Lyn's Reviews > Children of Dune

*** 2021 reread -

I posted the review below ten years ago after first reading Frank Herbert's Children of Dune, the third in the series, this one published in 1976 which followed Dune Messiah in 1969 and Dune in 1965. I liked it but didn't love it.

There is an old saying that you can never step into the same river twice, meaning that the water is always different. And also, you have have changed as well.

Ten years later and I have read all of Herbert's original six and many of the books about the Dune universe written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. I've seen the 1984 film and the 2003 Children of Dune mini-series and am an overall fan of Dune.

I'm not sure why I didn't like it more back then but I sure do now.

Herbert's intricate attention to detail and his brilliantly complex characterization and dialogue, as well as his internal monologues are science fiction gold.

The interactions between The Preacher and the rest of the cast and Leto's beginning transformation, providing a foreshadowing of the next book, God Emperor of Dune, was a pleasure to read.

******

The third of the Dune and the slide away from the quality of the original masterpiece has begun in earnest.

Better than Dune Messiah, but only in that it is more ambitious and with a more cohesive plot. Herbert takes a more introspective narrative to prepare the way for Leto II. The concepts of shared DNA, collective memories and possession run astride a vehicle of rapid autocratic decline.

Some cool scenes, a few interesting new concepts, but ultimately Herbert's vision is starting to fray and the great bulk of his masterwork is becoming as cumbersome as the Baron's ghost.

A cautionary tale for creators of series - go back to the well too often and the water gets stale.