Brian Herbert

I will be fair to Brian and Kevin and say that this series is definitely better than most of the other McDune books they've written. It seems that the further you go into the past, the better the books are. Hunters/Sandworms was a utter abomination that should have never been put to paper, the Heroes series was unneccessary dreck, and the House trilogy, while not a completely horrible read into itself, was unneccessary as part of the Dune series and would have been better off if it was its show more own original series with original characters.

This leaves us the far-in-the-past prequels - the Butlerian Jihad trilogy and this series. This series, like the House trilogy, would have been better off as an original series set in a universe that Brian and Kevin created by themselves. This Schools series is a continuation of the Butlerian Jihad trilogy, about the early days of the Duneverse.

Except... this is not Frank Herbert's lovingly-crafted Duneverse. It's some... cheap, twisted, McDonald's version of it. Brian and Kevin have thus far penned what... a dozen McDune books by this point? When a ghostwriter (technically this doesn't fit Brian and Kevin since they're using their own names - thank Shai-hulud for small favors, but I can't think of a better word at the moment) writes more books than the original author, then it's definitely time to put the pen (or keyboard) down and walk away.

The Butlerian Jihad series and this one would work much better if it was completely original, set in a universe created by Brian and Kevin, with some good editing. And this book is DEFINITELY better than Dune 7 and the Heroes books, only because there's less of the original Dune to contradict, as this series is set over 10,000 years before Frank Herbet's Dune.

However, this book still only merits 1 star because it manages to have many contradictions and illogicalities. Look, Brian and Kevin aren't Frank Herbert, and I certainly don't expect them to write exactly the same as FH, or have his depth, but some parts of this book are downright ridiculous and embarrassing. Brian and Kevin simply do not have the talent to come anywhere close to Frank Herbert, nor do they show any amount of respect and care for the legacy that they're "adding" to. They don't bother to keep track of established canon or facts set in FH's Duneverse (as woefully illustrated by the Heroes of Dune and Dune 7 books) and this results in some WTF moments in this book regarding the Bene Gesserit (Valya Harkonnen and Raquella) the Mentats (ALbans isn't as smart as he is supposed to be) and even the Fremen (WTF is this I don't even...)

Frank Herbert's Dune was filled with meaning and hidden messages, meant to provoke our minds. The Dune that Brian and Kevin write is no more than badly-written fanfiction with characters who don't understand what they're doing or why they do it. Honestly, the level of sophistication in this book reminds me of Gloria Tesch's Maradonia books (and no, that is not a good thing!!!)

It was a real chore to slog through this, rarely do I come across a book where I literally have to force myself to turn the page to finish the book. show less

This is more 3.5 stars but I am rounding it to four.

This was a book I had my eye on for a long, long time. Due to the very present critique of this series I was postponing actual start on it until few days back and I have to say, considering what the book is, it is not bad one. But does it match up with Herbert's original works? I have to say no, but then again Herbert, after Children of Dune in my opinion, could never match up with his own earlier works.

So what is this book about......

Book show more is about the beginning of the Dune society (as we know it from original Dune novel) - we are given world where lines are drawn between humans (League) and thinking machines (Synchronized Worlds). These two are in constant struggle with each other, humans fighting to survive and machines exercising their muscles to eradicate the humans using Cymeks, cybernetic organisms (basically various combat vehicles and armor to which [human] operator's brain is attached to so they can do switcheroo whenever required - Cyberpunk folks' wet dream) at the forefront of their legions. First amongst the Cymeks are Titans, group of humans who took control of old human empire (thousands of years before this story begins) but were such an a**hole group in general that AI they inadvertently created crossed them and took power itself, making Titans its servants, basically conquering generals.

One of the comments I usually hear is why would robots and AIs behave the way they behave? Well.... considering they were created by humans with all the biases but also very rational thought process (I mean this is why AI is created, right, not for discussing weather channel) is it surprising that machines would determine at some point that humans are just sort of a ballast for further progress? I mean, do we need to doubt that machines would think like that when even today you have so many anti-humanists amongst humans that are all very "rational" but ready to see couple of billion under ground for the betterment of all? So, no, I do not think that machines would be any better than their makers when it comes to coping with conflict with biological forms. Very soon they would develop equivalent of emotions and with it all nasty things like aggression and violence. I mean it is all part of the nature (and one reason I cannot figure out why are we speeding uncontrollably to create AI without any idea why (except why not)..... it is like breeding new biological species that can outsmart us, outpace us and generally wipe us out just to have us say hey, we did it! Wait, biological weapons are that something - right? Hmm....) and to expect that any living organism (biological or not) would act differently is wishful thinking.

So, to say that is a fantastic part here ...... nope, pretty normal and expected.

Then we get to Titans and Cymeks. These guys and gals are borderline psychopaths and few comments are there saying they are so off chart they seem like cackling bad guys from every cartoon or low budget SF. So lets put this into perspective - these are people that took over power from the old empire, subjugated everyone, for all means and purposes became immortal (went through the life longevity extension process), later found out they can extract themselves (brains) and basically use any combat vehicle- ground, air or space - to roam around and destroy things with impunity, become synonym with divinity and basically answer to no-one and start considering the ordinary humans as livestock? So, basically, minus the immortality and cybernetic bodies we are talking about all these Metuselah's that run the world politics nowadays? And treat the rest of us like unwashed masses?

This part of the story is very realistic, if not the most realistic part of the book. If it weren't for the last few years I would be wondering, but now.... oh, no, no doubt at all. And they do not even need to be Metuselah level old, just look at all the righteous amongst us (they would shame Inquisition). So, in short, very believable.

On the other hand you have Humanity, split across the League of Nobles and Unaligned worlds. Here we have a more nuanced view of this future society. While they no longer use highly capable machines (for reasons apparent) thy do have some technology available and can build ground mechanization and airplanes and space ships, armor etc. But at the core they are feudal - reason being that without machines they need to use biological machines (people) for same production results (I especially enjoyed the mathematical calculation pipeline). Because of this (and lets be honest no ruling body wants to pay if they do not need to) population is stratified into ruling class and worker class, but depending on the level of enlightenment mentioned worker classes can be wither actual worker classes or out of the box slaves (as they keep saying in the book, necessary evil). And although feudal, this society, interestingly, seems to be more or less without the large religious structure and influence (so unlike Dune as we know it). Nobody cites the equivalent of Orange Bible, even witches from Rossak are more practical psykers then religiously oriented people. Only ones with very strong religious feeling are people everybody is hunting down for the conceived act of treason and cowardice - Zensunni's and Zenshiite's.

Here we have some very interesting element that is unfortunately present in our times again and again - dehumanization. You see, to have slaves you need to have reason for their existence. In this society reason is punishment of the above mentioned Zensunni's and Zenshiite's because they did not confront Titans when these took over control (because, you know peace loving is always dangerous). So, as it usually goes (hmmm, again those last few years) they went from cowards to slaves, because that is where they belong because they betrayed the humanity (man, again those last few years).

And when this happens, when one part of humanity is ostracized, new work positions open - for people to hunt them and sell them and unfortunately use them for some other sick purposes (enter the Tleilaxu).

All in all book does give a very interesting overview of human society with all its shortcomings. It is much more vivid and, well, interesting to read about. Parts about Arakis and nomads (Zensunni's) that will become a blood thirsty legions of Paul Atreides, are great, especially taking into account that they start as peace loving and violence avoiding people.

All taken into account, very interesting world building takes place.

But the Achilles' heel of the book is scope. It is humongous because author's try to put everything in, thinking machines, Titans, League of Nobles, initial creation of Benne Gesserit (witches from Rossak) initial dealings with the Arrakis' melange, initial development of Fremen movement, origins of Atreides, origins of Harkonnen, how Butlerian Jihad got triggered (Iblis is such a good character) with major battles in between, conflicts and insights into both thinking machine and human civilization (Erazmus the crazy robot, Tio Holtzman and Norma Cenva) to name just the few.

There is materiel here for at least 10 books with average length of maybe 300 pages.

I guess author's decided that would be too long and too much so they compressed this and as a result we are given hundreds of pages of short, very to the point, chapters but no space to properly put everything into words. This is why everything ends up rather clumsy (especially when compared to Frank Herbert's books [again ending with Children of the Dune, those after it feel like reading a phone book]). Thankfully we do not end up with constant mumbo-jumbo that marked the Dune books after the Children of the Dune, but we end up with extreme, very short, almost news-reporter-like chapters where even epic scenes like battle of Earth are given in some weird what-ah?-ummmm-taddaaaa-done approach.

So for those looking for meaning of life and high philosophy from SF setting - look elsewhere. You will definitely not like this series.

For those who look for interesting story and characters and can handle a bit clumsy approach to the story telling I would recommend the book, it is fun and interesting ride. show less

After reading Sandworms of Dune, I can finally set down the entire Dune Chronicles. I read The Legends of Dune trilogy, The Houses of Dune trilogy, Frank Herbert’s original 6 volumes in the Dune Chronicles and the concluding two volumes by his son and Kevin Anderson. This was a reading project that took me a couple of years to complete. I was unimpressed by Legends, found Houses to be entertaining, the original Dune is still a classic and the next four to be worth reading. FH’s last show more volume, Chapterhouse Dune was not as good though it ended on a very interesting note that I wish (as many others do) that he had been able to follow up on it. The last two volumes, Hunters of Dune and Sandworms of Dune by BH and KJA were a slog to read - I found them frustrating.

So what annoyed me in Sandworms? The colonial attitude that the universe is for humans to do with as they wish without thought of other lifeforms. Resources are there to be used by humanity. I also found this attitude to be extended to women which was odd as women think of each other as resources to use both in breeding programs and as axlotl tanks.

Axlotl tanks! What an abhorrent idea. In the Houses trilogy and in the first couple of volumes of Frank’s original Dune books, the idea of using women simply as incubators was treated as something awful. By Sandworms, it had become normalized and offered sort of like a career choice to women. What a sad thing to suggest and it made no sense to continue with the technique. Using the axlotl tanks to resurrect characters long dead because they had special properties that might help humanity defeat the thinking machines sort of made sense when the thinking machines were a threat. But at the end of Sandworms, there has been a reconciliation between human and machine. What is the point if dehumanizing women to simply be incubators. Once the threat was removed this abhorrent technology should have been completed dismantled. It made no sense to me that it should continue.

And at the end of Sandworms the Bene Gesserit breeding program is apparently going to continue? Why? That also makes no sense! The BG breeding program had as its goal to produce the Kwisatz Haderach but by the end of Sandworms, the BG have committed to not producing another KH. So what is the point of continuing the breeding program? Why is it assumed in the book that this sort of positive eugenics is a good thing? Something that kept coming up in the books is how prescience and controlling the future becomes boring and static and that what makes life worth living is being surprised. A breeding program tries to avoid surprises - the point is to control what offspring are produced. This did not make sense to me that it should continue.

I did not like the appearance of an ultimate Kwisatz Haderach. What made the idea of a KH interesting was that the individual would be uniquely gifted and that they were the result of careful breeding. But now it seems in Sandworms that KHs are all over the place and can be engineered by ghola engineering. The KH is no longer unique and became, for me, a boring concept even though at the end of Heretics of Dune, Frank Herbert did something really interesting with Miles Teg. But the character - the idea - didn’t develop well for me in subsequent novels.

I also did not appreciate how the Dune Chronicles ends with the other memory of the BG referred to as racial memory. I thought other memory was supposed to be something developed in humanity and not localized to a particular race.

Finally, at the end of Sandworms, there is supposed to be a great rapprochement between thinking machines and humans. But the ultimate KH gives the homeworld of the thinking machines to humans to do with as they see fit. Humans yet again get to colonize a world that was not theirs to begin with. And then, “thinking machines” are simply used by humans as workers to rehabilitate/terraform/rehabilitate worlds inhabited by humans. But there is no sense that these machine “partners” with humanity are given any agency. If they are thinking machines don’t they have their own goals/dreams/aspirations?

Very disappointing end to something that had such auspicious beginnings in the original Dune. show less

As promised in my review for the second installment in this rather comatose adaptation, I did indeed buy the last volume hoping (vainly) that it might improve.

This is the worst of the lot. The art this time around didn't even try to swing for the fences. An attempt would have been appreciated. Instead, we get 190 pages of dull, static people standing around, stiffly jumping or supposedly fighting, and lots of close ups of mostly dull expressions. For a book with the main title "DUNE" we get show more very little imagery of the greater world, and what we do get is boring.

So, dull, uninteresting, workmanlike art that has no place in an epic story as grand and challenging as DUNE.

But worse than the art is the writing by the man that proves that, on occasion, the apple can fall exceptionally far from the tree, then just keep rolling farther and farther away. Frank Herbert was a very cerebral, very distinctive author and, for a kid who apparently grew up hearing his father read his stories, he absorbed nothing of his father's careful cadence or storytelling ability. I've called the art workmanlike. But the writing? I think the only word that works here is "inept".

Oh sure, he knows all the terms. He knows all the characters. But where Frank would have subtle, mysterious conversations that bent and twisted with subterfuge and hidden meaning, Brian's got Paul just bellowing, "I'm the Kwisatz Haderach!" for all and sundry, like he's freaking Kanye West. The dialogue is stunted and choppy and dull, the pacing terrible. He's wrung the book through an old dirty sock and filtered out all that was fun and awe-inspiring and wondrous about DUNE and instead just strung a series of words and sentences along to barely hint at one of the most incredible stories of the 20th century.

This is awful. I've tried and tried to read something with Brian Herbert's name attached to it, but with this last garbage money grab, I'm officially done. This was crap.

Go read the book. Leave these adaptations in the washroom where the paper will get better use. show less