a Heretic of Dune and insist that the spice must flow.
August 12, 2025
Dopo oltre 400 recensioni è il primo romanzo da una sola vergognosa stella.
Premetto che la saga di Dune riveste per me l'apice in ambito fantascientifico al pari della saga Malazan per quanto concerne il genere fantasy. Vederla ridotta in questo stato mi urta profondamente, quindi due stelle sono troppe per l'abominio commesso in nome del vile denaro da parte del sig. Brian Herbert.
Tutta la mistica di Dune viene spazzata via con soluzioni ridicole e senza alcuna coerenza narrativa, completamente estranee ai profondi temi affrontati nei romanzi del ciclo originale di Frank Herbert.
Da saga complessa, filosofica, stratificata, introspettiva e umano centrica, a banale romanzetto d'azione da quattro soldi, con evidenti incongruenze e scelte narrative pacchiane in cui i personaggi vengono stravolti, utilizzati come burattini e in modo stupido sia nelle azioni sia nei dialoghi. Personaggi con capacità mentali incredibili, il meglio dell' evoluzione e selezione genetica umana, diventano incapaci di mettere insieme un ragionamento elementare o intessere un dialogo minimamente complesso.
--ATTENZIONE SPOILER, UNA VALANGA DI SPOILER, SIETE AVVISATI--
---ORA PROVO A SPIEGARE PERCHE' QUESTI ULTIMI DUE ROMANZI NON SONO DUNE---
Il tema centrale alla base del ciclo originale di Dune, e parlo dei sei romanzi di Frank Herbert, può riassumersi in questo principio: La razza umana tende ciclicamente ad essere soggiogata dal potere politico, religioso ed economico da una minoranza di individui, quindi deve continuamente evolvere se stessa per affrontare questa minaccia insita nella sua stessa natura.
Gli Harkonnen, lo stesso Muad'ib, Alia del coltello, il Tiranno Leto II, le Bene Gesserit, le Matres Onorate e infine il fantomatico Nemico. Tutte prove da superare, ed ogni romanzo mostra un periodo storico di sconvolgimenti in cui avviene una nuova evoluzione umana fondamentale:
Paul Atreides, Leto II, Fiona, Duncan, Sheeana, Miles Teg, necessaria ad evitare il ristagno e la decadenza ed infine l'estinzione della razza umana.
Leto II compie il passo, sacrificando la sua umanità ha portato a compimento il Sentiero Dorato rifiutato da Paul Atreides, ed ha preparato l'umanità a non cadere nuovamente in questo circolo vizioso di controllo, e renderla capace di saper affrontare queste minacce.
Sempre e solo uomini contro le debolezze degli uomini!
Infatti nel ciclo di Dune non esistono alieni e non sono presenti macchine pensanti da oltre 10.000 anni. E' in definitiva il Manifesto alla libertà contro la tendenza umana al controllo delle masse tramite il potere politico, religioso o economico. Questo è Dune. Ed è per questo che rappresenta il meglio della fantascienza. Non è solo la storiella di Paul. Chi non apprezza gli ultimi romanzi non ha compreso il Sentiero Dorato e il suo scopo. Tutti i romanzi sono assolutamente necessari per capirlo.
Se questo tema viene messo da parte, stravolto o ridicolizzato in un banalissimo conflitto tra uomo e robot/intelligenza artificiale non è più Dune. Abbiamo già Battlestar Galactica e Matrix che affrontano in modo egregio questo tema, non c'era bisogno di snaturare Dune. Dune parla d'altro. Frank Herbert ci parla d'altro. Parla della razza umana e della capacità di adattarsi ed evolversi per non soccombere. Il dormiente deve svegliarsi, cambiare.
Nel finale di "Rifondazione di Dune" si può teorizzare, dalle loro stesse parole, che Daniel e Marty, il "Nemico", siano due Volti Danzanti superevoluti e completamente indipendenti dai loro padroni Tleilaxu (di nuovo il tema primario della libertà).
Superevoluti e superiori perché capaci loro stessi di immagazzinare i ricordi delle loro vittime. Un potere immenso, simile a quello delle Altre Memorie delle Reverende Madri Bene Gesserit.
Una nuova incredibile evoluzione umana nata dalla Dispersione messa in moto proprio dall'imperatore-dio Leto II.
Sono quindi sempre umani, anche se modificati geneticamente, quindi perché trasformarli in banali IA robot? Non ha alcun senso.
Seguirà una lista di incongruenze e forzature che ho rilevato già nelle prime 150 pagine:
-Il Nemico è una intelligenza artificiale supercattiva che stranamente e senza motivo logico ha aspettato 15.000 anni per vendicarsi degli umani. Era infatti a potare le aiuole del suo giardino.
-I Volti Danzanti Superiori, tornati dalla Dispersione, non sono una nuova evoluzione umana ma sono stati creati dal Nemico e quindi semplici strumenti.
-Il ghola del Barone Harkonnen, in quanto tale, non dovrebbe sentire la voce di Alia nella sua mente. Non funzionano cosi i ghola.
- Perché Le Matres Onorate hanno sterminato il Bene Tleilax per vendetta se non avevano alcun ricordo del loro passato? Inoltre decidono di sterminare le Bene Gesserit per semplice ripicca poiché gli hanno rifiutato le loro conoscenze. Motivazione insufficiente.
-L'Altro Ricordo di Serena Butler in Murbella non ha alcun senso, non esistevano le Reverende Madri al tempo della Jiiad Butleriana, sono venute dopo. Nessuno può avere il suo ricordo.
-Come e quando sono state prelevate le cellule del Tiranno se era inavvicinabile e impenetrabile anche ai laser? Alla sua morte? Improbabile visto che il suo corpo torna al deserto, ma se anche fosse...
-Il Ghola di Leto II dovrebbe nascere già con tutte le Altre Memorie come l'Originale e dovrebbe avere il DNA in simbiosi con il verme e subire subito la mutazione.
-Perchè riportare in vita il ghola di Alia l'Abominio se era folle e controllata dalle Altre Memorie? Perché ora non sono presenti?
-L'Oracolo del Tempo è una semplice forzatura, utilizzato come deus ex machina. Mai viene citato nel ciclo di Dune, solo nei romanzi del figlio Brian. Furbacchione!
-Fare addestrare il ghola Paolo dal Barone Harkonnen ad essere malvagio è assolutamente inutile poiché al momento del risveglio riacquisterà le memorie del Paul originale. Al limite una volta risvegliato dovrebbe avere contrasti caratteriali tali da renderlo pazzo.
-Il Barone Harkonnen non presenta la sua malattia genetica, perché? È forse stato purificato nella vasca axlotl? Non viene detto. Gli scrittori lo hanno dimenticato? (ed è pure una loro invenzione).
-Il ghola non risvegliato di Jessica assicura Yueh che lo ha perdonato ormai da tempo.....ma se non ha ancora risvegliato le sue memorie di quale tempo parla? Non è certo il perdono della Jessica Originale quindi di cosa parliamo?
-Perché mai il sabotatore a bordo della Itaca non danneggia i motori Holtzman e li fa catturare subito?
-A cosa serve il Kwisatz Haderach al Nemico se il suo intento dichiarato è quello di sterminare la razza umana?
-Perché il Nemico impiega 15.000 anni per iniziare l'attacco? Perché muove le sue navi al rallentatore quando ha la capacità di utilizzare motori FTL ed arrivare ovunque di sorpresa e sconfiggere il cuore della resistenza? Conosce anche la locazione del pianeta delle Bene Gesserit...
-Shai-Hulud Acquatici modificati? Superspezia? Vermi dormienti sotto Rakis?
Se per voi queste non sono incongruenze, forse il ciclo di Dune lo avete letto come semplici romanzi d'avventura e purtroppo vi siete persi tutto e non avete colto il messaggio del Sentiero Dorato.
-----------------------------------
After over 400 reviews, it is the first novel with only one shameful star.
I would like to point out that the Dune saga is for me the pinnacle of science fiction, on a par with the Malazan saga in the fantasy genre. Seeing it reduced to this state deeply upsets me, so two stars are too many for the abomination committed in the name of vile money by Mr. Brian Herbert.
All the mysticism of Dune is swept away with ridiculous solutions and without any narrative coherence, completely alien to the profound themes addressed in the novels of the original cycle by Frank Herbert.
From a complex, philosophical, layered, introspective and human-centric saga, to a banal cheap action novel, with obvious inconsistencies and tacky narrative choices in which the characters are distorted, used as puppets and in a stupid way both in the actions and in the dialogues. Characters with incredible mental abilities, the best of human evolution and genetic selection, become incapable of putting together elementary reasoning or weaving a minimally complex dialogue.
--SPOILER WARNING, AN AVALANCHE OF SPOILERS, YOU ARE WARNED--
---NOW I WILL TRY TO EXPLAIN WHY THESE LAST TWO NOVELS ARE NOT DUNE---
The central theme underlying the original Dune cycle, and I am talking about the six novels by Frank Herbert, can be summarized in this principle: The human race tends cyclically to be subjugated by the political, religious and economic power of a minority of individuals, therefore it must continually evolve itself to face this threat inherent in its very nature.
The Harkonnens, Muad'ib himself, Alia of the Knife, the Tyrant Leto II, the Bene Gesserit, the Honored Matres and finally the phantom Enemy. All tests to overcome, and each novel shows a historical period of upheavals in which a new fundamental human evolution takes place:
Paul Atreides, Leto II, Fiona, Duncan, Sheeana, Miles Teg, necessary to avoid stagnation and decadence and finally the extinction of the human race.
Leto II takes the step, sacrificing his humanity he has completed the Golden Path rejected by Paul Atreides, and has prepared humanity not to fall again into this vicious circle of control, and make it capable of knowing how to face these threats.
Always and only men against the weaknesses of men!
In fact in the Dune cycle there are no aliens and there have been no thinking machines for over 10,000 years. It is ultimately the Manifesto to freedom against the human tendency to control the masses through political, religious or economic power. This is Dune. And this is why it represents the best of science fiction. It is not just Paul's story. Those who do not appreciate the latest novels have not understood the Golden Path and its purpose. All the novels are absolutely necessary to understand it.
If this theme is set aside, distorted or ridiculed in a banal conflict between man and robot/artificial intelligence, it is no longer Dune. We already have Battlestar Galactica and Matrix that deal with this theme in an excellent way, there was no need to distort Dune. Dune is about something else. Frank Herbert is about something else. He is about the human race and the ability to adapt and evolve in order not to succumb. The sleeper must wake up, change.
In the finale of "Chapter 1: Dune" one can theorize, from their own words, that Daniel and Marty, the "Enemy", are two super-evolved Face Dancers completely independent from their Tleilaxu masters (again the primary theme of freedom).
Super-evolved and superior because they themselves are capable of storing the memories of their victims. An immense power, similar to that of the Other Memories of the Reverend Mothers Bene Gesserit.
An incredible new human evolution born from the Scattering set in motion by the God Emperor Leto II himself.
They are therefore still human, even if genetically modified, so why turn them into banal AI robots? It makes no sense.
Premetto che la saga di Dune riveste per me l'apice in ambito fantascientifico al pari della saga Malazan per quanto concerne il genere fantasy. Vederla ridotta in questo stato mi urta profondamente, quindi due stelle sono troppe per l'abominio commesso in nome del vile denaro da parte del sig. Brian Herbert.
Tutta la mistica di Dune viene spazzata via con soluzioni ridicole e senza alcuna coerenza narrativa, completamente estranee ai profondi temi affrontati nei romanzi del ciclo originale di Frank Herbert.
Da saga complessa, filosofica, stratificata, introspettiva e umano centrica, a banale romanzetto d'azione da quattro soldi, con evidenti incongruenze e scelte narrative pacchiane in cui i personaggi vengono stravolti, utilizzati come burattini e in modo stupido sia nelle azioni sia nei dialoghi. Personaggi con capacità mentali incredibili, il meglio dell' evoluzione e selezione genetica umana, diventano incapaci di mettere insieme un ragionamento elementare o intessere un dialogo minimamente complesso.
--ATTENZIONE SPOILER, UNA VALANGA DI SPOILER, SIETE AVVISATI--
---ORA PROVO A SPIEGARE PERCHE' QUESTI ULTIMI DUE ROMANZI NON SONO DUNE---
Il tema centrale alla base del ciclo originale di Dune, e parlo dei sei romanzi di Frank Herbert, può riassumersi in questo principio: La razza umana tende ciclicamente ad essere soggiogata dal potere politico, religioso ed economico da una minoranza di individui, quindi deve continuamente evolvere se stessa per affrontare questa minaccia insita nella sua stessa natura.
Gli Harkonnen, lo stesso Muad'ib, Alia del coltello, il Tiranno Leto II, le Bene Gesserit, le Matres Onorate e infine il fantomatico Nemico. Tutte prove da superare, ed ogni romanzo mostra un periodo storico di sconvolgimenti in cui avviene una nuova evoluzione umana fondamentale:
Paul Atreides, Leto II, Fiona, Duncan, Sheeana, Miles Teg, necessaria ad evitare il ristagno e la decadenza ed infine l'estinzione della razza umana.
Leto II compie il passo, sacrificando la sua umanità ha portato a compimento il Sentiero Dorato rifiutato da Paul Atreides, ed ha preparato l'umanità a non cadere nuovamente in questo circolo vizioso di controllo, e renderla capace di saper affrontare queste minacce.
Sempre e solo uomini contro le debolezze degli uomini!
Infatti nel ciclo di Dune non esistono alieni e non sono presenti macchine pensanti da oltre 10.000 anni. E' in definitiva il Manifesto alla libertà contro la tendenza umana al controllo delle masse tramite il potere politico, religioso o economico. Questo è Dune. Ed è per questo che rappresenta il meglio della fantascienza. Non è solo la storiella di Paul. Chi non apprezza gli ultimi romanzi non ha compreso il Sentiero Dorato e il suo scopo. Tutti i romanzi sono assolutamente necessari per capirlo.
Se questo tema viene messo da parte, stravolto o ridicolizzato in un banalissimo conflitto tra uomo e robot/intelligenza artificiale non è più Dune. Abbiamo già Battlestar Galactica e Matrix che affrontano in modo egregio questo tema, non c'era bisogno di snaturare Dune. Dune parla d'altro. Frank Herbert ci parla d'altro. Parla della razza umana e della capacità di adattarsi ed evolversi per non soccombere. Il dormiente deve svegliarsi, cambiare.
Nel finale di "Rifondazione di Dune" si può teorizzare, dalle loro stesse parole, che Daniel e Marty, il "Nemico", siano due Volti Danzanti superevoluti e completamente indipendenti dai loro padroni Tleilaxu (di nuovo il tema primario della libertà).
Superevoluti e superiori perché capaci loro stessi di immagazzinare i ricordi delle loro vittime. Un potere immenso, simile a quello delle Altre Memorie delle Reverende Madri Bene Gesserit.
Una nuova incredibile evoluzione umana nata dalla Dispersione messa in moto proprio dall'imperatore-dio Leto II.
Sono quindi sempre umani, anche se modificati geneticamente, quindi perché trasformarli in banali IA robot? Non ha alcun senso.
Seguirà una lista di incongruenze e forzature che ho rilevato già nelle prime 150 pagine:
-Il Nemico è una intelligenza artificiale supercattiva che stranamente e senza motivo logico ha aspettato 15.000 anni per vendicarsi degli umani. Era infatti a potare le aiuole del suo giardino.
-I Volti Danzanti Superiori, tornati dalla Dispersione, non sono una nuova evoluzione umana ma sono stati creati dal Nemico e quindi semplici strumenti.
-Il ghola del Barone Harkonnen, in quanto tale, non dovrebbe sentire la voce di Alia nella sua mente. Non funzionano cosi i ghola.
- Perché Le Matres Onorate hanno sterminato il Bene Tleilax per vendetta se non avevano alcun ricordo del loro passato? Inoltre decidono di sterminare le Bene Gesserit per semplice ripicca poiché gli hanno rifiutato le loro conoscenze. Motivazione insufficiente.
-L'Altro Ricordo di Serena Butler in Murbella non ha alcun senso, non esistevano le Reverende Madri al tempo della Jiiad Butleriana, sono venute dopo. Nessuno può avere il suo ricordo.
-Come e quando sono state prelevate le cellule del Tiranno se era inavvicinabile e impenetrabile anche ai laser? Alla sua morte? Improbabile visto che il suo corpo torna al deserto, ma se anche fosse...
-Il Ghola di Leto II dovrebbe nascere già con tutte le Altre Memorie come l'Originale e dovrebbe avere il DNA in simbiosi con il verme e subire subito la mutazione.
-Perchè riportare in vita il ghola di Alia l'Abominio se era folle e controllata dalle Altre Memorie? Perché ora non sono presenti?
-L'Oracolo del Tempo è una semplice forzatura, utilizzato come deus ex machina. Mai viene citato nel ciclo di Dune, solo nei romanzi del figlio Brian. Furbacchione!
-Fare addestrare il ghola Paolo dal Barone Harkonnen ad essere malvagio è assolutamente inutile poiché al momento del risveglio riacquisterà le memorie del Paul originale. Al limite una volta risvegliato dovrebbe avere contrasti caratteriali tali da renderlo pazzo.
-Il Barone Harkonnen non presenta la sua malattia genetica, perché? È forse stato purificato nella vasca axlotl? Non viene detto. Gli scrittori lo hanno dimenticato? (ed è pure una loro invenzione).
-Il ghola non risvegliato di Jessica assicura Yueh che lo ha perdonato ormai da tempo.....ma se non ha ancora risvegliato le sue memorie di quale tempo parla? Non è certo il perdono della Jessica Originale quindi di cosa parliamo?
-Perché mai il sabotatore a bordo della Itaca non danneggia i motori Holtzman e li fa catturare subito?
-A cosa serve il Kwisatz Haderach al Nemico se il suo intento dichiarato è quello di sterminare la razza umana?
-Perché il Nemico impiega 15.000 anni per iniziare l'attacco? Perché muove le sue navi al rallentatore quando ha la capacità di utilizzare motori FTL ed arrivare ovunque di sorpresa e sconfiggere il cuore della resistenza? Conosce anche la locazione del pianeta delle Bene Gesserit...
-Shai-Hulud Acquatici modificati? Superspezia? Vermi dormienti sotto Rakis?
Se per voi queste non sono incongruenze, forse il ciclo di Dune lo avete letto come semplici romanzi d'avventura e purtroppo vi siete persi tutto e non avete colto il messaggio del Sentiero Dorato.
-----------------------------------
After over 400 reviews, it is the first novel with only one shameful star.
I would like to point out that the Dune saga is for me the pinnacle of science fiction, on a par with the Malazan saga in the fantasy genre. Seeing it reduced to this state deeply upsets me, so two stars are too many for the abomination committed in the name of vile money by Mr. Brian Herbert.
All the mysticism of Dune is swept away with ridiculous solutions and without any narrative coherence, completely alien to the profound themes addressed in the novels of the original cycle by Frank Herbert.
From a complex, philosophical, layered, introspective and human-centric saga, to a banal cheap action novel, with obvious inconsistencies and tacky narrative choices in which the characters are distorted, used as puppets and in a stupid way both in the actions and in the dialogues. Characters with incredible mental abilities, the best of human evolution and genetic selection, become incapable of putting together elementary reasoning or weaving a minimally complex dialogue.
--SPOILER WARNING, AN AVALANCHE OF SPOILERS, YOU ARE WARNED--
---NOW I WILL TRY TO EXPLAIN WHY THESE LAST TWO NOVELS ARE NOT DUNE---
The central theme underlying the original Dune cycle, and I am talking about the six novels by Frank Herbert, can be summarized in this principle: The human race tends cyclically to be subjugated by the political, religious and economic power of a minority of individuals, therefore it must continually evolve itself to face this threat inherent in its very nature.
The Harkonnens, Muad'ib himself, Alia of the Knife, the Tyrant Leto II, the Bene Gesserit, the Honored Matres and finally the phantom Enemy. All tests to overcome, and each novel shows a historical period of upheavals in which a new fundamental human evolution takes place:
Paul Atreides, Leto II, Fiona, Duncan, Sheeana, Miles Teg, necessary to avoid stagnation and decadence and finally the extinction of the human race.
Leto II takes the step, sacrificing his humanity he has completed the Golden Path rejected by Paul Atreides, and has prepared humanity not to fall again into this vicious circle of control, and make it capable of knowing how to face these threats.
Always and only men against the weaknesses of men!
In fact in the Dune cycle there are no aliens and there have been no thinking machines for over 10,000 years. It is ultimately the Manifesto to freedom against the human tendency to control the masses through political, religious or economic power. This is Dune. And this is why it represents the best of science fiction. It is not just Paul's story. Those who do not appreciate the latest novels have not understood the Golden Path and its purpose. All the novels are absolutely necessary to understand it.
If this theme is set aside, distorted or ridiculed in a banal conflict between man and robot/artificial intelligence, it is no longer Dune. We already have Battlestar Galactica and Matrix that deal with this theme in an excellent way, there was no need to distort Dune. Dune is about something else. Frank Herbert is about something else. He is about the human race and the ability to adapt and evolve in order not to succumb. The sleeper must wake up, change.
In the finale of "Chapter 1: Dune" one can theorize, from their own words, that Daniel and Marty, the "Enemy", are two super-evolved Face Dancers completely independent from their Tleilaxu masters (again the primary theme of freedom).
Super-evolved and superior because they themselves are capable of storing the memories of their victims. An immense power, similar to that of the Other Memories of the Reverend Mothers Bene Gesserit.
An incredible new human evolution born from the Scattering set in motion by the God Emperor Leto II himself.
They are therefore still human, even if genetically modified, so why turn them into banal AI robots? It makes no sense.
September 7, 2015
"There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story."
- Frank Herbert
After all this time, we have come to the journey's end. And the contribution of Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson to the wonders of that journey should not be frowned upon. While I personally wanted more from the last book in the series, I truly believe that the authors followed in the footsteps of the Dreamer himself and did the series justice.
War has come to the Known Universe. The Enemy has revealed itself. But in the face of inevitable defeat, the ancient sisterhood of the Bene Gesserit stands defiant, fighting against all odds. And all hope lies with one single ship in uncharted space; and its passengers, whose destinies must be unlocked if the universe is to survive.
As a whole, this last book was unfortunately nothing more than okay. I may have been a bit too generous with the rating, but it had its good sides and bad sides, like most books. There is, however, one aspect that had enormous impact on my final opinion.
Sandworms of Dune has the biggest cliché ending I have ever read in a fictional series.
That may sound frighteningly like criticism on my part, but it’s definitely not. A cliché ending was precisely what this series had to have.
From the fabled War of Assassins to the reign of the God Emperor; from the horrors of the Butlerian Jihad to the virtually post-apocalyptic universe after the Scattering; this has been fifteen thousand years of the surprising, the shocking and even the downright impossible. But it all comes together in the end.
The threads converge, and when all is said and done; when the galaxy-spanning wars have been fought and hundreds of planets have been explored; when great heroes have lived and died for centuries upon centuries; then, at long lost, we go back to where we belong.
Bathed in the golden rays of sunset, two figures made their way along the crest of a dune, their steps irregular so that they did not attract the huge sandworms. The pair walked side by side, inseparable.
"Dune is reawakening. Just as we are."
- Frank Herbert
After all this time, we have come to the journey's end. And the contribution of Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson to the wonders of that journey should not be frowned upon. While I personally wanted more from the last book in the series, I truly believe that the authors followed in the footsteps of the Dreamer himself and did the series justice.
War has come to the Known Universe. The Enemy has revealed itself. But in the face of inevitable defeat, the ancient sisterhood of the Bene Gesserit stands defiant, fighting against all odds. And all hope lies with one single ship in uncharted space; and its passengers, whose destinies must be unlocked if the universe is to survive.
As a whole, this last book was unfortunately nothing more than okay. I may have been a bit too generous with the rating, but it had its good sides and bad sides, like most books. There is, however, one aspect that had enormous impact on my final opinion.
Sandworms of Dune has the biggest cliché ending I have ever read in a fictional series.
That may sound frighteningly like criticism on my part, but it’s definitely not. A cliché ending was precisely what this series had to have.
From the fabled War of Assassins to the reign of the God Emperor; from the horrors of the Butlerian Jihad to the virtually post-apocalyptic universe after the Scattering; this has been fifteen thousand years of the surprising, the shocking and even the downright impossible. But it all comes together in the end.
The threads converge, and when all is said and done; when the galaxy-spanning wars have been fought and hundreds of planets have been explored; when great heroes have lived and died for centuries upon centuries; then, at long lost, we go back to where we belong.
Bathed in the golden rays of sunset, two figures made their way along the crest of a dune, their steps irregular so that they did not attract the huge sandworms. The pair walked side by side, inseparable.
"Dune is reawakening. Just as we are."
February 6, 2017
When I look back on everything I've read and learned, wrapping up this series is a truly enormous task. I mean, this has got to be one of the most ambitious works to ever try to clean up and jam down our throats, like, ever.
I'm not saying it succeeds, mind you, but I've got to give these guys props for the sheer weight of their balls.
It's really hard to describe a lot of the action, setting, or even the big characters without giving away the grand majority of what makes this book great. Yes. Great. Most of it is great. The grand majority of it really IS great! The ideas are superb, the grand wrap up has the *potential* to be really, really great!
I mean, this is Frank Herbert's notes and outline we're talking about. He's a master at layering and layering, or as he even writes within Dune, "One peels a problem like an onion."
He writes like an onion. :)
Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson don't like onions all that much.
Straightforward writing is great when trying to appeal to the masses and have quick pacing, and it's perfectly great for all kinds of tales and it worked great when we got Paul Atreides and Leto II and Jessica and Duncan Idaho and even Yueh as gholas in the deep deep future trying to save themselves from the fate of an almost completely annihilated humanity, a race to awaken several Kwisatz Haderachs in order to defeat a 15 thousand year old foe, fully realized in the chronological universe's first trilogy, for you fans of the Butlerian Jihad.
The death count is unimaginable. A whole universe is in turmoil and there really isn't that much hope. Hell, even when I thought I knew what was going to happen, I was skeptical because the Kwizatz Haderach in both it's old incarnations still relied on a huge support structure of PEOPLE, and by this point, most people are up shit creek.
So that leads me to the end of the tale, and this is where things are both... "Hey, that's cool!" and "WTF, where was the layering and gradual reveals to make this seem like an organic outcome, not just as Deus Ex Machina?"
I love how the machine crusade and the original oracle of time was tied back into the end all the way from the first trilogy. Don't get me wrong. It's pretty epic to think about. I also have no problems with Duncan Idaho being a supreme badass because I FELT that in Heretics of Dune when he remembered ALL of his lifetimes of being brought back, of all the different fields and specialties he learned, of being a mentat, of becoming a different kind of Kwizatz Haderach without needing the spice. It was awesome and that isn't my issue.
My issue is Erasmus. After 15 thousand years, he either needs an upgrade in complexity or he needed to be a much different part of the tale or SOMETHING. His little twist at the end felt very machiavellian and therefore unconvincing.
I'd almost have rather seen all our heroes jump universe and start afresh somewhere new. The oracle of time and Duncan probably could have managed it.
Happy ending? Yeah, I'm actually disappointed in the happy ending, and I LIKE happy endings.
On the other hand, I think with the right application of Onion, this might actually have worked out just fine. Deeper reveals, layered inclusion of Erasmus in a much different way than we actually got, more cryptic ideas and hinted-at worlds and experiences... more MYSTERY... and the reader could have done most of the work and could have filled in all these wonderful possible gaps by the end and then this Deus Ex Machina, or Machina Ex Deus, might have resulted in a supremely EXCELLENT end using the very same ingredients!
*sigh*
Sorry. This is a fanboy trying to reconcile the grand tapestry of his favorite SF series with the vaguely disappointing end, EVEN THOUGH I really enjoyed the ride up to that point!
I hope I'm not dissuading anyone from reading this!
It's worth it just to revel in the Big Picture, let alone all the awesome ideas and especially traveling around with all the favorite characters from the original masterpiece!
Peace! :)
I'm not saying it succeeds, mind you, but I've got to give these guys props for the sheer weight of their balls.
It's really hard to describe a lot of the action, setting, or even the big characters without giving away the grand majority of what makes this book great. Yes. Great. Most of it is great. The grand majority of it really IS great! The ideas are superb, the grand wrap up has the *potential* to be really, really great!
I mean, this is Frank Herbert's notes and outline we're talking about. He's a master at layering and layering, or as he even writes within Dune, "One peels a problem like an onion."
He writes like an onion. :)
Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson don't like onions all that much.
Straightforward writing is great when trying to appeal to the masses and have quick pacing, and it's perfectly great for all kinds of tales and it worked great when we got Paul Atreides and Leto II and Jessica and Duncan Idaho and even Yueh as gholas in the deep deep future trying to save themselves from the fate of an almost completely annihilated humanity, a race to awaken several Kwisatz Haderachs in order to defeat a 15 thousand year old foe, fully realized in the chronological universe's first trilogy, for you fans of the Butlerian Jihad.
The death count is unimaginable. A whole universe is in turmoil and there really isn't that much hope. Hell, even when I thought I knew what was going to happen, I was skeptical because the Kwizatz Haderach in both it's old incarnations still relied on a huge support structure of PEOPLE, and by this point, most people are up shit creek.
So that leads me to the end of the tale, and this is where things are both... "Hey, that's cool!" and "WTF, where was the layering and gradual reveals to make this seem like an organic outcome, not just as Deus Ex Machina?"
I love how the machine crusade and the original oracle of time was tied back into the end all the way from the first trilogy. Don't get me wrong. It's pretty epic to think about. I also have no problems with Duncan Idaho being a supreme badass because I FELT that in Heretics of Dune when he remembered ALL of his lifetimes of being brought back, of all the different fields and specialties he learned, of being a mentat, of becoming a different kind of Kwizatz Haderach without needing the spice. It was awesome and that isn't my issue.
My issue is Erasmus. After 15 thousand years, he either needs an upgrade in complexity or he needed to be a much different part of the tale or SOMETHING. His little twist at the end felt very machiavellian and therefore unconvincing.
I'd almost have rather seen all our heroes jump universe and start afresh somewhere new. The oracle of time and Duncan probably could have managed it.
Happy ending? Yeah, I'm actually disappointed in the happy ending, and I LIKE happy endings.
On the other hand, I think with the right application of Onion, this might actually have worked out just fine. Deeper reveals, layered inclusion of Erasmus in a much different way than we actually got, more cryptic ideas and hinted-at worlds and experiences... more MYSTERY... and the reader could have done most of the work and could have filled in all these wonderful possible gaps by the end and then this Deus Ex Machina, or Machina Ex Deus, might have resulted in a supremely EXCELLENT end using the very same ingredients!
*sigh*
Sorry. This is a fanboy trying to reconcile the grand tapestry of his favorite SF series with the vaguely disappointing end, EVEN THOUGH I really enjoyed the ride up to that point!
I hope I'm not dissuading anyone from reading this!
It's worth it just to revel in the Big Picture, let alone all the awesome ideas and especially traveling around with all the favorite characters from the original masterpiece!
Peace! :)
December 6, 2011
I did it, I finished this book, after it sat on the shelf for 3 years with a bookmark stuck in at page 202. Maybe I should say "mired." And all I'd like to say is
WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?
Seriously, god. It was like the last season of Lost with the fucking waiting room. Alex Krycek and Scully's miraculous alien baby. The Gilligan movies. Joey getting his own show...
Ugh.
I'm guessing Baby Herbert (or more likely "I'll blast it with my superweapon that I JUST DISCOVERED IN MARY SUE'S SEKRIT POCKET" KJA) didn't actually read any of Frank's books, or is simply incapable of understanding the complexity of concept regarding power, fanaticism and fear-mongering.
I know, I know, I'm a completionist, and maybe a wee bit of a fiction masochist.
It had its moments, although at this moment, I can't think of one.
I'm still probably going to read Sisterhood, and I'll just hope against all logic, that I recognize my beloved Bene Gesserit.
WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?
Seriously, god. It was like the last season of Lost with the fucking waiting room. Alex Krycek and Scully's miraculous alien baby. The Gilligan movies. Joey getting his own show...
Ugh.
I'm guessing Baby Herbert (or more likely "I'll blast it with my superweapon that I JUST DISCOVERED IN MARY SUE'S SEKRIT POCKET" KJA) didn't actually read any of Frank's books, or is simply incapable of understanding the complexity of concept regarding power, fanaticism and fear-mongering.
I know, I know, I'm a completionist, and maybe a wee bit of a fiction masochist.
It had its moments, although at this moment, I can't think of one.
I'm still probably going to read Sisterhood, and I'll just hope against all logic, that I recognize my beloved Bene Gesserit.
August 20, 2008
Shitworms of Dune.
July 1, 2008
I gotta admit, this book fucking sucks.
There's hardly a bigger disappointment than when someone takes a series you love and cherish and whores it out, right? Actually there is. At least they could have whored it out to a writer with some talent or style. So instead of...
"There is in all things a pattern that is part of our universe. It has symmetry, elegance, and grace—those qualities you find always in that which the true artist captures. You can find it in the turning of the seasons, in the way sand trails along a ridge, in the branch clusters of the creosote bush or the pattern of its leaves. We try to copy these patterns in our lives and our society, seeking the rhythms, the dances, the forms that comfort. Yet, it is possible to see peril in the finding of ultimate perfection. It is clear that the ultimate pattern contains its own fixity. In such perfection, all things move toward death" or the like....
I get...
"Using her Bene Gesserit powers of close observation, she moved through the room"...
I'd like to be the one to offer up the condemnation the authors of this book really deserve, but I just don't think I have a dark enough imagination.
There's hardly a bigger disappointment than when someone takes a series you love and cherish and whores it out, right? Actually there is. At least they could have whored it out to a writer with some talent or style. So instead of...
"There is in all things a pattern that is part of our universe. It has symmetry, elegance, and grace—those qualities you find always in that which the true artist captures. You can find it in the turning of the seasons, in the way sand trails along a ridge, in the branch clusters of the creosote bush or the pattern of its leaves. We try to copy these patterns in our lives and our society, seeking the rhythms, the dances, the forms that comfort. Yet, it is possible to see peril in the finding of ultimate perfection. It is clear that the ultimate pattern contains its own fixity. In such perfection, all things move toward death" or the like....
I get...
"Using her Bene Gesserit powers of close observation, she moved through the room"...
I'd like to be the one to offer up the condemnation the authors of this book really deserve, but I just don't think I have a dark enough imagination.
Read
January 9, 2008This is the worst book that I have ever read in my life. I did so only out of respect for Frank Herbert. I now wish that his son's hands would be crushed in a terrible car accident so that he can't cause any more damage to the Dune storyline. I have to read the first 6 books in the Dune series now to cleanse myself of this crap and remind me why his father's Dune was wonderful in the first place.
January 20, 2020
I love Frank Herbert. I love Dune. I have read the original six novels multiple times each. When Brian Herbert and KJ Anderson started writing the prequels, I gave the first one a chance. It was horrible. I didn't read any more. Then the two new novels came out, based on Frank's own notes for the last Dune book, and supposedly bringing the story to its ultimate fulfillment. I read them both, the second being this book.
It's horrible, of course. KJ Anderson and Brian Herbert are not much when it comes to being, you know, good authors. I was willing to put up with their shallow character presentation and cheesy Saturday morning action-type antics, just to see where the world and characters I love so much ultimately goes. Sadly, this book is pretty dull. Nothing much happens. You have eight chapters of the characters saying predictable things about something important that needs to happen, just talking and talking about it, then when it finally happens it is either a let down or doesn't make any sense. This occurs again and again in the book. On top of that, if you are at all familiar with the Dune universe Frank Herbert created, the ending is TERRIBLE. It flies right in the face of everything Frank did. It just shits on it. It shits all over it.
The original Dune books were literature. This book is a trashy cash grab.
It's horrible, of course. KJ Anderson and Brian Herbert are not much when it comes to being, you know, good authors. I was willing to put up with their shallow character presentation and cheesy Saturday morning action-type antics, just to see where the world and characters I love so much ultimately goes. Sadly, this book is pretty dull. Nothing much happens. You have eight chapters of the characters saying predictable things about something important that needs to happen, just talking and talking about it, then when it finally happens it is either a let down or doesn't make any sense. This occurs again and again in the book. On top of that, if you are at all familiar with the Dune universe Frank Herbert created, the ending is TERRIBLE. It flies right in the face of everything Frank did. It just shits on it. It shits all over it.
The original Dune books were literature. This book is a trashy cash grab.
July 3, 2021
Loved this series, a ton of topics like politics, religion, sociology, etc disguised under a very good sf opera. I'm only sad that Frank Herbert didn't get to finish it himself and that I didn't also read the intermediary series by Brian Herbert, but this last one I can and will fix soon.
October 2, 2007
I would enjoy a serious response as to how people feel justified in giving this 'book' more than 1 star. I can understand some people would find it entertaining, barely, but as a continuation of the series its an insult right in the face of the fans. The characters are flat cardboard cutouts of their former selves and sometimes of each other. The plot holes are big enough to ride a sandworm through, and the ending is worth of a summer blockbuster film that spends all it time with action and then tacks not one but three"happily ever after" Deus ex machina on in the last 15 pages.
Please explain to me how you liked it, because i'm not just sad i lost personal time reading it, i'm insulted that my favorite sci-fi series has been handed over to the crayon-infinite Mona Lisa Man (KJA, Brian Herbert is acting as more or less an editor imho) and i'm extremely insulted at the lack of any sort of interaction of this 'author' with the fans of the original series; and his almost purposeful re-writing of the books in his own extremely limited superweapon-happy image.
Anyone who is a fan of Frank Herbert's Dune should avoid this author at all costs; he is exactly what the Dune series tried to warn us about, a petty dictator stealing someone else's power and perverting it to no ends.
This is my polite response, anyone interested to know how fans of the original series came to be labeled 'tali-fans' by the author can look up the ongoing argument online.
Please explain to me how you liked it, because i'm not just sad i lost personal time reading it, i'm insulted that my favorite sci-fi series has been handed over to the crayon-infinite Mona Lisa Man (KJA, Brian Herbert is acting as more or less an editor imho) and i'm extremely insulted at the lack of any sort of interaction of this 'author' with the fans of the original series; and his almost purposeful re-writing of the books in his own extremely limited superweapon-happy image.
Anyone who is a fan of Frank Herbert's Dune should avoid this author at all costs; he is exactly what the Dune series tried to warn us about, a petty dictator stealing someone else's power and perverting it to no ends.
This is my polite response, anyone interested to know how fans of the original series came to be labeled 'tali-fans' by the author can look up the ongoing argument online.
July 11, 2008
I have always loved Frank Herbert's Dune series. So it was not surprising that I felt compulsed to buy Sandworms of Dune (SOD), a "sequel" to the Dune series written by his son Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson. SoD, like its predecessor Hunters of Dune, is based on Herbert's notes for how he wanted to conclude his 6 volume centuries spanning series. Frank died in 1986, and while his son wrote what I feel was an incredible biography about his father, I think his attempted sequels are shameful, fanboy fiction.
The writing is bad, the characters are hollow, but I hoped to get some sense from the books of how the Dune series would have ended had Frank written it. Regrettably, there are two major plot assassinations in the sequels that make seeing Herbert's intent very difficult.
1: BH/KA first began writing numerous prequels to Dune, including the Butlerian Jihad, which is a story of a human-machine war that took place thousands of years before the events of Dune. The new sequels pick up with Frank's cliffhanger ending from the end of Chapterhouse Dune, where the main characters are fleeing the pursuit of an unknown enemy. The central bastardization of BH/KA's sequels is that they make the final enemy their enemy, the shallow computer personalities from Butlerian Jihad. Fans of the Dune series who have not read the prequels will quickly realize that the entire conclusion of the Dune series depends not on anything Frank wrote, but on the BH/KA prequels.
2: I almost feel like the sequels could have been written by some teenage Dune fan. After all, the other major plot line in the sequels is the decision to clone every one of the major characters from the first Dune books, even bringing back their memories. There is thus a chance to see Paul Atreides confront the Baron Harkonnen, Yueh confront Jessica, etc. The clones are made because it's thought that they can help aid the fight against the enemy, but their presence there is never adequately justified (it's just assumed that, obviously, they will save everything, because they're the great heroes from Dune!).
Dune and technology:
My favorite theme in Dune is its reflection on humanity and its relationship to technology . I'm going to sketch out this discussion in the series, and then argue why the new sequels bastardize the original work.
The beginning of Dune references an early human-machine war, where thinking machines tried to enslave humanity but failed; when humans won the war, thinking machines were banned, and humans instead focused on honing their own natural abilities, making their own minds as computationally efficient as computers, learning how to navigate space. In Dune and Children of Dune, Paul Atreides and his son, Leto II, presciently reflected on how devastating technologies like nuclear weapons, automated killing machines and designed plagues could eradicate the human race. If society was left uncontrolled, there was a chance that a society or thinking machine could develop with the goal of eradicating all life in the universe, and if humanity lived on only a few worlds, it would be eradicated. Leto II instituted a 3500 year long reign of tyranny on the human race, keeping technological development to a minimum, and prepared the way so that after his death humans would emigrate en masse to the stars, colonizing tens of thousands of planets. Leto saw this as the Golden Path, wherein humanity would be spread to so many distant worlds that no one could ever possibly eradicate all human life.
In SOD, BH/KA have made their machine overlord to be the great villain of the series. The machine overlord is overthown (though a ridiculously convenient plot device again based on the prequels), and the decision falls to Duncan Idaho as to the fate of humans and machines. Duncan decides that that there is no reason why humans and machines should not get along, and grandly dictates that all of the actions taken in the Dune series were far too hostile to computers; a middle ground must be found, where sentient computers deserve as much recognition and respect as human begins.
This sudden valuation of sentient machines is not justified in the book. There is no discussion of what the artificial intelligence of the computers entails. The computers don't seem to understand emotions, but they imitate them; the computer overlord seemed to set itself a goal (destruction of humanity), and then made calculations and plans necessary to accomplish that. What does sentience even mean here? Why should these machines be valued the same as humans? And how, exactly, is humanity's potential increased now that they can work with machines.
The ending is so unjustified that it falls flat on its own. But it also betrays everything that the original books argued for. Is humanity on a Golden Path, secure from annihilation? It does not seem so to me; it seems like independent machines or human beings (backed up by destructive machines) could still easily attempt to destroy all life.
Two random points:
I don't know what Herbert's notes indicated, but I would like to think that he intended the final villains to be sentient machines that developed on their own during the Scattering, not the villains from the original Butlerian Jihad. The characters throughout the Dune series were always worried about humans developing technology that would get out of control but, if you accept BH/KA's interpretation, the enemy was already out there, growing. Humans could have developed anything, and it wouldn't have mattered.
I think a good sequel would have focused much more on the nature of what these sentient beings were. I do think BH/KA are onto a theme that Herbert had, which was that the Scattering might have been insufficient to preserve humanity, and I think Herbert had plans to make Duncan Idaho into a pivotal individual. Regrettably, I think that after reading the sequels supposedly based on his notes, I still have no idea of where Herbert wanted to take the series.
The writing is bad, the characters are hollow, but I hoped to get some sense from the books of how the Dune series would have ended had Frank written it. Regrettably, there are two major plot assassinations in the sequels that make seeing Herbert's intent very difficult.
1: BH/KA first began writing numerous prequels to Dune, including the Butlerian Jihad, which is a story of a human-machine war that took place thousands of years before the events of Dune. The new sequels pick up with Frank's cliffhanger ending from the end of Chapterhouse Dune, where the main characters are fleeing the pursuit of an unknown enemy. The central bastardization of BH/KA's sequels is that they make the final enemy their enemy, the shallow computer personalities from Butlerian Jihad. Fans of the Dune series who have not read the prequels will quickly realize that the entire conclusion of the Dune series depends not on anything Frank wrote, but on the BH/KA prequels.
2: I almost feel like the sequels could have been written by some teenage Dune fan. After all, the other major plot line in the sequels is the decision to clone every one of the major characters from the first Dune books, even bringing back their memories. There is thus a chance to see Paul Atreides confront the Baron Harkonnen, Yueh confront Jessica, etc. The clones are made because it's thought that they can help aid the fight against the enemy, but their presence there is never adequately justified (it's just assumed that, obviously, they will save everything, because they're the great heroes from Dune!).
Dune and technology:
My favorite theme in Dune is its reflection on humanity and its relationship to technology . I'm going to sketch out this discussion in the series, and then argue why the new sequels bastardize the original work.
The beginning of Dune references an early human-machine war, where thinking machines tried to enslave humanity but failed; when humans won the war, thinking machines were banned, and humans instead focused on honing their own natural abilities, making their own minds as computationally efficient as computers, learning how to navigate space. In Dune and Children of Dune, Paul Atreides and his son, Leto II, presciently reflected on how devastating technologies like nuclear weapons, automated killing machines and designed plagues could eradicate the human race. If society was left uncontrolled, there was a chance that a society or thinking machine could develop with the goal of eradicating all life in the universe, and if humanity lived on only a few worlds, it would be eradicated. Leto II instituted a 3500 year long reign of tyranny on the human race, keeping technological development to a minimum, and prepared the way so that after his death humans would emigrate en masse to the stars, colonizing tens of thousands of planets. Leto saw this as the Golden Path, wherein humanity would be spread to so many distant worlds that no one could ever possibly eradicate all human life.
In SOD, BH/KA have made their machine overlord to be the great villain of the series. The machine overlord is overthown (though a ridiculously convenient plot device again based on the prequels), and the decision falls to Duncan Idaho as to the fate of humans and machines. Duncan decides that that there is no reason why humans and machines should not get along, and grandly dictates that all of the actions taken in the Dune series were far too hostile to computers; a middle ground must be found, where sentient computers deserve as much recognition and respect as human begins.
This sudden valuation of sentient machines is not justified in the book. There is no discussion of what the artificial intelligence of the computers entails. The computers don't seem to understand emotions, but they imitate them; the computer overlord seemed to set itself a goal (destruction of humanity), and then made calculations and plans necessary to accomplish that. What does sentience even mean here? Why should these machines be valued the same as humans? And how, exactly, is humanity's potential increased now that they can work with machines.
The ending is so unjustified that it falls flat on its own. But it also betrays everything that the original books argued for. Is humanity on a Golden Path, secure from annihilation? It does not seem so to me; it seems like independent machines or human beings (backed up by destructive machines) could still easily attempt to destroy all life.
Two random points:
I don't know what Herbert's notes indicated, but I would like to think that he intended the final villains to be sentient machines that developed on their own during the Scattering, not the villains from the original Butlerian Jihad. The characters throughout the Dune series were always worried about humans developing technology that would get out of control but, if you accept BH/KA's interpretation, the enemy was already out there, growing. Humans could have developed anything, and it wouldn't have mattered.
I think a good sequel would have focused much more on the nature of what these sentient beings were. I do think BH/KA are onto a theme that Herbert had, which was that the Scattering might have been insufficient to preserve humanity, and I think Herbert had plans to make Duncan Idaho into a pivotal individual. Regrettably, I think that after reading the sequels supposedly based on his notes, I still have no idea of where Herbert wanted to take the series.
August 10, 2022
I finished the series!!!! The main series, anyway. We'll see when I'll get to alll the other books. If I could insert that Elmo fire gif I would (I know there's a way, but I can't be bothered right now).
It only took me, oh, ten months to finish the eight books, with some breaks in between (and that ONE book that took me 3 months to get through, let's pretend it doesn't exist).
I can still say that I love Dune, or rather the world, and some of the characters, even though from book four onwards the magic started to die a little with each book.
I think it's a series worth reading, and you can stop whenever you feel like it. My inner completionist is only partially satisfied though, I'm not sure I could stop until I read all the books, whether they suck or not.
Did this one suck? Wellllll, it was less enjoyable than the previous one, so...Brian and Kevin tried, let's give them that.
And the plot was all over the place, getting more and more ridiculous by the second. But again, I FINISHED IT WHO CARES??!!
Giving this two stars, it wasn't that terrible, and I'm glad I'm done.
It only took me, oh, ten months to finish the eight books, with some breaks in between (and that ONE book that took me 3 months to get through, let's pretend it doesn't exist).
I can still say that I love Dune, or rather the world, and some of the characters, even though from book four onwards the magic started to die a little with each book.
I think it's a series worth reading, and you can stop whenever you feel like it. My inner completionist is only partially satisfied though, I'm not sure I could stop until I read all the books, whether they suck or not.
Did this one suck? Wellllll, it was less enjoyable than the previous one, so...Brian and Kevin tried, let's give them that.
And the plot was all over the place, getting more and more ridiculous by the second. But again, I FINISHED IT WHO CARES??!!
Giving this two stars, it wasn't that terrible, and I'm glad I'm done.
April 21, 2009
All the familiar characters are there -- Duncan Idaho, Paul Atreides, Leto II -- but it's as if they all passed through some kind of stupidifying field that lowered their IQs by about fifty points and made them start speaking and acting in stilted clichés. This and Hunters of Dune, the other "continuation" of Frank Herbert's Dune series read like novels Frank may have written after a debilitating stroke that wiped out most of his higher brain functions. Actually, no. Even a brain-damaged Frank Herbert couldn't write books this thuddingly stupid.
January 30, 2017
I liked it, mainly cause all those little questions that had been nagging me for 3o years got answered. Plus the ending made sense, I could see how FH got there and was going there via the whole series. No, the writing isn't Frank's but it was true to the vision and I call that a win.
January 4, 2008
Years ago as I closed the book "Chapterhouse Dune" I could hardly wait for the next book in the series. Then Frank Herbert had the audacity to die. I thought I would never know what was going on!
Brian Herbert, while not exactly his father, has done a more than adequate job in tying up all the loose ends. In fact, he wrote all of the back stories that had been mentioned in all of the Frank Herbert Dune books. While I may never know if Brian's completion of Dune is what Frank had in mind, I am still very satisfied with his ending. I always wondered why Duncan Idaho was in ALL of the books, usually very prominently, and why the Atriedes were there, just not as prominent as Idaho. Now I know.
I stand in awe of anyone who can create an alternate universe, an alternate history (albeit a futre history) and weave together all the many threads that make up this series.
Am I completely satisfied. Probably not, but ever so much more than I would have been if there hadn't been the books by Brian Herbert.
Brian Herbert, while not exactly his father, has done a more than adequate job in tying up all the loose ends. In fact, he wrote all of the back stories that had been mentioned in all of the Frank Herbert Dune books. While I may never know if Brian's completion of Dune is what Frank had in mind, I am still very satisfied with his ending. I always wondered why Duncan Idaho was in ALL of the books, usually very prominently, and why the Atriedes were there, just not as prominent as Idaho. Now I know.
I stand in awe of anyone who can create an alternate universe, an alternate history (albeit a futre history) and weave together all the many threads that make up this series.
Am I completely satisfied. Probably not, but ever so much more than I would have been if there hadn't been the books by Brian Herbert.
April 6, 2009
I didn't finish this book. I couldn't. Much like television (only better), my enjoyment of books comes from a certain level of going to the land of pretend. We love books because it takes our imaginations someplace else.
There is a point in the book where I couldn't suspend my disbelief anymore. The plot for the book had been moving along glacially, and all of a sudden it jumps forward with a plot device that was ridiculous and depended on characters, who were normally exceptionally intelligent and strong, to be suddenly stupid and weak. I couldn't read further. My ability to glean any enjoyment from the continuation of this series was at an end.
Some have said the authors, by continuing the series, have been raping the corpse of Frank Herbert. Sadly, they are right.
There is a point in the book where I couldn't suspend my disbelief anymore. The plot for the book had been moving along glacially, and all of a sudden it jumps forward with a plot device that was ridiculous and depended on characters, who were normally exceptionally intelligent and strong, to be suddenly stupid and weak. I couldn't read further. My ability to glean any enjoyment from the continuation of this series was at an end.
Some have said the authors, by continuing the series, have been raping the corpse of Frank Herbert. Sadly, they are right.
December 11, 2025
Let me just say this up front, in case my subsequent review makes it seem otherwise: I liked it. I was entertained by it all, and I thought it was a fairly satisfactory conclusion to a phenomenal series.
The eighth (and final) book in the Dune series, "Sandworms of Dune", brings everything full circle and explains and wraps up many of the loose ends left by Frank Herbert in "Chapterhouse: Dune", the final book Herbert wrote before his untimely death in 1986. In that book, a group of survivors led by the ghola, Duncan Idaho, flee to uncharted areas of deep space in order to escape the clutches of an unknown and powerful Enemy. The Enemy reveals itself in the very last few pages of "Chapterhouse", and, if you are a fan of Dune, you will relate to the whole "WTF?" feeling that readers had after finishing that book. Because the Enemy comes out of left field and is completely inexplicable. The ending, for 20 years, made no fucking sense and left many readers wondering if there would ever be closure.
Enter, in 2006, Frank's son Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. The story goes: FH left notes and outlines for the next books in the series, but they weren't discovered until many years later. Supposedly, BH and Anderson decided to finish the books, but not until they published their own prequels, starting with "Dune: House Atreides" in 1999, and "House Harkonnen" and "House Corrino" every year after. In 2002, BH/Anderson's The Butlerian Jihad trilogy was published, based solely on an event referenced a handful of times throughout FH's books. The books told of a universal war between humans and machines, led by an A.I. named Omnius. The resultant human victory led humans to outlaw advanced computer technology and "thinking machines", which is why humans in the Dune books rely on the spice melange and the mutated human Navigators for space travel.
The controversy over whether BH/Anderson deviated greatly from FH's intents in his original outlines is somewhat irrelevant. The Dune books---especially those written by FH---are critic-proof. Die-hard FH fans tend to be unforgiving, and while BH/Anderson are decent writers, the truth is: they are not FH. For many fans, the fact that BH/Anderson even attempted to finish the series (let alone write prequels) was sacrilege.
I say: whatever. I'm not a FH purist. I dug his books, but he was not the Kwisatz Haderach.
The truth is, BH/Anderson's last two books in the series were admirable attempts at completing a series that, frankly, probably wouldn't have been completed anyway, even if FH had lived another 10 years.
Because here's the inconvenient truth, and one that FH purists will excoriate me for even saying aloud: the last couple Dune books in FH's series weren't that great. The series had become a venue for Herbert's socio-political ramblings at the expense of story. I wonder if FH even had written notes and outlines for subsequent books. I personally doubt it.
What BH/Anderson has done was answer the question, "What the hell just happened?" after readers finished "Chapterhouse: Dune". It may not have been the answer FH would have given, but it was an answer.
The eighth (and final) book in the Dune series, "Sandworms of Dune", brings everything full circle and explains and wraps up many of the loose ends left by Frank Herbert in "Chapterhouse: Dune", the final book Herbert wrote before his untimely death in 1986. In that book, a group of survivors led by the ghola, Duncan Idaho, flee to uncharted areas of deep space in order to escape the clutches of an unknown and powerful Enemy. The Enemy reveals itself in the very last few pages of "Chapterhouse", and, if you are a fan of Dune, you will relate to the whole "WTF?" feeling that readers had after finishing that book. Because the Enemy comes out of left field and is completely inexplicable. The ending, for 20 years, made no fucking sense and left many readers wondering if there would ever be closure.
Enter, in 2006, Frank's son Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. The story goes: FH left notes and outlines for the next books in the series, but they weren't discovered until many years later. Supposedly, BH and Anderson decided to finish the books, but not until they published their own prequels, starting with "Dune: House Atreides" in 1999, and "House Harkonnen" and "House Corrino" every year after. In 2002, BH/Anderson's The Butlerian Jihad trilogy was published, based solely on an event referenced a handful of times throughout FH's books. The books told of a universal war between humans and machines, led by an A.I. named Omnius. The resultant human victory led humans to outlaw advanced computer technology and "thinking machines", which is why humans in the Dune books rely on the spice melange and the mutated human Navigators for space travel.
The controversy over whether BH/Anderson deviated greatly from FH's intents in his original outlines is somewhat irrelevant. The Dune books---especially those written by FH---are critic-proof. Die-hard FH fans tend to be unforgiving, and while BH/Anderson are decent writers, the truth is: they are not FH. For many fans, the fact that BH/Anderson even attempted to finish the series (let alone write prequels) was sacrilege.
I say: whatever. I'm not a FH purist. I dug his books, but he was not the Kwisatz Haderach.
The truth is, BH/Anderson's last two books in the series were admirable attempts at completing a series that, frankly, probably wouldn't have been completed anyway, even if FH had lived another 10 years.
Because here's the inconvenient truth, and one that FH purists will excoriate me for even saying aloud: the last couple Dune books in FH's series weren't that great. The series had become a venue for Herbert's socio-political ramblings at the expense of story. I wonder if FH even had written notes and outlines for subsequent books. I personally doubt it.
What BH/Anderson has done was answer the question, "What the hell just happened?" after readers finished "Chapterhouse: Dune". It may not have been the answer FH would have given, but it was an answer.
January 8, 2021
Epilog kısmını begendim ama, bu kitap resmen serinin içine etti... Son iki kitap dune evrenini bırakıp terminatör evrenine dönüştü. Bu iki kitabın çevrilmemesine sasmamalı...
July 4, 2024
I swear I had read Sandworns of Dune a long time ago right after it first released, but I have NO recollection of the end to Frank Herbert’s original Dune series.
I think I should have remembered some of the key items (like gholas). So since I have no memory, I guess this was a brand new read for me.
I didn’t mind at all that this book was not written by Frank Herbert. I think Brian and Kevin did a good job on following the storyline and bringing this book full circle. I had read all of their prequels so everything made sense to me.
I listened to this book on audiobook as narrated by
Scott Brick, who I adore, so I am giving this one 2 thumbs up!
I think I should have remembered some of the key items (like gholas). So since I have no memory, I guess this was a brand new read for me.
I didn’t mind at all that this book was not written by Frank Herbert. I think Brian and Kevin did a good job on following the storyline and bringing this book full circle. I had read all of their prequels so everything made sense to me.
I listened to this book on audiobook as narrated by
Scott Brick, who I adore, so I am giving this one 2 thumbs up!
November 21, 2007
I would really only recommend this to those people who have been wondering how Chapterhouse:Dune ended for about 30 years. I don't really have any problems with some of the major plot points from both this and Hunters of Dune, but the prose is so stilted and pedestrian, especially when compared to Frank Herbert's work, it makes it almost impossible to appreciate. It's like letting Michael Bay direct a sequel to 2001: A Space Oddyssey. Like all of Brian Herbert's and Kevin J. Anderson's work, there was no need for it to be this long. Both books could have been condensed into one, but, obviously, that wouldn't have sold as many books, so they had to pad it with ridiculous redundancies. It also wraps up almost all of the plot points from the original Dune series in a very neat package with a Happily Ever After that will make you want to puke. I'm certain Frank Herbert is rolling in his grave. These new Dune books are a brilliant lesson in how not to honor your father's legacy. Check out anything Christopher Tolkien has been doing to see someone do it right.
January 24, 2008
Kinda like a high school reunion...it's fun to see everyone again, but you're REAL glad you're not still in school. After I got over the nostalgia factor, this book was a bit tedious.
July 23, 2013
Sandworms of Dune
Book 8 of the Dune Chronicles
By Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
Based upon an outline by Frank Herbert
A Dune Retrospective by Eric Allen
Continuing the outline titled "Dune 7" left by his father, Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson released this, the final volume in the Dune Saga. There are those who love it, those that are indifferent to it, but many more who hate and criticize it. Yes, I understand that the writing style is not the same as that used by Frank Herbert, and that because of the limitations of the outline, some things did have to be added to fill in the gaps by the writers. But does that make Sandworms of Dune a bad book? In my opinion, no, it does not. If it's not written the exact way that the original author might have written it, and if the writers took a few liberties to fill in vague or unaddressed issues in the original outline, it is still written well, and brings a conclusion to the series that we otherwise would never have gotten. I know that it would have been nice for Frank Herbert to rise from the grave on Easter Sunday after three days and all to finish these final two volumes before ascending to the heavens, but seeing as how that did not happen, we must make due with what we have.
Sandworms of Dune picks up right after the conclusion of Hunters. Morbella is building a fleet to bring against the Machine Empire, and meeting resistance from every direction due to Facedancer infiltrators, including from within her own New Sisterhood. The Guild Navigators have enlisted the last of the Tlelaxu Masters to engineer them a new source of spice, and have been stealing their ships so that the Guild cannot install the new navigation computers from Ix. Meanwhile, Duncan Idaho and crew flee from the net of the enemy time and time again, doing their best to awaken the memories of the historical figures that they have brought back from the dead so that they might have a fighting chance against the enemy.
The Machines have created copies of their own, because a prophecy given in the depths of history says that after the final battle a Kwisatz Haderach must be there to guide events. When they finally catch up to Duncan, everything comes together in a final confrontation that will change the universe forever after.
The Good? Like I said earlier in the review, though this book may not be written in Frank Herbert's exact style, that does not mean that it is a badly written book. Brian Herbert and Anderson are both excellent writers in their own rights, but no two writers have the exact same style. Calling the book down because the writers were not able to perfectly recreate the style of the original author seems like a very silly complaint to me. To these people I ask, you do realize that Frank Herbert is dead, right? You do understand that a dead man cannot write books for you, yes? Then why selfishly complain about it? You can't change it, you might as well enjoy it for what it is. Had Brian Herbert not stepped up to complete his father's work, you'd have been left with a cliffhanger ending forever, so stop complaining about his writing style not matching that of his father's. I found the book to be well written, suspenseful, and exciting. It kept me invested in the characters and the plot, kept the suspense dialed up to 11, and was far more coherent a narrative than the several previous books written by the original author before his death.
The ending is not the ending that many people would have expected from Dune. I see many, many people complaining about this as well. The biggest complaint being that a lot of people think Brian Herbert just made it up on his own and either lied about finding the outline his father left behind, or did not follow it. However, I believe that the ending we got IS the ending that Frank Herbert would have written. It really seems to have his stamp all over it, and a lot of people seem to complain because it didn't fit what THEY thought should have happened, rather than what the original author wanted to happen. I thought the ending was very good, and it fit the series quite well. It is not a huge, climactic battle, as many people seemed to have been hoping for, but it was still very exciting in its own way, with several pretty huge plot twists and revelations.
It is easy to see where Brian Herbert and Anderson had to do some filling in the blanks in the outline left by Frank Herbert. And for the most part, they do very well at it. They took a twenty page outline and wrote two very good books out of it. I don't think many people who complain about the authors of this book realize how monumental a task that had to have been. It is inevitable that they would have a few blanks to fill in, and they did it well, and almost seamlessly.
For the most part, it seems as though Brian Herbert published these two final volumes for the right reasons. Not for fame, money, and capitalization upon his father's legacy, but because he truly wished to finish his father's work, and to give his father's fans the ending that they had been asking for for decades. You can feel his passion for the task in the writing, and his desire to do his father proud. I think that these two books are an excellent tribute to his father's memory. They may not be the exact books that Frank Herbert would have written, but that doesn't make them any less entertaining. I would say to those who dislike these books simply because they were written differently, to set that nitpick aside and enjoy the ending that you would never have gotten in any form had Brian Herbert not given it to you.
The Bad? Yet more child rape. I'm running out of horrible things to say about child rape. I've been bitching about it for what, four months running now? I feel like a broken record here. Child rape is wrong in every case, whether the child be male or female, it is still just as horrific. There is nothing that makes it right. There is no justification that you can give. I even had a commenter on one of my previous reviews tell me that child rape is okay because it happens in the distant future and the culture is different. Uh, no, it's still child rape, and since that future culture doesn't actually exist, it's my own culture I'm going to be pulling right and wrong from. And in my culture, child rape is one of the most abhorrent crimes imaginable. So don't give me ANY of that BS! I find myself pretty annoyed and rather angry at how casually it gets tossed into the Dune series as though it is nothing of consequence.
Again, Frank Herbert's name does not appear anywhere on my copy of this book. It is neither anywhere on the cover, nor anywhere within it. I do believe that this oversight was a mistake made by the publisher, and not by Brian Herbert, as Herbert Jr. does seem genuine in his desires to finish his father's work simply for the sake of finishing it. However, it does seem a pretty big slight against the original creator of the series to completely leave his name off the book entirely. I have seen editions of the book that do have his name on it, but my copy does not.
In conclusion, this book is well written, exciting, suspenseful, and highly entertaining. It gives a satisfying ending to a series that has spanned over four decades in its release. Though this may not be the book that the original writer would have given us, it is the ending that he would have given us, whether it was written in his style or not. There are just a few small nitpicks I have with it, few worth even mentioning, and a scene of child rape against it. I thought the book was very good, and an excellent conclusion to an epic series. I invite any Dune fans or fans of Science Fiction to give it a try, and try to see it for the story rather than the differences in the writing styles between authors.
And with this I conclude my Dune Retrospective. Thanks go to all of you who have followed me through this journey, and have sent me your letters, comments, and experiences with this series along the way. I hope that I have been informative and entertaining, and that some of you out there, who may not have had the opportunity to have picked this series up will do so now. Though it does have its low points, the series as a whole is well worth the time and effort to read. Next up in my Retrospective series is the Star Wars Thrawn Trilogy by Timothy Zahn. Until next month.
Check out my other reviews.
Book 8 of the Dune Chronicles
By Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
Based upon an outline by Frank Herbert
A Dune Retrospective by Eric Allen
Continuing the outline titled "Dune 7" left by his father, Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson released this, the final volume in the Dune Saga. There are those who love it, those that are indifferent to it, but many more who hate and criticize it. Yes, I understand that the writing style is not the same as that used by Frank Herbert, and that because of the limitations of the outline, some things did have to be added to fill in the gaps by the writers. But does that make Sandworms of Dune a bad book? In my opinion, no, it does not. If it's not written the exact way that the original author might have written it, and if the writers took a few liberties to fill in vague or unaddressed issues in the original outline, it is still written well, and brings a conclusion to the series that we otherwise would never have gotten. I know that it would have been nice for Frank Herbert to rise from the grave on Easter Sunday after three days and all to finish these final two volumes before ascending to the heavens, but seeing as how that did not happen, we must make due with what we have.
Sandworms of Dune picks up right after the conclusion of Hunters. Morbella is building a fleet to bring against the Machine Empire, and meeting resistance from every direction due to Facedancer infiltrators, including from within her own New Sisterhood. The Guild Navigators have enlisted the last of the Tlelaxu Masters to engineer them a new source of spice, and have been stealing their ships so that the Guild cannot install the new navigation computers from Ix. Meanwhile, Duncan Idaho and crew flee from the net of the enemy time and time again, doing their best to awaken the memories of the historical figures that they have brought back from the dead so that they might have a fighting chance against the enemy.
The Machines have created copies of their own, because a prophecy given in the depths of history says that after the final battle a Kwisatz Haderach must be there to guide events. When they finally catch up to Duncan, everything comes together in a final confrontation that will change the universe forever after.
The Good? Like I said earlier in the review, though this book may not be written in Frank Herbert's exact style, that does not mean that it is a badly written book. Brian Herbert and Anderson are both excellent writers in their own rights, but no two writers have the exact same style. Calling the book down because the writers were not able to perfectly recreate the style of the original author seems like a very silly complaint to me. To these people I ask, you do realize that Frank Herbert is dead, right? You do understand that a dead man cannot write books for you, yes? Then why selfishly complain about it? You can't change it, you might as well enjoy it for what it is. Had Brian Herbert not stepped up to complete his father's work, you'd have been left with a cliffhanger ending forever, so stop complaining about his writing style not matching that of his father's. I found the book to be well written, suspenseful, and exciting. It kept me invested in the characters and the plot, kept the suspense dialed up to 11, and was far more coherent a narrative than the several previous books written by the original author before his death.
The ending is not the ending that many people would have expected from Dune. I see many, many people complaining about this as well. The biggest complaint being that a lot of people think Brian Herbert just made it up on his own and either lied about finding the outline his father left behind, or did not follow it. However, I believe that the ending we got IS the ending that Frank Herbert would have written. It really seems to have his stamp all over it, and a lot of people seem to complain because it didn't fit what THEY thought should have happened, rather than what the original author wanted to happen. I thought the ending was very good, and it fit the series quite well. It is not a huge, climactic battle, as many people seemed to have been hoping for, but it was still very exciting in its own way, with several pretty huge plot twists and revelations.
It is easy to see where Brian Herbert and Anderson had to do some filling in the blanks in the outline left by Frank Herbert. And for the most part, they do very well at it. They took a twenty page outline and wrote two very good books out of it. I don't think many people who complain about the authors of this book realize how monumental a task that had to have been. It is inevitable that they would have a few blanks to fill in, and they did it well, and almost seamlessly.
For the most part, it seems as though Brian Herbert published these two final volumes for the right reasons. Not for fame, money, and capitalization upon his father's legacy, but because he truly wished to finish his father's work, and to give his father's fans the ending that they had been asking for for decades. You can feel his passion for the task in the writing, and his desire to do his father proud. I think that these two books are an excellent tribute to his father's memory. They may not be the exact books that Frank Herbert would have written, but that doesn't make them any less entertaining. I would say to those who dislike these books simply because they were written differently, to set that nitpick aside and enjoy the ending that you would never have gotten in any form had Brian Herbert not given it to you.
The Bad? Yet more child rape. I'm running out of horrible things to say about child rape. I've been bitching about it for what, four months running now? I feel like a broken record here. Child rape is wrong in every case, whether the child be male or female, it is still just as horrific. There is nothing that makes it right. There is no justification that you can give. I even had a commenter on one of my previous reviews tell me that child rape is okay because it happens in the distant future and the culture is different. Uh, no, it's still child rape, and since that future culture doesn't actually exist, it's my own culture I'm going to be pulling right and wrong from. And in my culture, child rape is one of the most abhorrent crimes imaginable. So don't give me ANY of that BS! I find myself pretty annoyed and rather angry at how casually it gets tossed into the Dune series as though it is nothing of consequence.
Again, Frank Herbert's name does not appear anywhere on my copy of this book. It is neither anywhere on the cover, nor anywhere within it. I do believe that this oversight was a mistake made by the publisher, and not by Brian Herbert, as Herbert Jr. does seem genuine in his desires to finish his father's work simply for the sake of finishing it. However, it does seem a pretty big slight against the original creator of the series to completely leave his name off the book entirely. I have seen editions of the book that do have his name on it, but my copy does not.
In conclusion, this book is well written, exciting, suspenseful, and highly entertaining. It gives a satisfying ending to a series that has spanned over four decades in its release. Though this may not be the book that the original writer would have given us, it is the ending that he would have given us, whether it was written in his style or not. There are just a few small nitpicks I have with it, few worth even mentioning, and a scene of child rape against it. I thought the book was very good, and an excellent conclusion to an epic series. I invite any Dune fans or fans of Science Fiction to give it a try, and try to see it for the story rather than the differences in the writing styles between authors.
And with this I conclude my Dune Retrospective. Thanks go to all of you who have followed me through this journey, and have sent me your letters, comments, and experiences with this series along the way. I hope that I have been informative and entertaining, and that some of you out there, who may not have had the opportunity to have picked this series up will do so now. Though it does have its low points, the series as a whole is well worth the time and effort to read. Next up in my Retrospective series is the Star Wars Thrawn Trilogy by Timothy Zahn. Until next month.
Check out my other reviews.
March 18, 2009
I hate to leave a book before I finish it. I feel I have a commitment to give each book a chance and see it through to the end. I become very attached to characters.
I really tried to finish this book. I got through the first book in the series on pure momentum from the original Dune series. I really wanted to believe that this was Duncan, but it was not.
If you are so attached to the Dune universe that you can stomach this, than more power to you, but I do not recommend tainting your memory of Dune with this.
I really tried to finish this book. I got through the first book in the series on pure momentum from the original Dune series. I really wanted to believe that this was Duncan, but it was not.
If you are so attached to the Dune universe that you can stomach this, than more power to you, but I do not recommend tainting your memory of Dune with this.
April 27, 2008
Very disappointed by the ending of the Dune Saga. Although I think it tied into what Brian Herbert has written in the absence of his father, I can't believe that Frank Herbert would have finished such a magical and powerful series with such a weak and predictable ending.
November 21, 2021
The ending was interesting but it took FOREVER to get there.
June 10, 2015
In the end it was all a bit of an anti climax, whether that was due to it not being Frank Herbert writing or whether it was down to not really knowing how to finish such an epic series, I don't know, but it was a shame.
I have enjoyed the "main" series (not including the various Brian n Kevin prequels) to varying degrees, but all have generally been entertaining and worth reading, but this book gets the lowest rating of them all.
It makes me wonder if it's worth reading the prequels??
I have enjoyed the "main" series (not including the various Brian n Kevin prequels) to varying degrees, but all have generally been entertaining and worth reading, but this book gets the lowest rating of them all.
It makes me wonder if it's worth reading the prequels??
December 16, 2023
Why do old men always fetishize sexual assault? Like a 13yo boy gets raped by a grown ass woman to traumatize him. On purpose. And this ain’t even the first time this has happened in this series. Ugh.
November 8, 2009
*Same review for the Dune Universe*
GREAT books! VERY time consuming! Worth the time!
Ok here is the deal. If your not sure about starting a series this big, here is what I would do.
1. -- Read the 1st one by Frank Herbert "Dune" if you like it...
2. -- Read the "Legends Of Dune" series. Its 3 books written by Frank's son Brian and a author I really like by the name of Keven J. Anderson. Its a prequel that is so far in the past that it doesn't spoil the Original Dune series in any way, and you could stop after that series and be done with Dune.. but if your not done....
3. -- Go and read the "House Trilogy" series its also 3 books and is a prequel to the original dune series but just prior so you will learn about some of the characters in the 1st book you read "Dune".
4. -- By now you have committed enough time in the series that you probably NEED to finish it. Go back and re-read Dune, (trust me you will want to) then go on and read the rest of the original Dune series (Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune, Chapterhouse Dune) Your devotion to the series will help push you through some of the parts that I think are slightly. Its worth it though!
4. -- You will notice the series ends up in the AIR! Frank Herbert died before finishing the series. The authors of the prequel series (his son Bryan Herbert and Keven J. Anderson) finished the series from compiled notes from Frank, Brian's experience talking to his father about the series and both Brian and Kevin's love of the Dune universe. It is very well done. Its two books (Hunters of Dune, and Sandworms of Dune.)
OK so sum up here is the order I would do the series. (which ends up being chronological except for the 1st book, even though it wasn't published this way.
Dune (to make sure you like it.)
Legends of Dune (series of 3 books)
House Trilogy (series of 3 books)
Dune (again since your restarting the original series)
The rest of the Dune series
Hunters of Dune
Sandworms of Dune
Ok have fun.
GREAT books! VERY time consuming! Worth the time!
Ok here is the deal. If your not sure about starting a series this big, here is what I would do.
1. -- Read the 1st one by Frank Herbert "Dune" if you like it...
2. -- Read the "Legends Of Dune" series. Its 3 books written by Frank's son Brian and a author I really like by the name of Keven J. Anderson. Its a prequel that is so far in the past that it doesn't spoil the Original Dune series in any way, and you could stop after that series and be done with Dune.. but if your not done....
3. -- Go and read the "House Trilogy" series its also 3 books and is a prequel to the original dune series but just prior so you will learn about some of the characters in the 1st book you read "Dune".
4. -- By now you have committed enough time in the series that you probably NEED to finish it. Go back and re-read Dune, (trust me you will want to) then go on and read the rest of the original Dune series (Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune, Chapterhouse Dune) Your devotion to the series will help push you through some of the parts that I think are slightly. Its worth it though!
4. -- You will notice the series ends up in the AIR! Frank Herbert died before finishing the series. The authors of the prequel series (his son Bryan Herbert and Keven J. Anderson) finished the series from compiled notes from Frank, Brian's experience talking to his father about the series and both Brian and Kevin's love of the Dune universe. It is very well done. Its two books (Hunters of Dune, and Sandworms of Dune.)
OK so sum up here is the order I would do the series. (which ends up being chronological except for the 1st book, even though it wasn't published this way.
Dune (to make sure you like it.)
Legends of Dune (series of 3 books)
House Trilogy (series of 3 books)
Dune (again since your restarting the original series)
The rest of the Dune series
Hunters of Dune
Sandworms of Dune
Ok have fun.
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