Dune Messiah audiobook

Completely Different Tone Than Dune #1Dune #1 leaves us in a complete cliffhanger. However, Dune #2 starts up 12 years later. In the introduction to the version that I read, Brian Herbert (the author’s son) wrote that one magazine labeled this book as the “disappointment of the year.” However, he explained the book is supposed to show how absolute power can corrupt leaders including Paul Atreides. Dune Messiah has a completely different tone than Dune. Dune was filled with adventure and hope, the entire group working, willing to die, to transform the environment. Further, Dune had a bunch of very strong female characters. In contrast, Dune Messiah is more political and emotional. Also, the depiction of women is just horrible. Alia is boy crazy, and Irulan and Chani are only focused on Paul and producing an heir. In 12 years, Paul has matured. He is not the boy of Dune. He makes decisions almost cavalierly. The book was definitely entertaining though. The audiobook had an entire cast of characters, and it was such a rich experience. As with Dune, I could pick something up new each time reading Dune Messiah. However, the tone on this was much darker than Dune, and it wasn’t inspiring. The ending of Dune Messiah was so weak, the complete opposite of the ending of Dune.Recently, I was reading a list ranking all of the Dune books, and this one was rated the very worst of the series so I am still excited to continue with this series and hope that the future is a little less bleak. 2022 Reading ScheduleJan Animal FarmFeb Lord of the FliesMar The Da Vinci CodeApr Of Mice and MenMay Memoirs of a GeishaJun Little WomenJul The Lovely BonesAug Charlotte's WebSep Life of PiOct DraculaNov Gone with the WindDec The Secret GardenConnect With Me!Blog Twitter BookTube Facebook Insta

It´s mainly a psychological warfare battle with psi weapons, many conspiracies, less action, and very good dialogues. Some favorite elements: Sci-Fi pregnancies are always a fertile ground for plot ideas, bad pun intended, and as each mother of any species and epoch wants the best for the unborn and has the healthiest diet possible, there is one question that comes with pregnancy enhancing drugs and magical substances turning embryos in mentalists.Especially when pimping the baby in the womb is totally safe and nothing can go wrong anymore or each complication and problem can immediately be solved thanks to very advanced future medicine, the mother loses the legitimation to refuse any optimization possible, because it would actively harm the child by reducing the chances in the future and in competition with others, something already in discussion regarding genetic engineering nowadays.If it´s magic powder and its quality and quantity that decide over the future career of the child as a doctor, engineer, or god-emperor, it´ a bit trickier to find the right amount, because there are no mini- and nanobots patrolling the body scanning around. You know, I guess even fictional characters´ bodies might have different tolerances and biochemistries so how does a woman decide how much is too much and will the eyes of the kid glow too blue or too less and is a too less even desirable if it includes lower potential? If it´s already shining trough the womb during pregnancy, it might be just the right dosage.The world with shapeshifters, clones, psi powers, breeding programs, and intrigues that are distilled in a much smaller area than in the first novel, intensifying the suspense of so many different fractions competing with another.Philosophical, political, social, ethical, and moral questions in vast amounts, I would like to know how many books and ideas Herbert used to create the philosophy of the world and its protagonists and would be interested in a list of the references and how he modified and changed all the ideas, there is certainly a wiki, Reddit, or blog dealing with this. Diving deeper in this second dimension of the story might only be possible when rereading or regularly stopping while reading to reflect on what has just been said and to try to put it in the context of the whole story. It was so cool and could have been much longer, everything is perfect here and there would have been the potential for double the size with all the suspenseful elements and open questions. And the dialogues, it´s not often the case that there is something to read like that, so go for it.Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...

‘I live in an apocalyptic dream.’When the wheels of fate are churning, can you escape without being crushed beneath its wheels. Frank Herberts set up an amazing and complex political universe and sets it to explode, sending us off on a trajectory picked up by Dune Messiah. Set 12 years after the events of Dune, we find Paul Maud’dib on the Emperors throne and the Jihad has ‘killed sixty-one billion, sterilised ninety planets, completely demoralised five hundred others’ all in Paul’s name. Messiah has vastly expanded mechanics yet resides in a much smaller scale than its predecessor, being almost a parlor drama of ‘plots within plots within plots’ as before but with a more focused proximity to really feel the tension creaking through the narrative. Expanding on themes of the ways religion and politics are manipulated for power and diving deep into ideas of fate and freedom with a touch of Friedrich Nietzsche along the way, Dune Messiah is a tense and psychological thriller that really drives home the ideas left open at the end of the previous novel and charts a course for incredible new directions for the larger narrative.While the original Dune plays out on epic proportions, Messiah feels more like a Shakespeareian tragedy. Withing a few chapters of the opening we see the plot drop into the chamber and be fired off with a pretty clear indication what it leads, yet every step of the way still feels fresh and thrilling. This is in keeping with the story as well, seeing as Paul foresees much of what is coming but after a decade of winning and no surprises, a psychological challenge that could be unexpected is what he craves. ‘He felt chained to a future which, exposed too often, had locked onto him like a greedy succubus,’ Herbert writes, and Paul, feeling isolated from even those he loves due to his prescience while increasingly speaking with Alia on their shared struggle, begins to wish for a way to escape his all-knowing fate. This becomes increasingly tragic when he can see great loss before they happen and the only advice his sister can give is ‘we must not grieve for those dear to us before their passing’The story feels a bit more loose and less tidy in this one, an obvious difficulty when constructing a narrative around prescience. Yet the political tensions and plottings keep it sharp and direct, and where Herbert really excels is getting into character’s heads during discussions and seeing the internal mastermining going on. This is especially exciting with Scytale, a Tleilaxu Face Dancer that can shift into any body because if Bene Gesserits weren’t enough, this shapeshifting class only hinted at before is now on full conniving display to remind you that the Dune universe is terrifying and awesome. It is a tight cast, with less than a dozen primary characters including the return of Duncan Idaho as a clone, or ‘ghola’, also going by the name Heyt. Which, as expected, becomes an issue with the Fremen who see technology such as this as potentially blasphemous. Scytale warns ‘reason is the first victim of strong emotion’ and much of Messiah is mental chess full of strong emotions to throw Paul off his game. It’s pretty dark, considering he knows Duncan has been sent to probably kill him and it’s his friend yet not his friend at all as boisterous Duncan is now a stoic and pensive intellectual. ‘Truth suffers from too much analysis.’-Ancient Fremen SayingMessiah seems hellbent on reminding you that the events of Dune were not a heroic and great thing but a pretty twisted political contest of colonialism, manipulation and mass murder. Like murder on the galactic scale of genocide. The Jihad is not awesome and people are starting to talk about that. The opening pages are an intense interview with a historian about to be executed for writing a critical historical analysis of Paul and his rise to power, and he tells the Fremen ‘you learned early to call the truth heresy.’ The ruling powers dismiss anything not in keeping with their narrative, one held firmly together by the glue of religion. ‘Religion, too, is a weapon,’ Herbert writes, and asks us ‘what manner of weapon is religion when it becomes the government?’ We begin to see the religious gaslighting to keep a strong and obedient population ready to kill. ‘They are not mad. They're trained to believe, not to know. Belief can be manipulated. Only knowledge is dangerous.’What seems most dangerous is the knowledge of what is to come and the lack of freedom to escape fate. This novel delves deeper into ideas of memory as well as looking to the future with characters like Alia that have memory accessible in her cells to converse with the ancestral past. It becomes very existential, with question if there is any agency to truly make choices, locked into political decisions as well as the awareness of the future. Paul is set up much like the Nietzschean Übermensch yet in this novel he rejects it and wishes to escape it. ‘My steps fit into it so precisely that I fear most of all I will grow bored reliving the thing so exactly,’ he says, which also feels a nod to Nietzche’s concept of Eternal Return. What unfolds is brilliant and becomes an excellent example of refusing the body for the myth. While the end is sad and tragic, it is also a cementing of immortality as the eternal Maud’dib, now more legend and legacy than ever before.Messiah is a shorter sequel that packs a lot of power on the smaller scale while managing to make the universe vastly larger and more complex. There is much distrust stirred in this book, with distrust in rulers, history and religion being a major purpose for Herbert. In an essay by his son, Brian Herbert, he mentions how his father saw the Watergate scandal as a positive: ‘By amplified example, albeit unwittingly, the thirty-seventh president of the United States taught people to question their leaders.’ This message of questioning leaders, especially ones who impose moral codes through religion and seek to dismiss critical historical perspectives as execution-worthy heresy is at heart in Messiah. Legacy and fate are critical themes, as well as breeding schemes that will determine the future ruler of Arakkis. This is an excellent passing of the torch that slingshots us towards the next book, and the Dune series marches on.4/5'If you need something to worship, then worship life - all life, every last crawling bit of it! We're all in this beauty together!'

Buddy read with Athena!"Once more the drama begins." - The Emperor Paul Muad'dib on his ascension to the Lion ThroneTwelve years have passed since the Battle of Arrakeen, where Paul Atreides wrestled the Imperium from the hands of the Padishah Emperor, and seized the Lion Throne for himself. Dune has become the political and economical centre of the universe, and the Qizarate priesthood has spread Muad'dib's name throughout space and turned him into not only an emperor with absolute power, but a god in his own right.Yet there are those who would topple the god emperor from his religious throne. In the grand circles of power, a new conspiracy arises from the shadows. Its goals and ambitions are many, and it seeks to infiltrate the ranks of the Atreides and the Fremen, striking at those closest to the emperor in order to remove him from power. And each step brings its plans closer to succeeding."Mysterious, lethal, an oracle without eyes,Catspaw of prophecy, whose voice never dies!"Dune Messiah is, in many ways, even better than Dune. It cannot stand up to the wonder of discovering the world of Arrakis for the first time, but it certainly has other strengths. The setting and the writing style is mostly the same as in the first book. The story though, has changed dramatically. The first book is about Paul Atreides and his quest for vengeance against those who betrayed his family and seized their land. The second book is about managing an empire and protecting it from a devilishly dangerous conspiracy who shuns no means to achieve what they want. There is more political maneuvering, more hidden agendas, and more excitement for the reader.The character have also grown more interesting in the second book. Paul, Chani and Irulan are all older and more experienced in the games of power, and were much more enjoyable to read about than they were in the first one. And perhaps the most fascinating character of them all is Alia, Paul's sister. Still only fifteen years of age, she is both a Reverend Mother of the Bene Gesserit, a leader of the Qizarate priesthood, and a powerful voice in the Imperial Council.What truly made me decide to let this book keep the five stars from the first time I read it, was the ending. I will not go into details about it, but only say that this may be the most beautiful ending I have ever read in a sci-fi or fantasy book ever.For those of you who have read Dune and are debating with yourselves whether or not to read its sequels, I hope this review will be helpful in deciding. For those of you who haven't read any of the books from this universe, know that it is in my eyes one of the greatest fictional series of all time. I would definitely recommend it to every single one of you, because it's a wonderful story with few equals in the world of science fiction.Such a rich store of myths enfolds Paul Muad'dib, the Mentat Emperor, and his sister, Alia, it is difficult to see the real persons behind these veils. But there were, after all, a man born Paul Atreides and a woman born Alia. Their flesh was subject to space and time. And even though their oracular powers placed them beyond the usual limits of time and space, they came from human stock. They experienced real events which left real traces upon a real universe. To understand them, it must be seen that their catastrophe was the catastrophe of all mankind. This work is dedicated, then, not to Muad'dib or his sister, but to their heirs - to all of us. - Dedication in the Muad'dib Concordance as copied from The Tabla Memorium of the Mahdi Spirit Cult

Dune Messiah (Dune #2), Frank HerbertDune Messiah is a science fiction novel by American writer Frank Herbert, the second in his Dune series of six novels. Twelve years after the events described in Dune (1965), Paul "Muad'Dib" Atreides rules as Emperor. By accepting the role of messiah to the Fremen, Paul had unleashed a jihad which conquered most of the known universe. While Paul is the most powerful emperor ever known, he is powerless to stop the lethal excesses of the religious juggernaut he has created. Although 61 billion people have perished, Paul's prescient visions indicate that this is far from the worst possible outcome for humanity. Motivated by this knowledge, Paul hopes to set humanity on a course that will not inevitably lead to stagnation and destruction, while at the same time acting as ruler of the empire and focal point of the Fremen religion. ...تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز سی ام ماه نوامبر سال2018میلادیعنوان: مسیحای تلماسه: کتاب دوم از سری تلماسه؛ نویسنده: فرانک هربرت؛ مترجم: مهیار فروتن فر؛ تهران، نشر کتابسرای تندیس، سال1397؛ در320ص؛ فروست: شاهکارهای ادبیات علمی تخیلی؛ شابک9786001823244؛ چاپ دوم سال1398؛ موضوع داستانهای نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده20مماجرای نبرد میان سه خاندان بزرگ بر سر مالکیت این سیاره و قصه قهرمان افسانه ای «فرمن»ها به نام «پل مودِب» است که با تکیه بر اندیشه های پیچیده فلسفی، روان شناختی، سیاسی، بوم شناسی و…؛ نگارش شده است؛ «مسیحای تلماسه» ادامه داستان «پائول آتریدس» است، مردی که «مودب» را مسیحی کرد، او به عنوان فرمانروای جهان شناخته شده، بیش از آنچه که یک فرد میباید قدرت داشته باشد دارای قدرت بود؛ او به نمادی مذهبی تبدیل شده بود و توسط تندروها پرستش میشد؛ با اینحال به خاطر جابجاییهای سیاسی که در زمان تصاحب تاج و تخت انجام داده بود مورد نفرت بسیاری قرار گرفته است و با توطئه نفوذ مواجه شد؛ و حتی وقتی خانه «آتریدس» در اطراف او شروع به از دست دادن اعتبار خود میکند، توطئه ای دیگر معشوق او، «چانی»، و وارث متولد نشده سلسله خانوادگیش را تهدید میکند...؛ میلیونها نسخه از کتابهای باشکوه «مسیحای تلماسه» در سراسر جهان فروخته شده، دوازده سال پس از چیرگی «پل مودب»، پیشوای پیشگو، بر غاصبان، و تکیه زدن ایشان بر سریر سیادت، نه تنها «تلماسه» که همه ی کائنات جهان زخم خورده، سرانجام از بستر بهت برخاسته، و بنای انتقام میگذارند؛ ...؛ سری کتابهای تلماسه رمانهای علمی- تخیلی هستند، روایتی شگفت انگیز که در سال1965میلادی جان گرفت و فضایی از آینده ای دور را به تصویر کشاند؛ این سری بازگویی ماجرای نبرد میان سه خاندان بزرگ بر سر مالکیت این سیاره و قصه ی قهرمان افسانه ای «فرمن»ها به نام «پل مودِب» است که با تکیه بر اندیشه های پیچیده ی فلسفی، روان شناختی، سیاسی، بوم شناسی و…؛ نگاشته شده اند؛ نقل از متن: («پل» آهی کشید و در این فکر فرورفت که چطور هر دنیایی که به دست لشکریانش فتح، و به منبعی تازه برای زوار بدل میشود، زواری که به سپاس از «صلح و آرامش اعطایی مودب» به زیارت «آراکیس» میآمدند؛ با خود گفت: بله، همه جا صلح و آرامش هست؛ همه جا…؛ جز در قلب «مودب»؛ احساس میکرد که عنصری از عناصر وجودش، در ژرفنای بی پایان ظلماتی منجمد، غرق شده است؛ قدرت پیشگویانه ی او تصویری را که همگان از جهان داشتند، دستکاری کرده بود؛ او جهان امنی را که همه میشناختند زیر و رو کرده بود، و امن و امانش را با «کورساد» خود جایگزین کرده بود؛ او ثابت کرده بود که در زور و فکر و آینده نگری سرتر از جهان انسانهاست، ولی ته دلش مطمئن بود که جهان هنوز دست خود را تمام و کمال برایش رو نکرده است)؛ پایان نقلتاریخ بهنگام رسانی 28/06/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 23/02/1401هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

When I first read Dune Messiah, it was nearly twenty years ago and like a lot things time had erased most of the details from my brain - including the ending.So digging into it last week was a treat; felt like something new. From re-discovering characters and themes, to gaining an understanding that my seventeen-year-old brain wasn't able to yet comprehend. As a note on my assessment style: Part of me wants to respond to other reviewers here on Goodreads concerning their literary criticisms. However, I’ve found that to be a self-defeating endeavor. I come from the school of: A review should stand on its own merits. But I have a little cheat here - I can respond to what my younger self thought of Dune Messiah. The Nick West of twenty years ago did have some criticisms of this book that may have been rooted in misunderstanding — and at the very least, a sense of disappointment or superb literary let-down. As I respond to Nick of the 90s, you can parallel similar themes in other 2 and 3 star reviews on this site. So here we are: You the reader, Nicholas at age 37, and Nick at age 17. Let’s chat.**(There is one specific thing I do want to address concerning other reviews, because it’s a weirdly specific critique that pops up a bunch of times. But we’ll get there in a minute.)**Off the top here, I loved this book. I had it on my Goodreads for 10 days, but really I ate up the bulk of the text in a three day page-burner.Here’s something that Nick, age 17, could not fully realize about Dune Messiah: This is a novel for grown ups. Gone is the fairy-tale magic of a young man forced into extraordinary circumstances. Gone are any aspects to the beginnings of the hero’s journey. Instead, we get the biggest realization that Nicholas at age 37 has had about the Dune series: Those aspects of fantasy and science fiction tropes that got me into the story, seemingly became absent concepts in Book Two. While not incidental, those surface elements are incidentally the thing that I got hung up on the first time I read this series. And they weren’t even the most important things in the saga.Frank Herbert has this reputation for making Dune some impenetrable document as rigid, complicated, and vengeful as the Old Testament. But that’s a bad rap. On the surface, the first Dune book was a seemingly simple story of betrayal and revenge. The world building, interpersonal relationships, religious philosophies, and political intrigue are as deep as anything ever put into fiction. (The vengeful part is, however, accurate.)So, when teenage Nick finished Dune; what felt like the most epic journey my imagination had ever been on, only to crack open the next book and feel like I was thrust into the pages of a bad pulp novel, it felt a bit confusing.I read the prologue which contained on-the-nose dialogues by some nameless jailer and a historian. Okay? — The empire of Paul Maud’dib has a Spanish Inquisition team? The next chapter introduced me to Face Dancers, gaseous fish-men, and a conspiracy to kick the book into gear — It is a little pulpy. But the Harkonnens are pretty damn pulpy too. As adversaries they are supervillain-gaga. Maybe you just missed it missed it because of how epic the story was around them. Geez, young Nick, you didn’t realize it was pulp all along. With a healthy dose of psychedelia and the best world building since Tolkien. As to the confusion of the prologue, turns out that’s just a clever way to deliver exposition on what became of the Universe since Paul ascended to emperorship: It’s been twelve years since the first book, etc…Pulp might be the wrong word. But the heart of the matter is that Herbert had a vision (visions!) in which he used Dune, Book One, to dip a toe in, or maybe a foot. But with Dune Messiah, we definitely went waist deep. What’s third base in a swimming mixed metaphor? I think Frank Herbert reached his hand down my pants from a psychedelic standpoint.But I’m skipping ahead. Nick at 17 was let down. My expectations had been subverted. Dune Messiah isn’t about the Shakespearean characters performing hyper-slick action scenes. No. Book Two in the series is much more contemplative. We jump into new dramas between old characters and fresh faces. And yes, teenage Nick, there is a hell of a lot of talking. But to call that boring or hard to follow betrays an unrefined mind, kid. This novel is a procedural of emotion, passion, pleasure, the struggle with mortality — you know, the human condition — Not only did Frank Herbert up his literary game; he did so with a brevity and beauty that was perfect for this story. And what we think of as a slow burn actually has new twists and intrigues on practically every other page. If you pay attention, which the writing makes easy to do, the payoff is a powerful one indeed.On that note: Paul Maud’dib is dealing with some heavy stuff as Emperor of the known Universe. He had allowed (Or he claimed it as out of his control) a horrible Jihad to rage across the universe. This Holy War is what I struggled with the most both times I read the novel — and perhaps Herbert was using this as a way to expand the reader’s consciousness? (This is a meta theory if you tie it into the Ghola/Hayt/Duncan Idaho’s fate. Whoa. There’s a thesis, man…) You really have to open up new channels of thought to figure out why Paul could not stop evil from being done in the Atreides name. Was there really was no order of events or commands that could’ve stopped the Fremen conquerers? (view spoiler)[There was a series of events that could control the Jihad! It just took Paul twelve years to make it work! (hide spoiler)] So now we get into the goods. Here’s what makes this book such a killer, twelve-round-fight-with-a-knockout-punch, genius piece of literature.Paul faces several huge problems that seem insurmountable. And he feels trapped by his prescience. If one could see the future and decided on a certain path, the sheer boredom would be brutal. But there is still too much fear for the boredom to kick in. There is a complicated conspiracy against him that is so powerful, even his knowledge of the plot cannot stop its machinations. Paul must produce an heir. If this is done improperly, the love of his life would be tortured and turned into a slave. the Jihad must be stopped. The unbalanced government fueled by religious zealots needs to be set on a more progressive track.That’s quite a tall order for 329 pages. On top of that, we are told in the prologue about Paul’s downfall. So now we’re faced with a whodunnit?, or more of a howdunnit? Will the conspirators win the day? Can Paul cement a legacy that reaches beyond violence? Can Chani bear a child that lives? So we sit through all the meetings, and conversations that take place jumping between multiple points-of-view. We delve into character’s deepest thoughts, passions, desires, and inadequacies — something that Herbert can actually pull off. What could have been a mess of massive internal dialogues, instead becomes a string, a chord, and finally a cable pulling the reader forward page by page. Yes, young Nick. How could you understand the anxiety a father feels for his children? Or a husband for his wife of more than a decade? You really can’t. Frank Herbert wrote a book for grown ups. And when you’re all grown up, you might catch a bit of what was trying to be conveyed. All the while being heaped with a massive dose of trippy visions pulling you into the undertow of genetic and higher-thinking philosophies. (view spoiler)[Before we realize what he’s done, Herbert has crafted the perfect ending to Paul’s journey. It is melancholy and poetic. And after chapters of Paul’s nihilistic despair and frenetic energy, he is given peace. (hide spoiler)] You try writing something half as spectacular.So, teenage Nick, give it some time, buddy. Dune Messiah comes highly recommended from you, a man who has changed a little bit over the last twenty years.—**Finally here’s that weird note that pops up in a bunch of Goodreads reviews. I’ll go ahead and quote some actual reviews here (Of course, I’m not going to call out individual names. I’m not here to pick a fight. These reviewers have just as much validity in their feelings towards the book as I do.) Bolds added by me.— “I'm realizing there's not much to this book. It simply bridges the first and third.” “After re-reading Dune recently, I decided to finally get around to reading Dune Messiah - the sequel to Dune and the bridge to Children of Dune.”“I read in reviews all over the Internet that it was boring that it was basically only a bridge between DUNE and CHILDREN OF DUNE.”“For me Dune Messiah acts as a slightly dull (but not too shabby) bridge to go on to the original trilogy’s grand finale Children of Dune"(This next one says the same thing but surprisingly doesn’t use the key word, BRIDGE. Seriously, what is going on here?)“The feel of the book is like a prelude to what comes next, that the third book will be the true sequel to Dune.”“This is not to say I didn't love the book -- far from it! It definitely feels like a bridging book between "Dune" and "Children of Dune””You get the point. At least 30 different reviews used this terminology in my quick scan.Firstly: What the hell is going on? Did everyone read each other’s reviews and just spew the same points using their own re-ordered sentences? Is there some secret Dune-whisperer-critic that said this is a “bridge” novel and that became reality for everyone else? Seriously, wtf? Secondly: I think most of these folks are wrong. You could stop the series at Dune Messiah and have a really satisfying ending to Paul’s journey. Honestly, Messiah is one of the best damn endings I’ve ever read. It’s a magic trick where the cards are face up the whole time and you’re still left wondering how Frank Herbert pulled it off. Good stuff, Mr. Herbert. Young Nick, ignore these “bridge” acolytes. I don’t trust ‘em. :P

a lot of people said that this book was bad but it’s not? some people say to read it as an epilogue to Dune and after that it really helped my enjoyment of the book.

Returning to the original world of Dune has a special place in my heart. I seem to recall that Messiah was written before Dune but obviously Dune was published before it.Of course, a beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct. This every fan of Frank Herbert knows. To begin your study of the life of Dune, then, take care that you first place this in its proper time.Know then that it is the year 2021 and all the covidiots and Q factions have taken over the universe. What was once an act of glorious revenge against a teetering empire has now become an entrenched tragedy. Reading Dune Messiah is the tragedy that we deserve. Taken over by religious zealots, icons over careful deliberation, countless dead instead of a stable empire.But that's where the comparison fails. Paul, unlike any of us, has a much clearer idea of the future, being able to see it, however imperfectly, and he is caught in a web of intrigue and guile and that beautiful sliver of hope hidden in the future that only his eyes see, where only perfidy, assassination, and betrayal seems to be his new bed. Twelve years after the end of Dune, Alia is a teenager and a bright star. Irulan wants an heir to the Empire, Chani is a devoted but flattened character, as is Paul, as all futures grind down to singular points. The time of crisis comes and tragedy, depression, and horror awaits.But at least there is a copy of Duncan Idaho. Now a mentat, a tool of assassination -- and a human computer -- his role captures Paul as hardly anything else could have. Honestly, for years, I thought this one was the worst of the Dune books. But mostly that's because I cared too strongly for Paul, never wanted to see him fall. In actuality, the book is delightfully intellectual and complex, showing us so much more about the Fremen and the pitfalls of a religion-based monarchy and the hellish pitfalls of prescience. Being a god is not all it's cracked up to be.And in a moment or two, Paul's son is going to ask his papa to hold his beer.

If you ask any first-time reader of ‘Dune’ where he or she thinks the story is likely to go in the follow-up, I doubt if anyone could have predicted ‘Dune Messiah’. It does not work as a book, as there is really no beginning, just a slow (very, very slow and exposition-laden) flat-line of a narrative that gives a slight blip at the overly dramatic ending, which is clearly meant to set-up ‘Children of Dune’ rather than end the second book in any satisfactory fashion. I think ‘Dune Messiah’ is much better-suited as the last part of ‘Dune’ itself, where it would function as a reflective coda deconstructing the consequences of the preceding events.Clearly, ‘Dune Messiah’ did little to deter the juggernaut that the Dune books would ultimately become. It had about as much effect as poor old Paul trying to avert the jihad and prevent humanity going off the rails of civilisation. Paul spends pretty much the entire book in an existential funk, pondering his increasingly opaque and contradictory visions (much to the frustration of the patient reader, who still has no clue as to what it is he is actually ‘seeing’.)In a throwaway line so typical of much of the off-hand nature of ‘Dune Messiah’, as if Herbert was deliberately trying to avoid emulating anything that characterised the previous book (and that had made readers fall in love with it), Paul compares notes with fellow ‘emperors’ Genghis Khan and Hitler: “Statistics: at a conservative estimate, I’ve killed sixty-one billion, sterilized ninety planets, completely demoralized five hundred others. I’ve wiped out the followers of forty religions…”This is well into the book’s last act, and does make the reader raise an eyebrow. Oh, so that’s why Paul is in such a bad mood! Apparently, it is barely 12 years after the ending of ‘Dune’, a rather odd number that I’ve seen bandied about but don’t recall being referenced in the actual text. A vast bureaucracy known as the Qizarate has arisen to administer (and temper) the religious fanaticism that has arisen around Paul. A pilgrimage route known as the ‘hajj’ is well-established by now, with Arrakis as its ultimate destination, ensuring that the Qizarate’s coffers are always overflowing. Jessica, however, wants nothing to do with this:Despite the special reverence held for Caladan as the place of Paul’s birth, the Lady Jessica had emphasized her refusal to make her planet a stop on the hajj.“No doubt my son is an epochal figure of history,” she’d written, “but I cannot see this as an excuse for submitting to a rabble invasion.”The main plot of ‘Dune Messiah’ concerns the machinations of a ‘fellowship’ of disparate stakeholders drawn into an uneasy alliance with the common purpose of unseating Paul from his throne. Herbert is always very precise about his terminology, and I am sure his reference to a ‘company of conspirators’ is a deliberate inversion of how the term ‘fellowship’ is used in ‘Lord of the Rings’, for example, the other contemporary countercultural novel that ‘Dune’ is often compared with.While we have the usual suspects like Mohiam and Irulan, it is the new characters and players introduced into the mix that really elevates ‘Dune Messiah’ into something special. If you thought ‘Dune’ could not get any weirder than the quasi-mystical mumbo jumbo of the original, then ‘Dune Messiah’ quickly makes you realise that Herbert still has quite a number of cards up his sleeve (there is a lovely riff on the Dune Tarot set throughout the book.)Bijaz, described as a dwarf Tleilaxu oracle, is a weird combination of Falstaff from Shakespeare and Chucky from the Child’s Play movies, and would not be out of place in a David Lynch movie. Speaking of Lynch, he obviously nicked Edric the mutated Guild Navigator straight from the pages of ‘Dune Messiah’, turning it into an indelible image in SF cinema.Herbert seems to be a fan of baroque excess, as evinced by the flamboyant and thoroughly despicable Baron in ‘Dune’. In ‘Dune Messiah’, however, he introduces yet another shadowy player that is potentially even more perverse and grotesque, the Bene Tleilax. Just where the hell did they come from? Despite the ancient proscription on using computers that arose from the Butlerian Jihad, the Tleilaxu is clearly the predecessor of LexCorp, always flirting with dangerous technology:The Tleilaxu displayed a disturbing lack of inhibitions in what they created. Unbridled curiosity might guide their actions. They boasted they could make anything from the proper human raw material—devils or saints. They sold killer-mentats. They’d produced a killer medic, overcoming the Suk inhibitions against the taking of human life to do it. Their wares included willing menials, pliant sex toys for any whim, soldiers, generals, philosophers, even an occasional moralist.The best demonstration of the overriding creepiness of the Bene Tleilax, of course, is their presentation of a special gift to Paul, a ghola of Duncan Idaho himself, plucked from the battlefield and reanimated like Frankstein’s monster in an axolotl tank (clearly an inversion of the Fremen death still). Alia of the Knife, whom Herbert often reminds the reader is on the cusp of her womanhood, as if there is a noxious whiff of the Baron still hanging around, is immediately turned on by Hayt, the ghola’s Tleilaxu name. Not subtle at all, Herbert.Alia attempts to work off some steam by sparring with an updated version of the fighting machine that Paul used on Caladan in ‘Dune’ (this one even has flashing lights.) Except she does so in the nude. Yes, sex rears its head in ‘Dune Messiah’ like Shai Hulud popping up out of the sand. (A lot of SFX ingenuity in Lynch’s 1984 ‘Dune’ went into preventing the sandworms looking like questing penises. Lynch was only partially successful, but that could have been deliberate on his part.)Herbert reminds us that orgies were a commonplace occurrence in the Fremen sietch (if you recall, Paul first had sex with Chani in the spice-induced orgy after he kills Jamis in single-handed combat.) We even get a quotation from Chapter 3 of The Steersman’s Guild, entitled ‘THE ORGY AS A TOOL OF STATECRAFT’. And as if the Bene Gesserit weren’t in the reader’s bad books already, here they hatch a desperate plot to attempt to get Paul to fuck his sister. “…[T]hat stubborn fool of an Atreides! How could he deny the jewels of posterity within his loins?”Poor sexually-deprived Irulan wonders idly about Edric the Guild Navigator as a potential fuck buddy, “thinking how odd it would be to mate with such a one.” This, mind you, during the first meeting of the conspirators that opens the book, where her mind should be focusing on the larger issues and not be in the gutter (or Edric’s tank, as it were.) Mohiam fondly calls Lady Jessica a “traitorous bitch”, who in turn is told by Scytale: “You are not a sex object, have never been a sex object, cannot be a sex object.” Ouch. That had to hurt as much as the gom jabbar.Ah, Scytale. Described as a ‘Jadacha hermaphrodite’, he (pronouns weren’t as advanced in 1969 when ‘Dune Messiah’ was published), can assume either sex at will, and is commonly referred to as a Face Dancer. “For the present, I am a man,” he declares. The reader is not convinced, because there is something even oilier about Scytale than that uber-creep the Baron. It is especially uncomfortable because Herbert seems to signpost a latent effeminacy or sexual ambiguity in Scytale as being fundamentally wrong. It is clear that a lot of the convoluted sexual politics of ‘Dune’, wrapped up as it were in Herbert’s own subconscious biases towards misogyny and homophobia, begin to, er, come into play in ‘Dune Messiah’.‘Dune Messiah’ is the literary equivalent of a ‘spice blow’, which is the result of immense pressure building up within a pre-spice mass deep within the sands of Arrakis. (Of course, this is what killed Liet Kynes when he rather stupidly went to lay on top of one in ‘Dune’.) At only about a third of the length of the original novel, so much is packed into ‘Dune Messiah’ that a spice blow is inevitable.Herbert’s writing is always at its most delicate and evocative when he turns to Arrakis itself, and ‘Dune Messiah’ is no exception. He clearly has a deep and abiding love for the desert world he has created, which is a tabula rasa of the natural world despoiled by humanity and its increasingly dramatic and uncontrollable impact on our own planet. There is a wonderful scene near the end when Chani returns to her sietch to give birth (and precipitate the crisis that launches the next book in the sequence):Windblown sand whipped at her, reddened her cheeks. She glanced over her shoulder at the frightful band of dust across the sky. The desert beneath the storm had taken on a tawny, restless appearance as though dune waves beat on a tempest shore the way Paul had once described a sea. She hesitated, caught by a feeling of the desert’s transience. Measured against eternity, this was no more than a caldron. Dune surf thundered against cliffs.The storm out there had become a universal thing for her—all the animals hiding from it...nothing left of the desert but its own private sounds: blown sand scraping along rock, a wind-surge whistling, the gallop of a boulder tumbled suddenly from its hill—then! somewhere out of sight, a capsized worm thumping its idiot way aright and slithering off to its dry depths.As far as I recall, this is the only worm sighting in the entire book, apart from a side plot involving a bunch of Fremen traitors capturing a small maker to take it off-planet and start the spice cycle on a similar world. Ah, but they don’t know about the sand plankton that is such an integral part of the sandworm lifecycle, which is probably what George Lucas had in mind when he started tinkering with the role of midichlorians as an essential component of the Star Wars universe.Herbert continues:Sietch odors assaulted her nostrils. The place was a ferment of nasal memories—the warren closeness of bodies, rank esters of the reclamation stills, familiar food aromas, the flinty burning of machines at work...and through it all, the omnipresent spice: melange everywhere.She took a deep breath. “Home.”Extraordinary. And it is exactly as if the reader him- or herself has returned home, to the deep desert of Arrakis where it all began. Chani’s viewpoint is reflected in Paul’s own perspective:Ugly, barren land! He imagined it sun-soaked and monstrous with heat, a place of sandslides and the drowned darkness of dust pools, blowdevils unreeling tiny dunes across the rocks, their narrow bellies full of ochre crystals. But it was a rich land, too: big, exploding out of narrow places with vistas of storm-trodden emptiness, rampart cliffs and tumbledown ridges.All it required was water...and love.Life changed those irascible wastes into shapes of grace and movement, he thought. That was the message of the desert. Contrast stunned him with realization. He wanted to turn to the aides massed in the sietch entrance, shout at them: If you need something to worship, then worship life—all life, every last crawling bit of it! We’re all in this beauty together!Yes, I know that this is Herbert at his most ‘hippy dippy’ – and it is certainly no surprise that a novel as batshit crazy as this would have such a deeply Age of Aquarius moment in it. But, for me, this is still one of the most remarkable, and memorable, passages in the entire saga. It is the ‘Circle of Life’, writ boldly on the ever-shifting sands of Dune.

Dune MessiahBy Frank HerbertA Dune Retrospective by Eric AllenFour years after the publication of Dune, those who cried out for a sequel were finally answered. Frank Herbert returned to Arrakis for a book that was very different from the action packed first volume of the series, but at the same time, still held a lot of the familiar. When I tell people that I actually enjoyed the sequel to Dune more than the original, the answer I get from the overwhelming majority is, "Wait . . . Dune has a sequel?" People know of Dune nowadays through the 1984 cult classic movie. Some people may be vaguely aware that the movie was based on a book, but never bothered to pick it up or look for sequels. Which is a shame, because they're missing out on this little gem of a book.Twelve years after taking the throne of the empire for himself in Dune, Paul "Muad'Dib" Atreides has become something of a God, or Savior figure to the Fremen, who have taken up arms and spread out throughout the entire known universe bringing a Holy War to subjugate all beneath his rule. All of this, very much against Paul's own wishes. He has become a figurehead, standing atop the empire as Emperor, while priests of the religion that worships him rule in his name. He has made good his promise to begin turning Dune into a paradise, and now the desert runs freely with water. Another sign to his followers of his godhood.Princess Irulan, Paul's trophy wife, and the means by which he secured the throne is anxious to follow her Bene Gesserit orders to bear the royal heir, but Paul has no love for her and refuses it to her, instead remaining true to his real, Fremen wife Chani. This leads Irulan to join a conspiracy against the Emperor, meant to discredit him, destroy his reputation, and take the wind out of the Fremen Zealots' sails. Out of spite, she has been feeding Chani contraceptives to prevent her from ever bearing Paul an heir, but this plan failed, and Chani conceived anyway.(view spoiler)[It is discovered that Fremen are part of the conspiracy against Paul, and while meeting with a man to get the names, Paul is blinded in an attempt on his life. Through the powers of his oracular sight, he can still see, though his body is blind.Long story short, after Chani dies in childbirth, Paul wanders into the desert alone, blind and broken, never to be seen again, and leaving the Empire in the hands of his sister Alia until his children are old enough to assume rule. (hide spoiler)]The Good? Again, Frank Herbert did a ridiculous amount of research before writing this book. It shows in how he truly understands the mechanics of economics, politics, and religion. The religion that he has built up around Paul is intriguing, and realistic, and the atrocities that its zealots commit in his name feel logical, and realistic as well. Paul's suffering under the burden of the sins of those who follow him is really well done. This book is more a character study on him, than really anything else, showing the impact his actions have had on him as a person. This is a very different kind of book than the first in the series. Where the first book was all about war, this one is all about the consequences of it on the man that started it all. Despite its short length, this book has a very big and important message, and it delivers it exquisitely. Many people tend to complain that this book is rather boring after the first one, but I found Paul's inner struggles to be just as, or perhaps even more entertaining than the battles of conquest and Paul's coming of age, etc from the first book. This book is remarkably better written and put together than the first book. Not only did Frank Herbert apparently do quite a bit of research in the four years between books, but he also improved on his skills as a writer quite a bit. The storyline is tighter, less convoluted and far less confusing than that of the first book. It almost reads like something written by a completely different writer because of the increased quality of the writing, and the change of focus, but at the same time, it still has his unique style and flair to it.The Bad? I have never liked the Third Person Omniscient perspective that Frank Herbert uses. This is where the story is told by a narrator in third person that will change viewpoints between characters at the drop of a hat, without warning when any given character has any important thoughts or observations on what's going on. I find it to be rather confusing and distracting at times, and I've always thought of the style as rather amateurish. This is wholly a point of opinion, and true, many very good books are written in this particular perspective, but I don't like it, and will always count it as a bad mark against any book it appears in. Frank Herbert doesn't really seem to "get" female characters. He doesn't really seem to understand what motivates women, how they think, how they act, how they talk, and why they do the things that they do. Going by his female characters, one could almost say that he never met a real woman in his life. As such, they are basically just men with breasts. They have all the right girly bits, because someone in the universe has to, but the their minds and personalities are about the furthest thing from feminine as is possible. Back in the '60s this was a VERY common thing, which is getting somewhat better these days, but still lingers on. Frank Herbert's portrayal of women fits those of the times, but to anyone that might be, or has ever actually met, a real woman before, it's going to feel a bit off. Back in the day this sort of thing was acceptable, but I find it to be annoying and distracting, if not downright offensive, in this day and age.In conclusion, Dune Messiah is a VERY different type of book than its predecessor Dune, and it does have its vices, but the good more than outweighs the bad by far. The focus on Paul's dilemma with the Jihad that he inadvertently started is spectacular. Watching his inner turmoil over the countless billions that have died in his name play out is excellent. And if the female characters are off, everything else is dead on. He's created a fantastic world, with fantastic people (if you think of them all as men, anyway) to live in it, and did a great deal of research to make everything from the economics to the religion feel realistic. As an entry in the Dune Saga, it's probably one of the best. Check out my other reviews.

I'm very much looking forward to Villeneuve's interpretation of Dune that will be shown in theaters this year so I decided to not only read the original book but also the rest of the series. After seizing power and becoming emperor by marrying Princess Irulan, Paul (well, his forces, but in his name nonetheless) has sterilized hundreds of planets, killed billions of people ... and hates his own Jihad (I loved Scytale's description of it being a mental epidemic). Paul doubts the justice and righteousness of the path he has chosen, his powers of vision encounter more and more limits, and the number of people opposing the new emperor grow ever more. Even some Fremen despise Muad'ib now. While Paul and his now 15-year-old sister, Alia, rule with a council, Irulan joins a conspiracy to kill Paul. Simultaneously, Chani wishes for nothing more than to be pregnant again (not knowing that (view spoiler)[Irulan has slipped contraceptives into her diet, thus preventing a pregnancy so far (hide spoiler)]) but Irulan herself demands the privilege of bearing her empirial husband's child (and is refused, unless she accepts artificial insemination). As if all that wasn't enough, the Navigator Guild establishes an embassy on Arrakis and brings a gift (funny, considering the German word Gift): a genetic copy of Paul's former friend and teacher, Duncan Idaho. He has a part to play, of course, knows and reveals as much as he knows about it even, but things are ... complicated. Once again, everything is shrouded in lies and mysteries and tarots, partially revealed by and often misunderstood thanks to visions. So yes, there is a lot of intrigue and personal drama here. Where the first book was about fear and self-awakening, this second one more carried the tones of self-hatred and being trapped. What I especially liked about this book is that it addressed the conflict attentive readers saw coming in the previous book: how Paul had seized power and what he presented himself as to his followers could only lead to disaster. Not to mention the downside of his powers, the price he has to pay for them. Yet there were good reasons for him to do what and how he did (preventing annihilation for humanity). Nevertheless, seizing the throne is way easier than keeping it. And religious fanatism always carries within itself the seed of its own destruction. Naturally, the sandworms still are vital to the machinations and events. Here, plans are set in motion to create another melange "factory" on another planet. Then there were the further revelations of the complicated genetic tapestry the Bene Gesserit have weaved, the consequences, the history (for example, they aren't the only ones with such planning and Paul apparently (view spoiler)[isn't the first Kwisatz Haderach (hide spoiler)])! Personally, I liked and dreaded (view spoiler)[Alia and "Duncan" getting along so well (hide spoiler)] since I know where it leads to (if the mini series Children of Dune follow the book(s) faithfully) - good and bad, necessary and preventable. Likewise, I knew what would happen to (view spoiler)[Chani (hide spoiler)], also thanks to the mini series Children of Dune, but hated it and was hoping it would be different here - which was, of course, impossible. (view spoiler)[In a way, Paul wasn't wrong when he said this way was better for their children - both parents out of the picture. Yet it is hard to believe. (hide spoiler)] So I was definitely emotionally invested and appropriately devastated. This book, then, offers an important insight into Paul's conflict with himself and his different personas/potentials. It also shows the same kind of insight into Alia's mind (very important considering her having awakened to Reverend Mother awareness before she was even born and, no doubt, her future role). Last but not least, it sets the tone and places important corner stones for future developments. Because if you thought this series was about Paul, you better think again! A short-ish book, very cerebral with little actual action but still thrilling thanks to the reader excitedly following the path and the story being rounded off by the periodical interludes in the fashion of historical assessments and commentary, all of which is vital to the overall mythology and establishment of important characters that will carry the rest of the saga forward. It doesn't hurt that the author is so good at making you care about certain people in a short amount of time. P.S.: Don't let the rating fool you, this is not quite as good as the first novel. It is neither as vast in scope nor as intricate. However, it is intricate in its own way, very smart, and the rating system here is limited. This scifi book is definitely in a league of its own, too.

I said in my review of Dune that one of the things I really appreciated was that it could be “viewed on so many different levels, from political, philosophical, scientific, or simply as a fantastic adventure novel... and it works so well, no matter which angle you look at it from, because Herbert treats each of them as equally important.” While writing the sequel, I think Herbert must have considered it and said something along the lines of, “Yeah, that was great… now let’s pretty much ignore everything that wasn’t philosophy.”I exaggerate of course. Elements of those other aspects are still in place, but the story this time around is from people sitting at tables and discussing the existence of fate and ways to avoid prophesy rather than overthrowing evil barons. In fact, there are times where I felt that it hardly seems like a full novel, and more like a series of short scenes Herbert wrote, pat himself on the back over how clever they were and then decided to try to tie them all together. Now some of you may be sitting there going, oh, I guess that means you didn’t like it then Tim? HA I say! The philosophy was what appealed to me the most of those aspects mentioned in Dune! I can read about people sitting at tables and talking for hours!…But yeah, I’d be lying if I said there weren’t a few parts where it got a bit old, and I wished for the descriptions of the desert, the plots within plots within plots… but by the end, I was satisfied as they were there all along, you just have to look closer to see them in play. In fact, by the end I realized that it was an extremely well developed novel, and that it was I who was at fault for not seeing the intricacies at play. Herbert demands your full attention to see what’s going on all around.Which brings me to the thing Herbert does best in this novel; one of the big aspects of the Dune series thus far is that he gives you every main character’ thought process. There is no main POV character in each chapter, he will give you the thoughts of everyone, thus showing who thinks they are fooling who and who is actually fooled. He does this and he plays it fair the entire time, yet still manages to hide plot points in plain sight, and it is extremely well played. The first book was a masterpiece in terms of world building, here that takes a backseat to prophesies and philosophy, but Herbert does manage to introduce at least one fascinating new aspect to his universe. The Face Dancers are introduced as assassins and shape shifters. One can walk into the room a pudgy male guard and leave as a small servant girl. They take contracts, but with a sense of honor and a condition; they must always leave the would be victim with an opportunity to escape. They need to know they are in danger and must be presented with an out. I find this new aspect fascinating and would have loved to see a bit more of a focus on them. I want to close this review by briefly describing my favorite scene in the entire book; it is one of the scenes where people sit and talk at tables. An older Fremen discusses why he joined up in Paul’s campaign. It wasn’t glory or the spoils of war… it was because some of his friends described the sea, and he couldn’t believe it. He felt it must be a prank. He then goes on to describe it to a character who has been to many worlds and obviously seen the sea many times, but the character finds himself absorbed in the Fremen’s words and realizes that he’s experiencing this description in an unusual way, lost in the story and seeing it with new eyes… I couldn’t help but smile, as Herbert made me feel the same way. For a brief moment I forgot I was reading, and could hear this old voice telling me about the sea…A well earned 4/5 stars, but with the notation for those who fell in love with the first novel that this is not a sweeping epic. This is a small chamber piece… just, you know, with giant sand worms.

Pre-review: There are a total of 127 people waiting in line to borrow Dune from the library, so I made do with requesting the Chinese translation of the second book instead. XDMy review for Dune vol. 2: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...My review for Children of Dune: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...Premise: some 12 years after Paul Atreides defeating the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV, a few parties banded together to bring Paul (now the Emperor) down, Paul's legal wife, Princess Irulan, seemed to be among the conspirators. Well, the context in the volume vaguely reminds me the Stars Wars trilogy and its prequels: (view spoiler)[a young dude getting awesome power in a desert, the woman he loves winding up dead giving birth to his twin, etc (hide spoiler)], and I'm not saying it in a bad way. XDI like the internal struggles Paul, the main character, has with himself, Mr. Herbert had done a believable character study on a character who is worshiped by most of his subject as a living god but at the same time he still has much self-doubt, he still struggles to protect himself and his loved ones (and from time to time he failed to do so), he also struggles to do the right things despite having awesome psychic(?) power and military power at his disposal. Still, I am surprised to see Irulan doesn't play as much role as I expected in the story (she is nowhere in sight in the later part), thankfully she does more things in Children of Dune.Alia, Paul's younger sister, on the other hand does have a more center role to play in this story as a teenage girl, I enjoy her interaction with her brother. Dune Messiah doesn't have many action scenes (just a few scenes) so the tension isn't as high as the first book, but I do like the topic of court intrigues and how even a great ruler can be dragged down by politics and his own power (e.g. Paul's ability to see the future). There are plenty of open battles in Dune, but in the second book the danger comes more from the endless schemes from the different factions.Dune book 1 tells a story with traditional heroism as its main theme, then in the second book the author seems to have taken a step back and done a full analysis on the many side effects of heroism and the inbreeding of religion and political power. The author seems to be telling us: even when the ruler has the best intention at heart, the result can still be disastrous for himself and everyone under his rule. PS: I continue to find the description of the desert planet's eco system, the different POVs from various characters, the practices of the tribes (although the gender role stereotypes in this fictional tribal society is hardly endearing) and the schemes dished out by the different factions to be well constructed and intriguing. PSS: the 2021 Sci-Fi epic movie, Dune Part 1, is pretty damn great! Do watch it!

The most tragic book in this series so far.He has lost his moon...I'd love to see Denis Villeneuve adapt this book. It would be absolutely heartbreaking and profound.