I miss Frank Herbert.
From my earliest memories, various versions of his original novel, Dune were on the spinning paperback carousel at the library. The original cover art had this sandy landscape with some very very small figures against the rocks. The cover art gave me no indication that I would love what was inside, so I ignored it for a long time.
But some time in my early high school days, I finally picked it up, and I have been lost forever in the World of Dune.
Frank Herbert's Original series (called the Chronicles of Dune) included Dune, Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune, and Chapterhouse Dune. And then the master passed away, leaving us Dune addicts to wonder what he would have done next. He left the biggest of cliffhangers for us: an unknown Enemy coming from the farthest reaches of the Scattering of the human race. "You picked a fine time to die," I remember thinking.
Fast forward.
His son Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, both well-read authors in their own right, came across Frank's outlines for his final book. They knew what Frank was going to do. But they also needed to set it up a bit. So they rewound the Dune universe to the times before the birth of Paul Muad'dib. When his father, Duke Leto, was young and vital, and the machinations of the Bene Gesserit sisterhood hadn't become apparent to all. These three prequel novels (collectively called the Dune House Trilogy), House Atreides, House Harkonnen and House Corrino, brought us to the time immediately before the original novel, Dune.
I didn't want to like them. I was distraught that someone wanted to usurp the master's voice. But, like any guilty pleasure, once you've started, it becomes difficult to stop.
After finishing the last of these prequels, I found myself wanting more. Darn it!
And, Brian and Kevin, bless them, had some more waiting. They rewound the clock even further, tens of thousands of years before Dune, and gave us The Butlerian Jihad, The Machine Crusade and The Battle of Corrin (collectively called the Legends of Dune), the pinnacle events that shaped the Dune Universe. In this distant time, machines had enslaved the human race, interstellar travel still took forever, heroes were hard to find, and it looked grim for survival of our species.
But as fans of the original Dune know, humans ultimately defeated the machines, artificial intelligences were forbidden, replaced by human computers, called mentats, the Bene Gesserit, the Tleilaxu, Ix and the Spacing Guild, all important players, were birthed in this mighty struggle.
When the three novels of this prequel prequel were finished, I thought, "Wow, now what?"
The only place to go was to the end of Chapterhouse Dune. Would they do that?
They did.
Hunters of Dune picks up exactly where Chapterhouse Dune left off: Murbella, the Honored Matre turned Bene Gesserit, and consort of the ghola, Duncan Idaho, struggles to integrate the Bene Gesserit and Honored Matre contingents. Duncan and Sheanna, a "wild" Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother, and a rag-tag assortment of refugee Jews, bestial Futars, Bene Gesserit purists and the ghola of Bashar Miles Teg are in a no-ship, essentially, a tremendous starship with stealth capabilities. They are pursued by an old man and an old woman, presumably, representatives of the mysterious Enemy, as well as the Spacing Guild, Face Dancers and the remnants of the Honored Matres.
Also on board, the last living Tleilaxu Master, an elder of that race, who carries with him the cellular records of many historical figures, including Paul Muad'dib, Lady Jessica, his mother, Leto II, the Tyrant and God Emperor of Dune, Chani, Paul's wife, and many others from both the original series as well as the newer characters who inhabited the prequels and the prequel prequel.
I didn't want to like it.
The highest form of respect I can give a book of a series is to purchase it in hardback. I didn't have the money to do this with the original few books in Frank Herbert's original series, but starting with <u>God Emperor of Dune</u>, I bought them as soon as they came out, in hardback, damn the cost. (Harry Potter, Stephen King's Gunslinger series and Wilbur Smith's River God trilogy are the only other series for whom I ascribe this "honor"). When the first of Brian Herbert's and Kevin Anderson's Dune books came out, I bought them in hardback, and similarly, I purchased the three volumes of the Legends of Dune prequel prequel in hardback.
But I didn't want to read this one.
I waited until it came out in paperback before I even read the sleeve. And, then, of course, I was doomed.
Following several plotlines simultaneously, takes us back and forth across the universe, and sometimes outside, as the main characters rush toward discovering who the Enemy is, the origins of the Honored Matres, the continuing plots within plots of the Bene Gesserit and, how the universe is dealing with the destruction of Arrakis (Rakkis, Dune) and the end of the supply of spice, on which the entire economy and, indeed, all interstellar travel, depends.
I tore through this book as I had with earlier volumes, and with each turned page, I was reassured that, yes, Brian and Kevin were trying their darndest to stay true to Frank's Legacy. And they were succeeding.
Yeah yeah. Plenty of criticism that these new books weren't the "equal" of Frank Herbert's. Noted. Point of fact, nothing after the original Dune novel was the equal of this first book. Brian and Kevin get skewered by critics because they don't write like Frank Herbert did. Well, I didn't expect that. I wanted the story to continue, to conclude. I wanted to know what happens.
Lots of forgiveness when you yearn so much.
Now, the series seems like it will finish with the next book, Sandworms of Dune. My father called to tell me that he had found and purchased a first edition of Sandworms of Dune, signed by both Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. My palms got sweaty.
Upon finishing Hunters of Dune, I decided that I would do what I have seldom done.
I'm going back to the bookstore and buying it in hardback.
Product Details:
Mass Market Paperback: 563 pages
Publisher: Tor Science Fiction (June 26, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 076535148X
ISBN-13: 978-0765351487
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Comments: 11
However I didn't red them all in order, as I sometimes do when I pick up a series, not really sure which came first, Etc.
With Dune I read Children of Dune first, and I was a bit confused by some of the references to dead people, but I liked it and eventually read everything Frank Herbert wrote.
And I wanted more, so when his son started the "new" books, I jumped into them as well. the only problem had was they weren't coming out quick enough. sure they weren't quite the same as the originals, but they were still better than a lot of others.
I read "Hunters" this summer, and I'm looking for the next one. Will there be one after that?
Sci-Fi was my first love. I read Dune on the road. This was back in the late 1960's when the roads were choked with hitch-hikers whose knapsacks contained more paperbacks than clothes.
I chanced to read a good part of Dune on a $6 bus trip between Juarez and Mexico City. It helped the reading to experience the desert ecology that Herbert was writing about.
Wonderful stuff - Thanks.
have you read sandworms yet? it's pretty awesome. and a creates a sense of closure...but rumor has it that herbert(jr) and anderson are going to be writing some more books in the dune series....they will be revisiting the early heroes. Paul, Jessica and princess Irulan.
check out my lens at http://www.squidoo.com/arrakis