Children of Dune

I read the first three Dune books in a row.

I think the best summary of my review is that I had to read a recap of the book when I finished it as I got really lost in the plot this time. This book, as seen in the previous volume, expands on the struggle for power over the galactic empire between the main characters I didn’t get lost in the different plot points, but I was just very confused in understanding what each character was plotting for and why they were taking the actions they were taking. I couldn’t break that wall to understand the character’s psyche and in a way could not identify with them in any way. Once again, it felt to me like the main characters had very similar personalities though I can note the development of Alia and Paul/The Preacher. To me those character developments came in too strong and in too stark contrast with the previous books which, once again left me at a loss of understanding them and their motives. This was particularly true when Herbert was describing Leto’s spice trance. I could feel what the character was going through, but I couldn’t understand anything else, especially what he saw in the future and why it made him change course or keep the course he had planned for himself. Him meeting with his father made Paul seem like a token character placed for fan service as I assume a lot were upset with his death at the end of the second book.

Overall, I still praise the world building by Frank Herbert and the way he expands on it but despite the depth it still felt to me like this book fell a little flat.

Children of Dune is a tough read, and at times it feels like it's just dragging on with random metaphors and meaningless statements, but at the end is a tremendous climax with page after page of revelations and action. It's a worthy read, but I think I'm going to need to take a break for a simpler novel after this.

At the heart of Children of Dune lies a complex set of interwoven plans that the various cast enact upon each other, and like game theory, the cast predict the moves of each other and devise counterplans that also get countered, with so many layers that the plans and outcomes need to be directly explained to the reader. I typically despise Telling instead of Showing, but even being lead to the solution, I struggle to understand why things are unfolding the way they are. This leads to the best parts of the novel: characters that are meant to be post/superhuman truly are. They think and act beyond a layperson's predictions, and to pull that off as a human author, I applaud Frank Herbert and his imagination.

On the other hand, the dense plot is not helped by equally dense scenes. Characters speak in riddles and metaphors, resulting in conversations that require multiple reads before you tease out all the meaning. This means that there are large chunks of the book that flew over my head, and I'm not personally looking for a novel that's an intellectual challenge like a textbook teaching me new subject matter.

All that said, Children of Dune is a worthy successor to the original Dune. I enjoyed it and recommend it. Now I need a vacation.

Within the safety of spoiler tags... the novel is also a bit of a retread of Dune except without the military element. We ultimately get an Atreides vs Harkonnen battle, though the latter through Alia and the former through many, many elements of the family retainers. House Corrino is around as before, inserting themselves but really a secondary element and they get played pretty well. Finally, the children once more outshine the parents...

Also, I'm not sure how Frank Herbert managed a novel that is almost entirely combat by conversation.

But we're onto the Golden Path and Leto II is doing what Paul was afraid to do, so I suppose by design, Dune 3 has to be a retread of Dune 1. I'm excited to see what happens in the fourth novel, and though I know a lot by absorbing elements around the internet, I'm sure there are plenty of surprises in store.

I'm surprised by how well the story has held up, considering that it was written in the 70s.

I need to reread the part about the transformation in the desert, because I'm not sure how or if that really fit into the story's world. It felt more like magic than science or evolution.

The author describes patterns of human activity that repeat over eons. He approaches the idea that people need to stay connected to the immediacy of life and human nature. Somehow, the story strikes me as being anti-technology and a call for people to be spiritual but not religious.

The end of the story gave me some ideas about Shai-Hulud. Unless I really misread things, the goal of the Dune story is to describe replacing the big worm or driving force below the desert, which makes me wonder if this is a repeating cycle that has happened before.

Herbert draws heavily on various religions in the creation of his universe, so a circular conception of time and the embodiment of "divinity" in an actual character whose existence becomes the literal and spiritual foundation for galactic civilization would be right up his alley.

The scale and complexity of the ideas the author is tackling grows in each new Dune book. Some people may not like it or understand a lot of it. I know I didn't when I tried to read these books at 13, but they are thought-provoking and fascinating to me now, 27 years later and being much more well-read.