My life in books

Well, the long-awaited answer to the burning question Frank Herbert left us with at the end of Chapterhouse: Dune - what the hell has all those Honered Matres so terrified - has finally arrived, thanks to Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson, in the form of two volumes assembled from Herbert’s notes:

Hunters of Dune
Sandworms of Dune

I read the books to find out the answer to that question, not because I expected much in the way of great writing – after all, I’d already slogged through the Butlerian Jihad trilogy and the “Prelude to Dune” trilogy and found them pretty grim reading, albeit packed chock-full with all sorts of really interesting and inventive backstory – most of which is absolutely vital to an understanding of the latest two books.

I must admit, Herbert and Anderson’s prose style has improved somewhat. And the books are really quite well-structured, considering how many plotlines they have to knit up to bring the whole thing to a satisfying conclusion – considering that in addition to everything that was left hanging at the end of Chapterhouse: Dune, there are also several very large loose threads left over from the Butlerian Jihad novels, which are on the whole quite seamlessly integrated into an enjoyable narrative.

There are some real surprises, yet another apotheosis, and a lot of interesting revelations. This is yet another future history series that is built on thesis (machine intelligence will dominate humanity), antithesis (humans can advance technologically without the use of any “thinking machines”) and ultimate synthesis – the gist of which should be fairly obvious from my summation of the preceding terms, but which I will leave unspoiled as to particulars – but the conclusion works.

Still, it's sad that neither these final volumes, nor any of the other sequels and prequels, either by Frank Herbert or by Brain Herbert and Kevin Anderson, ever reach the magic of the original Dune.