Ethan's Reviews > Children of Dune
Children of Dune (Dune #3)
by
by
"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."
- Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear
"I do not have to be what my father was. I do not have to obey my father's rules or even believe everything he believed. It is my strength as a human that I can make my own choices of what to believe and what not to believe, of what to be and what not to be."
- Leto Atreides II
The Harq al-Ada Biography
In Children of Dune, the third entry in Frank Herbert's infamous Dune Chronicles, Emperor Paul Atreides (a.k.a. Muad'Dib) has walked off into the desert after achieving prescience; he is presumed dead. His sister Alia now rules the Imperium. Waiting in the wings to become the next Emperor is the young Leto II, Paul's son. Young Leto II and his sister Ghanima are "pre-born", meaning their personalities were fully formed in the womb. They carry the memories, and, it seems, the personalities, of their entire ancestral line in their minds. This gives them the wisdom and knowledge of many lives and countless centuries, so they are effectively mature adults in the bodies of children.
In this new post-Paul Imperium, Alia's grasp on power is tenuous at best. The mysterious Bene Gesserit continue to plot in the shadows, attempting to maintain their long-developed breeding program, which had seemingly already met its goal of producing a Kwisatz Haderach with Paul Atreides. Can Alia hold on to power? Will Leto II rise to become Emperor? What really happened to Paul Atreides? And who is The Preacher, the mysterious man who has been speaking heresy against Alia's empire and spreading dissent across the galaxy?
There is a lot to like in Children of Dune. It's beautifully, at times lyrically written. It's like reading a work of art in prose. Some of the best Dune characters return in Duncan Idaho, Gurney Halleck, and Stilgar, but there is also an interesting cast of new characters, like Prince Farad'n Corrino, Leto II, and Ghanima. I also really liked the exploration of the ecological transformation of the planet Arrakis (Dune), which in this book is rapidly transforming from an arid desert world into one with rain and vegetation, a transformation that comes with powerful economic and sociological consequences. The ending was also enjoyable, though it left much unanswered.
That being said, I think the Dune Chronicles are starting to wear on me a bit. The books are all basically the same, and it's becoming a bit tiring. Each book is built using a predictable formula of palace intrigue, a confusing plot that raises more questions than it ever answers (even by its conclusion) and that frustratingly keeps the reader always in the dark, the bizarre and futile plotting of the Bene Gesserit witches, which begins to appear more pathetic every book that goes by, power struggles, doubletalk thoughts and ruminations that add no value to the story and are just plain boring, etc.
This particular entry was absolutely filled with doubletalk, or what I call "word soup". Probably about half of this book was made up of these boring, confusing, and seemingly meaningless thoughts and reflections about time, life, consciousness, and other such topics. I normally love a good dialogue about such thought-provoking subjects, but it just didn't work here. Even the characters were confused in this book! There were numerous scenes in the book where a character openly admitted they had no idea what was going on.
As a character in a Dune book, anyone could be your enemy, even your own family members. Everything must be questioned, every assertion doubted. Secret plots abound everywhere, most of which are never explained to the reader, or even understood by the other characters. Sound like fun? Maybe for a few books, but there are six books in the Dune Chronicles, and after a while it becomes a bit tedious. This feels like a classic case of an author stretching something that would have worked really well as one or two books into something that doesn't really work very well as six longer books.
I can't say I'm excited to read the next book in the series at this point, which makes me really sad, because I loved Dune and Dune Messiah. I'll probably put the Dune Chronicles down for a little while, or, perhaps more likely, for a longer while...
3.5 stars
- Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear
"I do not have to be what my father was. I do not have to obey my father's rules or even believe everything he believed. It is my strength as a human that I can make my own choices of what to believe and what not to believe, of what to be and what not to be."
- Leto Atreides II
The Harq al-Ada Biography
In Children of Dune, the third entry in Frank Herbert's infamous Dune Chronicles, Emperor Paul Atreides (a.k.a. Muad'Dib) has walked off into the desert after achieving prescience; he is presumed dead. His sister Alia now rules the Imperium. Waiting in the wings to become the next Emperor is the young Leto II, Paul's son. Young Leto II and his sister Ghanima are "pre-born", meaning their personalities were fully formed in the womb. They carry the memories, and, it seems, the personalities, of their entire ancestral line in their minds. This gives them the wisdom and knowledge of many lives and countless centuries, so they are effectively mature adults in the bodies of children.
In this new post-Paul Imperium, Alia's grasp on power is tenuous at best. The mysterious Bene Gesserit continue to plot in the shadows, attempting to maintain their long-developed breeding program, which had seemingly already met its goal of producing a Kwisatz Haderach with Paul Atreides. Can Alia hold on to power? Will Leto II rise to become Emperor? What really happened to Paul Atreides? And who is The Preacher, the mysterious man who has been speaking heresy against Alia's empire and spreading dissent across the galaxy?
There is a lot to like in Children of Dune. It's beautifully, at times lyrically written. It's like reading a work of art in prose. Some of the best Dune characters return in Duncan Idaho, Gurney Halleck, and Stilgar, but there is also an interesting cast of new characters, like Prince Farad'n Corrino, Leto II, and Ghanima. I also really liked the exploration of the ecological transformation of the planet Arrakis (Dune), which in this book is rapidly transforming from an arid desert world into one with rain and vegetation, a transformation that comes with powerful economic and sociological consequences. The ending was also enjoyable, though it left much unanswered.
That being said, I think the Dune Chronicles are starting to wear on me a bit. The books are all basically the same, and it's becoming a bit tiring. Each book is built using a predictable formula of palace intrigue, a confusing plot that raises more questions than it ever answers (even by its conclusion) and that frustratingly keeps the reader always in the dark, the bizarre and futile plotting of the Bene Gesserit witches, which begins to appear more pathetic every book that goes by, power struggles, doubletalk thoughts and ruminations that add no value to the story and are just plain boring, etc.
This particular entry was absolutely filled with doubletalk, or what I call "word soup". Probably about half of this book was made up of these boring, confusing, and seemingly meaningless thoughts and reflections about time, life, consciousness, and other such topics. I normally love a good dialogue about such thought-provoking subjects, but it just didn't work here. Even the characters were confused in this book! There were numerous scenes in the book where a character openly admitted they had no idea what was going on.
As a character in a Dune book, anyone could be your enemy, even your own family members. Everything must be questioned, every assertion doubted. Secret plots abound everywhere, most of which are never explained to the reader, or even understood by the other characters. Sound like fun? Maybe for a few books, but there are six books in the Dune Chronicles, and after a while it becomes a bit tedious. This feels like a classic case of an author stretching something that would have worked really well as one or two books into something that doesn't really work very well as six longer books.
I can't say I'm excited to read the next book in the series at this point, which makes me really sad, because I loved Dune and Dune Messiah. I'll probably put the Dune Chronicles down for a little while, or, perhaps more likely, for a longer while...
3.5 stars
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Reading Progress
February 1, 2021
–
Started Reading
February 1, 2021
– Shelved
February 12, 2021
–
Finished Reading