I'm writing this on January 31, 2001. Last reading: 1 day ago

If you're reading this, you've likely read my review of Dune: House Atreides. If not, you should do it now, since most of what I said there applies to this novel as well.

There are some changes: I downgraded the overall, plot, and storytelling ratings. It's not exactly clear to me why I didn't like it as much, but it was slightly "lesser" than the first novel in this new series. Things that I expect contributed to that sense: First, I got the definite sense that many years were skipped over, both from the last novel to this novel, and in between chapters of this novel. Especially in the beginning, it seemed that ten years had passed without people doing much of anything important. In fact, characters who were working toward goals seemed to have forgotten that they needed to do anything in that passing time, only to resume thinking about it once the timeframe covered by the novels resumed. The chapter-to-chapter time loss is hard to work well... so while I'm not surprised that that aspect left me wanting, it still is somewhat disappointing. Second, some of the characters which I'd hoped would gain importance, be fleshed out more fully, never did. And so, when things happened to them, it was rather hard to care as much as was intended. Granted, most of the significant action related to the more major characters, but there were some other things directly tied to minor characters who hadn't had their personalities established well. Third, since this novel is closer in time to the setting of the original Dune, more of the events were tied in to things which anyone familiar with the novel already knew. So some of what seemed intended to be major plot points nstead had little element of surprise or suspense. Instead, there was the sense of mechanically putting pieces into place. Finally, as seems rather common for the second work in a trilogy, there was a whole lot of suffering by the more sympathetic characters. While it's necessary to the plot, and does inspire emotions, at times it seemed like gratuitous heart-tugging... which is something I instinctively resist.

Don't read too much into the above paragraph, though: this novel was not far worse than House Atreides; it was just slightly inferior, in my opinion. And it's not really worth reading any of these novels without reading the whole series: it's clear they're part of a series, with major plot threads that won't be resolved until the end of the series. So if you want to re-visit the wonderful world of the Dune novels, these are well worth reading. But go in with your eyes open: they're pretty good, but not among the greats of all time, like the original Dune was.