Hunters of Dune (Sci Fi Essential Books)
by Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson
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Book Reviews of Hunters of Dune (Sci Fi Essential Books)
Book Review: Can Gholas Dream?
Summary: 2 Stars
If only Brian Herbert had a nullentropy tube in his own chest.
The last chapter of Chapterhouse indicates another supremely brilliant evolution of consciousness as envisioned by FH. The "thinning-out" of the ghola Duncan, the absorption of personas by evolved Face Dancers, the Ghola-mastery of the Tlielaxu, and the warring women of the Bene Gesserit and Honored Matres point to a Kralizec made of Kwisatz Haderachs. This is highly arguable, I realize, but the evidence is there: a thematic focus on the importance of immortality achieved through cellular memory spanning decades, centuries and millenniua. Marty and Daniel, while almost conspicuously representing the author and his wife (who I'm certain was reponsible for much creative content), are ostensibly the most "thinned out" or time-spanning being of the entire lot. Those characters in the no-ship seem as seeds of a new Human scattering; the gholas Teg and Duncan, the BG Reverend Mother Sheanna, the Jews with the hybridized Rebecca; Scytale, the last Tlielaxu Master, and his capsule of preserved ghola cells for history's most prominent figures along with the other masters of his race. These disparate individuals have the potential for an entirely new unfolding of humanity set in regions of space where only this no-ship, directed by the oddly-prescient, near-KW Duncan, can go. Meanwhile, the foundation of humanity is left to clear the mess of the Honored Matres, find the identity of the Enemy (seeking machines as mentioned by Leto II?), and establish a galactic rebirth of the multiform human race. This mass of humanity would appear to be set to clash in the Typhoon Struggle with the Enemy while Marty, Daniel, and those in the no-ship would likely play the wildcard roles: a rogue group of Kwisatz Haderachs who contain in their genetic memories the death and rebirth of all that has ever been.
Of course, such was not the case with Hunters. Though my own imagination set a wishful plot upon its course, I would have liked to see some sort of intelligent fleshing out of FH's ideas from Chapterhouse. Instead, what I mostly read was a pedantic version of a simple plot where the only obvious and true FH revelation was the origins of the Honored Matres and the source of their hatred for men. This was pure FH: both surprising and cyclical, neat and unexpected at once. The rest of the novel, however, seemed trite, simplified, and written by those of far less talent than the original.
Regardless, this was a monumental task. Posthumous notes or otherwise, BH and KA have managed to write a reasonable continuation of the Dune saga. The basic ideas of FH are in there, even if they take a bit of diggin to find. And with the notable exception of the characters Daniel and Marty, I think the character lines were drawn out as well as could be expected, though I daresay FH would have displayed more of the incredible abilities of both Duncan and Teg. I also don't think a second sequel would have been necessary had FH been writing. BH and KA lack his ability to create dense, yet beautifully composed literature.
As for Daniel and Marty, if there was such a thing as an unforgivable sin in Dune, this was it. They are clearly Face Dancers at the end of Chapterhouse, and even if their new identities somehow don't affect the plot that much, their mystery and their purpose were supremely set up at the end of Chapterhouse. This was a lost opportunity.
Overall, it's a quick read and it was interesting to see the direction of FH's vision. But to compare it with the original is like comparing the ersatz fantasy parade to the original Lord of the Rings: pleasant, but ultimately unfulfilling.
Book Review: This is not a Frank Herbert book, but an outline....
Summary: 3 Stars
That being said, take it for what its worth. This is not some intellectual musing by FH. Don't even think about it. Be realistic, Brian and Kevin even tell you in the Author's note (yes that is like page 10, can people not read?)They are NOT even going TO TRY to emulate Frank and his style.
Guess what, if you can't even read the first 10 pages, and the author's note, and digest what they tell you IN ADVANCE about the book you are about to read, then why should I even begin to take your opinion as valid. It seems you can read, but only comprehend only what you want to see or hear or read. You might as well be one of the characters in these books, who can't see things coming. Or an example of what Frank was pointing out about people and human behavior in general.
I also read this book in under a day (ie 24 hours). Yes, I read the DaVinci code in under a 24 hour period.
Overall, I think it does go with Chapterhouse quite well.
I just am disappointed in the mysterious figures with the net, which is just not consistent with the original plot line. It just stands out as not fitting chapterhouse. The origins of the HMs, well stands out as purely Frank and meshes so well with the older books. Now that I think about it, the "true source" of the HMs were oddly missing in the first few books...or how should we say, well shrouded, and only start to show as the books evolve.
What this book is, action oriented, and event driven. Scattered small chapters that build to the next book. The characters are shallow and yes, it does read like a comic. Yes, you miss the characters and Frank's style. Yes, none of the characters have a lot of values to look up to, which is a reflection of the times. It also strikes me as violent and graphic compared to the previous Frank books. Those books held numerous deaths from wars and quests, but never quite like this.
Overall, taken at face value, it resembles a "Hollywood" style adaptation of what the book could have been if Frank were still alive.
Not as horrible as people make it out to be. Not what any of the previous Frank books were like. Not great, but it does strike me as plotted or outlined by Frank (except the net characters). I could not even make it thru BJ so I can honestly say, this is the first BH and KA book, I actually read. Sadly, this is not a FH book. I miss the original Frank Herbert, but he was an amazing man.
In view of that, overall, better than some other recent high powered offerings that come to mind, from Hollywood and other sources. This is not a classic, but more of a late summer beach book more than anything else. More like a mindless thriller than anything else, staring some spectacular characters you knew once.
I will read the last one, just to see what happens. I still have hope for the Face Dancers to rescue the last book.
Musings....from this book. Maybe Murbella is a new generation face dancer, and just doesn't know it yet...this book, once you start thinking about where things are at the end, leaves many things open...And yes, they could manage to pull that off if done right...hehe. I can also see a ghola child Sheanna, controlling a big ugly worm in complete child like ignorance and much like Alia, a new abomination in charge of a religion in the next book. I am choosing to ignoring the the botched old folks, as of right now. Phibians from Futars was not a reach but nice and predicable. I would love to see if they can push that concept even further.
This book leaves a lot open, and who knows where these characters will end up.
Book Review: Here's hoping it ends well
Summary: 3 Stars
I have been a long-time fan of Frank Herbert's Dune series, even when it started heading into strange territory with Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune. I read The Butlerian Jihad and started reading House Harkonnen before throwing it away with great force (following Twain's advice that some books should not be thrown away lightly). In truth, Brian Herbert is not the writer his father was, even with the assistance of Mr. Anderson. I gave Hunters of Dune a chance because it is supposed to be based on an outline by the old man himself, and because I was curious to see how one could follow up on the rather ambiguous ending of Chapterhouse. Infuriatingly, this book has not done very well, and it is one of two, leaving another book--Sandworms of Dune--to come.
The book infuriates me because it does NOT match the elegant prose, careful character study, and philosophical insight that made Frank Herbert's writing so rewarding. The biggest gap between father and son is subtlety. What Frank Herbert implied with a sentence, B. Herbert and Anderson drag out into a paragraph-long explanation. It's almost as if the authors underestimate the intelligence of the reader. Frank Herbert forced you up to his level, making you THINK, like good SF should.
There is another very disturbing trend in the Herbert/Anderson books, which is the utter lack of morality among the characters. There was almost no one I cared to admire in the book, except some of the innocents. Every other individual or society in the Dune universe has become brutal, coarsened, amoral, or utterly cynical. Even some of the more likeable characters from Chapterhouse--Duncan Idaho, Bellonda, Murbella, Sheanna--have become driven autocrats or corrupted souls. One can get a general idea of who "the enemy" is based on the plots and counterplots, alliances and counter-alliances, but one is not taken up with the notion that one side is much more admirable than the other.
The Dune series has been, if anything, about the use and abuse of power. While both the Harkonnens and Atreides of the earlier books were rather shameless aristocrats, they exhibited at least some noticeable differences in approach. You knew whom to root for: the Atreides stood for loyalty to ideals (even if those ideals were often flawed or turned to evil purposes) while the Harkonnens held no loyalties except to themselves or to masters of convenience, and worshipped at the idol of power.
The universe portrayed in Hunters of Dune portrays a gang of murderous thugs against the militarized and scarcely less brutal Bene Gesserit/Honored Matre synthesis called the New Sisterhood. In absorbing its darker side, the Bene Gesserit under Murbella appears to have been consumed by it. Murbella does not hesitate to kill viciously any and all who oppose her.
And as the alliances shift back and forth, engaging in increasingly more violent carnage, Duncan Idaho and his fellow travelers continue to wander through the universe in their stolen no-ship, performing experiments of their own. I will read Sandworms of Dune, if only to be certain that the saga ends well. However, I cannot conceal my disappointment in the Dune prequels and sequels. Other people are playing with Frank Herbert's brilliantly conceived world, and handling it much less ably.
Book Review: Not as bad as I expected, but not good, either.
Summary: 2 Stars
I avoided the Dune prequels completely, having no interest in their content and nothing but contempt for their authors, so I was expecting a complete travesty when I learned that not only would Frank's kid be doing a sequel, but would also be splitting it up into two volumes. Once I swallowed my pride and picked one up, I was surprised by the fact that it was not completely unreadable as I had expected it to be, but that's about all the good I can say about it.
Given the utterly outlandish series of events that transpire in this story, many wonder if maybe the notes Brian claims to be drawing from are a fabrication he himself concocted as an excuse to put a price tag on his terrible fan fiction, but given the direction the story had been going before Frank's death, I can believe that he intended for much of what his son is now writing about to happen. The real problem is that where Frank spoke with so authoritative a voice as to make you accept whatever he said without question, Brian staggers around with ridiculous over-descriptions of unimportant things, presumably in an effort to bore the reader into submission. When I first heard that Leto was going to turn into a giant worm in "God Emperor" I thought it was going to be the schlockiest pile of crap I'd ever read, but Frank sold it so amazingly well, I never once questioned the plausibility of such a ludicrous thought once I actually started reading. So yes, I can believe that Frank had intended for a great big Atreides family reunion to occur in a battle against evil robots, but I cannot believe that he would approve of his inept progeny's bumbling attempts at giving these eminently laughable situations the horribly clichéd treatment they have received here.
The book starts off pretty badly with a lot of pointless recap and exposition. Words such as "nonplussed" and "woolgathering" are often misplaced and overused, and character development is replaced with lengthy, useless descriptions of their physical appearances. We can't just say "Miles reached...", we have to say "Miles reached with his 13 year old ghola arm for an object he saw with his 13 year old ghola eyes and judged the distance to this object with his 13 year old ghola brain" ad nauseum.
Once the story gets going it becomes tolerable enough to not make you cringe every time you turn the page, but by the last several chapters it turns into something resembling a Sci-Fi Channel movie of the week, replete with lots of completely unnecessary references to the prequel novels inserted for no reason other than to make the reader feel as if they were somehow obligated to go read all of those next. One of the things that I always liked about Dune was the way each volume made you feel as though reading further was optional. Each book was a complete story unto itself, and if you didn't want to go on to the next, nobody was going to push you. Here that tradition has been broken, and the trite cliffhanger concoction isn't even very good. I don't think Frank would have needed to spread this out into two books no matter how much more money the publisher promised him. I can see why he spent so little time with his kid when he was alive.
Book Review: Leopard Change its Spots?
Summary: 1 Stars
SPOILERS AHEAD - NOT THAT THEY COME AS ANY SURPRISE
Though the pre-Dune books of BH & KA were badly written and juvenile, I gave them some leeway as they weren't really a continuation/resolution of the original FH Dune series. They tried to create their own Dune universe based on the original characters and though they failed miserably, a line could be drawn in the sand between their Dune and that of FH. Hunters of Dune however is now passed off as part of the original Dune yet nothing from BH & KA has changed. It's repetitive, repugnant, and of course, disappointing. It actually starts off well and initially has FH's feel but quickly deevolves into the standard BH & KA pattern.
Most readers are all too familiar with FH's Dune series, yet BH & KA feel the need to incessantly repeat apsects of the Dune universe and characters over and over. We already know about Duncan's gholas, Teg's abilities, the brutalness of the honored matres. Why do we need to be constantly reminded? Filler? Exercise in verbosity? Perhaps to stretch it into two books instead of one and milk some more money.
It is repugnant for absolutely no reason. How much torture do we need to endure? We don't need bloody, graphic details on killings. FH purposely avoided laboring over such details. This is not how he wanted the Dune universe to be portrayed. He had more class than that. In addition, though many of FH's characters were manipulative and ruthless, they still retained a level of sophistication and pragmatism that helped us appreciate their goals. Here we have Honored Matres, Tleilaxu, Guild, and even Bene Gesserit who come off as continually childish, selfish, and psychotic. The only character worthy would be the Baron yet even his portrayal is insipid and exaggerated.
How much of Hunters and the soon to be released finale, Sandworms of Dune, actually came from FH's notes? Though I guess it is possible that FH saw the final struggle against the machines that prompted the Butlerian Jihad, did he really plan on Daniel & Marty to be Omnius & Erasmus, the leaders of the machines (what a letdown)? Let's say he did. The problem is that Omnius & Erasmus are such innane and ridiculous characters introduced to us in the Pre-Dune books by BH & KA that their being the ultimate nemesis foreseen by Paul & Leto II, becomes anti-climactic and disappointing. All the depth of writing and characterization that FH painstakenly laboured over in the original six Dune books is reduced to these two idiotic machine entities reminiscent of Laurel & Hardy.
I also agree with many of the observations of other reviewers. What took FH one paragraph to write yet contained so much to ponder, now takes a whole page cause BH & KA feel the need to repeat themselves and provide details that are not only unncessary but eliminates any sense of depth and subtleness that were trademarks of FH's writing style. So for those who thought that BH & KA would change their ways and try to present us with the final chapters of the Dune universe worthy of FH, you were wrong and so was I.