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: Completely out-of-place.
Summary: 2 Stars
I know it's pretty much impossible to write like Frank Herbert, and I didn't expect anything like that from Brian H and Kevin J. Anderson. But Hunters of Dune was just... jarring.
The characters lost all of thier depth. Duncan, Sheeana, Teg, and Murbella were all some of the most fascinating characters I have ever read about... in Chapterhouse, that is. In Hunters, they were mere shells of thier former selves. Duncan and Sheeana have a vomit-inducing love collision on the 'Ithaca' in an attempt to 'heal' Duncan of his feelings for Murbella. This is ridiculous, because I was under the imprerssion that Duncan and Murbella had pretty much acknowledged that they had drifted apart in the last pages of 'Chapterhouse.'
My biggest complaint, though, is that the Scattering was made FINITE. It is stated countless times in both Heritics and Chapterhouse that the Scattering is infinite, and that no single force could ever threaten humanity ever again. And Daniel and Marty are not Omnius and Erasmus. In the final part of Chapterhouse, Daniel and Marty talk about becoming independent of the Masters and absorbing personas. This clearly indicates that they are Tlielaxu Face Dancers, NOT thinking machines. Omnius was not mentioned once during the entire six original Dune books, and I found it odd that he came into play so suddenly.
I would not recommend this book. It does not fit in with Chapterhouse at all.
Book Review: Reading time you never get back...
Summary: 1 Stars
Simply put, it's trash. As a long time reader of Frank Herbert's novels (not just his Dune work), I've come to expect a certain standard in the writing. As a writer, I've learned to be more cirtical in my reading of fiction. This book in no way meets the minimum standards Dune fans should expect from someone who actually puts "Herbert" on their work.
Phrases like "they collided like asteroids" are indicative of the authors limited imagination and tell us something about his discomfort with prose.
The authors inabiity to properly pace his stories, his knack for foiling epic drama in a single paragraph, and dragging out cliche and trite banter for unending pages, makes the whole experience stomach turning.
Taking the intricately woven universe of his father's books, and lacking imagination to come up with his own characters, Brian Herbert (and to an extent Kevin Anderson) employ the cheapest technique ever: Let's clone them!
Now, I could even believe, that in this far flung culture where Gholas are, if not common, at least not unheard of, that they might Ghola a Hero or two to help them out in the battle. But they actually Ghola Dr. Yueh? To give hima chance to redeem himself or to steal another one of Frank Herbert's excellent plot points? It's just not well thought out.
On top of the authors obvious lack of mastery in his craft, it's just not a very good story.
Book Review: The story accelerates....
Summary: 5 Stars
In the Hunters of Dune, Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson continue to build on the Universe created by Brian's father Frank. The story picks up from where the senior Herbert's final book leaves off. Unlike many of the other Dune universe novels, this one leaves you hanging.
--- Possible Spoilers - you've been warned ---
When I first read the previews for the book I was worried. The creation of ghola's of historic characters of the Dune saga, left me with trepidation. I thought the story may be sullied by such literary devices that have failed so badly for other authors.
Instead I found the story to be logical and true to the threads in the previous works. I particualrly liked the tieing up of loose threads and the links to the distant past.
One word of advice before reading this novel, read Brian and Kevin's Legends of Dune trilogy (The Butlerian Jihad, The Machine Crusade, and The Battle of Corrin) and reread Chapterhouse Dune. There are many references in Hunters that will make more sense after this refresher.
Finally, I applaud Brian and Kevin for their approach to concluding the Dune saga. By using the prequels in the Legends and House trilogies, they provide new readers with a depth of knowledge in this complex sphere while giving us long-time fans explanations for questions that have only been speculated on in the past.
Book Review: A shame...
Summary: 1 Stars
I always give books a chance. I really do. I read previous books by these two authors, both individually written and their "prequel" works, and despite utterly hating the "prequels" I wanted to give this book a chance, and I wish I had not.
You can see where they took the elder Herbert's story outline and then gutted it with this Omnius nonsense. The original Dune series was building up to some great metaphysical conflict about love and what it meant to be Human and what our ultimate destiny was. Not this inane and out of place conflict with giant genocidal robots. Omnius and Erasmus are about as out of place in this story as Paul Atreides' Jihad would have been in a Jetson's episode.
The skeleton of this is something great and majestic and you can easily see and feel that while reading; you can almost imagine where Frank Herbert would have taken it. As in the prequels, the authors took this where they wanted to, and made it into something inherently not "Dune," but something more akin to Saturday Morning cartoons with a script about 700 pages too long.
I don't want to tell you not to read this, because you will miss the kernel of what Frank Herbert had for the story, but I feel this is a shameful attempt to live up to him and a shameful attempt to integrate a masterpiece with a ... non-masterpiece.
Book Review: Solid continuation for fans (NO spoilers!!!!!)
Summary: 4 Stars
I've read all the dune books, originals and prequels, and though this is definitely not my favorite, I enjoyed it, and I feel that it is a worthy contribution to the Dune universe.
The writers really lack subtlety, often restating things or making an allusion and then explaining in detail how the allusion relates to the characters and plot. Where Frank Herbert would give you shades of meaning in a grammatically simple but overall complex way, these writers sometimes baby you. That said, the babying only was an issue a few times, so don't be discouraged from reading it.
I devoured the book in two days, ignoring my research paper and math homework (I'm in college). Ouch. Anyway, the plot was very interesting, there were no lulls in the book, I cared about the characters, there are clues (subtle ones, too!) as to who the Enemy is throughout the book, and I can't wait (!!!!) for the next one to come out.
Overall, I would say it is a skilled build-up for the conclusion to the original Dune series. I read somewhere online that these books are more like the Hollywood book adaptation of what Frank Herbert would have written, and I agree. If you read it expecting a Dune book and not a Frank Herbert book, then you'll be fine, and you'll probably like it for the good plot and familiar characters.