Heretics of Dune (Dune Chronicles, Book 5)
by Frank Herbert

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Book Reviews of Heretics of Dune (Dune Chronicles, Book 5)

Book Review: The Heretics first (to be continued)
Summary: 5 Stars

The main change or shift is the fact that the novel is centered on The Bene Gesserit Sisterhood. They hold the energy necessary to the action. They are the only force able to bring together two newcomers. Sheeana, this girl who can speak to the worms, who can speak to the descendants of the Tyrant or God Emperor, Leto II. She obviously holds in her the essential genetic elements that can bring the total regeneration of this universe, because this universe is totally rotten, even worse than the Kingdom of Denmark. This girl enables the religious system on Rakis to shift from the Priesthood, the heirs of the God Emperor, of the now Divided God, to the necessary recuperation of the Worm, of the God Emperor's teaching and its radical renewing by a deep rejuvenation and questioning, based on the popular faith that has never died in spite of all pressures. A new perspective is supposed to come out of this re-evaluation.

But a new female order appears in the picture, a conquering order of Honored Matres who want to enslave the whole world. Their method and tool is sex. They have devised a new sexual technique that makes men subservient and totally dependent. They conquer total power by giving the illusion to their direct slaves that they do take part in this power, though these slaves have to betray all human feelings, all faithfulness, all legitimacy in their thinking and living in order to have a position that controls - which is a total illusion - a little sector of society. They are nothing but tools used by these Honored Matres to conquer and control the world, to reduce 99.99% of the population to, the simple status of « scum ».

This novel hence is heavily centered on two women's orders. The Bene Gesserit who uses accumulated knowledge and constant reevaluation of this knowledge to understand history, to understand the real perspective of the real world, hence to step beyond the limits of the history of historians who only rewrite the past to fit the projects of the men in power, of the tyrants in power. We may note that this order is yet based on a minority that controls the world, though this minority is trying to guide the world into a higher level of consciousness, of awareness. For them sex is nothing but a tool to achieve some genetic goals : the selection of exceptional people who will be able to concentrate in them the qualities and the mental powers of the best blood lines ever produced by humanity, one being that of the Atreides. On the other side The Honored Matres do not aim at entrusting the world to the best men and women ever existing, but only to control, manipulate and destroy, to enslave in one word, and for them sexuality is the tool of that enslavement.

This novel shows how the fight between those two orders is doomed in the short run because their is no weapon or protection against this sexual power of the Honored Matres. Yet, the Mother Superior of the Bene Gesserit is trying to bring together the elements that are going to produce their final success. Those tools are Sheeana, since she has direct contact with the worm. Then a new ghola of Idaho Duncan (a real obsession in this sequence of novels that is finally broken, because the present ghola is to be the last one) produced by the Bene Tleilax (but the Tleilaxu are fiends and they have implanted in this ghola the order to kill the Bene Gesserit Imprinter who will reawaken his sexual desire, as well as the total sexual power that the Honored Matres have produced, and this fiendish as well as thoughtless act will give the Bene Gesserit the power to explore this special weapon used by the Honored Matres, because the ghola is imprinted by an Honored Matres who becomes the total slave of the ghola since he has a power that is equal at least to hers and she does not know how to cope, and because the ghola impregnates her and the child that will be a good study specimen). Then Teg Miles, the supreme Bashar of the Bene Gesserit, who is transformed in his mental and physical powers by the attempt of the Honored Matres to prenetrate his psyche, his body awareness to know the plans of the Bene Gesserit, and that attempt is a mistake (Teg is able to organize a rebellion that saves the ghola, himself and a few other faithful fighters, and Teg is able to bring the ghola to Rakis and to know where exactly the worm who is carrying Sheeana and Odrade is intended to come to deliver them to him and the no-ship he has captured). Note Teg will have to sacrifice himself and his faithful followers for this no-ship to go.

The most interesting element is the constant negociation between the Bene Gesserit and the Bene Tleilax, and the final defeat of the Bene Tleilax, because the Bene Gesserit is able to use the Bene Tleilax's religious beliefs to lure them.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, Paris Universities II and IX.

Summary of Heretics of Dune (Dune Chronicles, Book 5)

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