Hunters of Dune
by Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson
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Book Reviews of Hunters of Dune
Book Review: picking up the torch
Summary: 3 Stars
i have waited a long time to write a review of this book because it took sometime to figure out my likes and dislikes.
i am listening to the audiobook now and it is really bringing to light some of the things i dont like.
the main thing is the drastic turn from 1st person to 3rd person narrative. the characters dont seem to speak as much now. a lot of the information about each character is narrated. this really isnt as frustrating in the book as it is in the audiobook, because the narrator in the hunters audiobook is the most boring person on the earth.
that being said, ive been waiting for this book for a long time. the ending to chapterhouse left too many questions for me. it is nice to see how the story was formed after the ithaca left known space. there were still power struggles but it was mainly inter-factional, meaning that the struggles were between the new sisterhood and the passengers aboard the ithaca. then, of course, the new face dancers vs their masters and also danny and marty.
while it is obvious that the writing styles of kja and bh are very different from fh, i think that to hold them to the same standard would be a little unfair. although it is reasonable to expect that if they would like to write these books, they would take more time in writing them. my biggest beef is that their books are coming out so fast in comparison to the first 6. i think that it is a fair criticism to say that they are rushing these, which might lend to some of the condescension that comes across. hell, at least it isnt like goldman's princess bride who would rattle on for 2 chapters about wedding decorations....
the only thing i dont know is exactly how they review and referenced the original outline of dune 7. that i will never know.
overall, i think 3 stars is fair for this book. despite the shortcomings of the delivery, i still enjoy this book because of the fact that i love this universe. i still love these characters and i want to know how this story ends. im not into literature, i dont have a degree, and i certainly dont have the time to find all the little reasons why this book makes me angry. its a good read to me and im happy with it. im interested to see how the newest wave of dune books comes out. lastly, i am not arrogant enough to say that i know better how to write these. its entertainment and, while i love dune, im not a shareholder.
Book Review: Not Frank, but not awful
Summary: 3 Stars
As a long-time Dune fan who did not read the prequels, it was with considerable trepidation that I bought 'Hunters of Dune', after all, Frank Herbert had been dead for over 20 years, and I didn't think it was possible for his son to continue the story, even if it were supposedly based on the outline.
I'll first pick the nits...
-As noted in earlier reviews, the characters do not have the insight they did in the first six novels, they are quite dense actually. Not once did I feel like I learned something about politics (government fears a popular leader), human nature (revenge is for children or the emotionally retarded), or self-awareness (hope clouds observation) as you do with almost every chapter of the originals.
-Sometimes the battle scenes were fairly well-written, but they were also very repetitive. I also got tired of she-must-be-faster-than-he-but-the-Futar-is-faster-than-her, but they are all slower than Teg...
-There was so much obvious exposition and referral to the prequels that it really intruded on the story. F. Herbert used to make a slight comment and let you imagine the Butlerian Jihad, or make you wonder about why there was an 'Orange Catholic Bible', this novel explains things like stereo instructions.
-Spice from the sand is blue, not orange. Hence the blue-on-blue eyes. This was said many times.
SPOILER-Chapterhouse was very clear that Marty and Daniel were advanced Face Dancers, where the conclusion of this book has them tied to their prequels. I'm sure that one wasn't in the outline.
As to what I liked:
-The story moved along pretty well, and I got the feeling that there indeed was an outline that was followed for the first half of the story (Scytale had the null entropy tube, there was no doubt Frank intended to bring back some of the other characters).
-Murbella is developing into an interesting character, and while she isn't Bene Gesserit, she does make things happen.
-It was good to get some background on the Honored Matres and Face Dancers, and exploring the mechanics of the axlotl tanks was fun.
In short, I finished the book, liked it well enough, and I might buy the next one (although the turn they took at the end was a turn-off for me). But Frank Herbert is gone, and I doubt his ghola will come back in my lifetime.
Book Review: Too Much of a Departure
Summary: 2 Stars
I started reading the Dune Chronicles about 15 years ago due to the advice of a friend. Like so many, I fell in love with the way Herbert managed to weave a plethora of thematic elements into a single piece. By God Emperor, my reading hard slowed down to a crawl (Sorry, I just hate it when I invest so much time in characters just to see them all gone). I managed to dredge through and move to Heretics and Chapterhouse which refocused my interest.
First of all, let me say, I read the prequel House books and thought they were fair, with the exception of House Corrino. With the books just being fair, I decided to skip the Legend books. And now we have Hunters.
The first bone I have to pick with Hunters is the elementary way in which it is written. I think it is rather sad to see an author dumb down characters for the sake the reader. I don't know about anyone else, but I like it when an author makes me think. I loved the social intricacies of the original series. Hunters gives us nothing more than idiots that need the obvious stated to them, enter Miles Teg and Duncan Idaho (mentats, the human computers, ironically enough).
To the next subject. I just really want to know, did anyone spot how different the characters were in Hunters as compared to Chapterhouse: Murabella seems to have become a psychopath, Miles Teg is an idiot, Duncan Idaho wavers in his loyalty to the Atreides (Sheena, of course), and the wild Reverend Mother (I am using "wild" as an adjective outside the scope of the story) Sheena becoming utterly predictable when no one knew what she was up to in Chapterhouse prior to the great sharing. What happened? Where are the characters I remember.
Due to these problems alone, it's nearly impossible to get into the disjointed plot. Poor characterization keeps the reader from feeling any empathy toward the characters. Without proper characterization you can't depend upon it to move the plot. Just like the second Matrix movie everything you need to know is in the very last portion, the last twenty pages or so.
Skip this book if you can and save a few hours of your life. You could obtain all the information you need for Sandworms from a spoiler from anyone who has read Hunters.
Just one last question: how long will a bank hold onto a safety deposit box before they destroy the contents. Surely not a decade, I would think.
Book Review: Yuck.
Summary: 2 Stars
There is not much more I can say that has not already been said about this book but I will state that there is nothing creative here.
Brian Pherbert and Kieth J. Anderson serve up a lot of garbage in this excessively long NONconclusion.
Within this book we have writing that is similar to what your grade school teacher would read out loud to a class eight year olds each day. This story comes complete with a gross out fest between a child ghola of the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen and his Tleilaxu minder, Uxtal. This gross out yuck fest is a little scene but it says so much about the authors mentality. It is not worthy of Dune and is only an example of the authors projecting themselves into the story. It is also symbolic to what the authors are doing to the story as a whole.
I call this a non conclusion given that we were suppose to get Dune 7, but instead, we received Dune 6.5 then Dune 7 (a.k.a. Sandworms of Dune) This is the same cash grab method that was applied to the Battle Star Galactaca DVD series where the studio released half seasons and charged the price of the full season. Following this model, the Herbert Limited Partnership and the publishing house knew full well that if they stretched the story out over two books, that they could double their revenue.
Given the Herbert/Anderson writing style, that would prove to be no challenge as the writers have consistently shown that they will rehash everything from previous books, and previous chapters within the book just to pad the page and word count. A brief look at Mr. Anderson's blog postings, it is easy to deduce that the writer is focused on his word count. Quantity over quality prevails in this series. Where if one were to simply tear out the pages from Hunters and Sandworms of Dune, where the authors repeat themselves, you will find that you could easily compress this book and its sequel Sandworms of Dune into one book, which is what Frank Herbert supposedly wanted - after all, the floppy disk that was left behind was titled: Dune 7, not Dune 6.5 and 7
Book Review: Good, but not Frank
Summary: 3 Stars
As a huge fan of the Dune trilogy, I admit I was thrilled to learn there were new additions to this masterful series on the way. Sadly, this book did not quite live up to my expectations.
To sum up, the story picks up where Frank Herbert left off. Duncan Idaho and company are wandering the universe in the stolen no-ship. The Benne Gesserit and the Honored Matres are slowly being merged into a single entity. The mysterious old man and woman who appeared at the very end of the original books are revealed. And there are so many twists and turns that it will make your head spin. Therein lay the problem.
This book is an exhaustive read. So crammed full of events and characters, it becomes hard to follow. To say as much as possible while giving as little as possible away, by the end of the book there are at least five kiwsatz haderach's running around. Leading up to that alone leaves the reader overwhelmed by the story. And, I must admit to being rather disappointed with the plot element torn right from the series finale of Seinfeld, in which Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson scramble to resurrect as many of the past characters who have been long since forgotten by the time this story is set.
The greatest drawback, however, is that Brian Herbert's writing style is simply not up to par with that of his father. In his original novels, Frank Herbert portrayed perfectly the overwhelming power of religious fantacism, the complexity of politics, and the driving motivation that gives the human race its greatest triumphs and worst failures. Brian Herbert, however, simply tells us the story rather than preaching it to us. He does not give us a real sense of the mythology of Mau'Dib and his son. He does not create the mystique of the inner plotting between the various factions. And he practically lowers the all important spice melange to a secondary plot element.
Overall, not a bad book. But simply not on par with the original creations of Frank Herbert.