Dune: House Corrino

There are contradictions and retcons abound in this book. Originally, Elrood had ruled for 34 years, not 138 as this trilogy claimed. Ix was ruled by a group, not House Vernius.

If Frank Herbert had decided to write a precursor to Dune, he could easily have done so in one book, not three. The drama between Leto, Kailea, their son (not Paul! Gasp!), and Rhombur was unnecessary filler, and the Baron is portrayed in this book as a rabid woman-hating man where in Dune he had been hinted at being gay, and his attitude towards women wasn't as misogynistic. Many, many original characters clutter up this trilogy and the canon characters are rather different, for a rather unsatisfying read.

This trilogy really is nothing more than fan-fiction, show more freely abound with retcons and mistakes that would make anyone else ashamed, but apparently Brian and Kevin simply don't care about anything but the money these books generate.

Any true Dune fan should never consider anything by that pair as more than poorly-written fanfiction. show less

While being a decided improvement over Houses Atreides and Harkonnen, Corrino nevertheless fails to inspire. The constant good vs. evil trope, combined with utterly flat characters and an abundance of scientific progress that contradicts Herbert's original vision, left Corrino as something to try and get through,rather than simply enjoy. To my relief, the "evil that men do" hyperbolic schemes that were unpalatable in the first two books in the cycle was somewhat thinned out in Corrino. As sad as it sounds, oftentimes the introductory quotes to chapters ending up being better written than the chapters themselves. I doubt if I would recommend this book to the average reader, but it does set the stage for the later books. At last I can show more move up the series to the original Dune books. show less

There's no need to chastise Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson for not slavishly imitating the beloved original Dune novels — but couldn't they have peeled back the covers on Frank Herbert's grand mythic and ecologic themes, just a little bit? Instead we get gore, buckets of it. Alongside the gore the authors meticulously develop plots and counter-plots over hundreds of pages. Much of the royal intrigue is quite clever, but like the bloodshed, excessive.

Full review: http://www.davidlouisedelman.com/reviews/herbert.cfm

The finale of the Prelude to Dune series culminates in the events that set the stage for Dune. Paul is born, the Tleilaxu and Corrino attempts to create Amal, synthetic mélange, come to an ignoble end, the Landsraad, Guild, and CHOAM gain power as Shaddam’s control decreases, Irulan begins to glimpse the Bene Gesserit interest in the Atreides line, and Rhombur Vernius and the great names of House Atreides earn their place in tales and legends with a bold move to retake Ix and restore House Vernius, assist the plague-ridden Beakkal, and protect Caladan from Richese and Harkonnen plotting. The legends of Duke Leto the Just, the Cyborg Prince Rhombur, Thufir Hawat, Duncan Idaho, and Gurney Hallek are born; Baron Vladimir Harkonnen is show more sidelined for a time, and the Bene Gesserit realize that the Kwisatz Haderach may have arrived a generation early… unless the boy Paul is something else entirely. show less

This book was a significant improvement on the previous one. I enjoyed the resolution to most of the plot lines. The character development in this novel was well done, and the trilogy as a whole leads well into the original novel. If anything, while these prequel novels certainly do not overshadow the original ones by Frank Herbert, they do set things up well, causing me to want to read the original ones even more. I am glad Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson decided to continue the series, their works add much without taking away from the original, and this book was a perfect example of this.

Well, it finished the prequel trilogy adequately.

But compared to first two books (which I liked even if not as much as I loved Dune), something was missing. Missing as in read almost like a plot outline to which they sporadically did something melodramatic with characters or used cheap plot devices.

The three books are okay to read, definately a must for Dune fans. I read them before rereading the original Dune novel, and while reading the books, I couldn't wait to start reading Dune. Great as an appetizer!