The Legends Of Dune - Volume 1: The Butlerian Jihad 414
| The Legends Of Dune - Volume 1: The Butlerian Jihad | |
| author | Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson |
| pages | 624 hardcover/3041 Palm eBook |
| publisher | Tor Books/Palm Digital Media |
| rating | 7.5 out of 10 |
| reviewer | axis-techno-geek |
| ISBN | 0765301571/eISBN: 0-312-70808-4 |
| summary | A historical account of the “Dune” universe 10,000 years before Muad’Dib |
The book starts out by giving a history of how the Titans took over the "Old Empire" after humanity had lost its drive and had relegated intelligent machines to handle the everyday tasks. The Titans used this lack of drive and the intelligent machine to quickly take over the Old Empire and conquered most of the known galaxy. Free humans rose up at the fringes of the galaxy to resist and push the Titans back, forming "The League of Nobels".
The Titans governed their planets with a increasingly sophisticated AI network and increasing brutality towards their human "slaves". In a bid to rule for centuries, and for possible immortality, the Titans underwent the transfiguration to "cymeks", robots with a human brain. After a century of Titan rule, one of the Titans, in a quest for more free time to indulge in hedonistic activity, relinquished too much control to his intelligent AI network. Eventually the sentient AI network computer evermind, which took the name Ominus, took control of all the Titan controlled planets and formed the "Synchronized Worlds".
After a thousand years of conflict and stalemate between the Synchronized Worlds and the League of Nobels the machines, with coaxing from the Titans, have determined that it is time to "corral" the wild humans and strike out, the logical target, Salusa Secundus, the center of government for the League of Nobels . Being so "unpredictable" to Ominus, the humans, taking huge losses, again resist the machine attacks. In part due to the AI scrambler shield invention of one Tio Holtzman that stops robots, but in an oversight, allowed the Titan cymeks, with their human brains, through.
Reconsidering their tactics, the machines instead move on one of the less vehemently defended planets, an industrial world with an abundance of resources, Giedi Prime. This time the machines manage to knockout the shield generator and take the planet. Once the league hears of this, the endless debates start within their government, as with any democracy, nothing gets done because all the politicians are afraid to commit. All except Serena Butler, she instead organizes a small band to sneak onto Geidi Prime and complete the secondary shield generator. This leads to Serena's capture and eventual transfer to the primary Synchronized World, Earth.
We get to see the first "friction" here between the Atreides and Harkonnen, the Sorceresses of Rossak with their telepathic and telekinetic powers are the beginnings of the Bene Gesserit. The foundation is laid for the Suk doctors, and the cover blurb that I read mentioned the Swordmasters of Ginaz, but I found only a slight mention of the planet Ginaz. Another cover blurb I read mentioned the Mentat school, but there was nothing in this book, one could see the use for them as the League of Nobels did not use any computers.
The book flows very well and I found myself drawn to read more and more. The book does not have the intricate plot within plot layout as the other Dune works, but then this book is being narrated from a historical perspective. Given this, I found most of the characters actions predictable, but I have read all other 9 books, so this being a "historical" narrative, this keeps the characters close to their roles that were hinted at/layed out in the previous novels.
I give credit to Brian Herbert for the foresight of enlisting the help of Kevin J. Anderson in the creation of the Dune "prequels" as he openly admitted that he did not possess all of the "tools" required to under take this project, kudos.
You can purchase The Legends Of Dune - Volume 1 from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Re:Dune, meh (Score:3, Insightful)
On your second point, I managed to get to book 5 before quitting I think. Haven't tried re-reading since then, though I still think the first is excellent (and have reread it). If you have knowledge of world religions, Dune becomes a lot cooler incidentally.
Mildly Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
It was dry, unimaginitive, cluttered and and it just "tried too hard."
I particularly found it annoying that the authors (as with the House * books) found it necessary to explain EVERYTHING. For example, you met a proto-Fremen and blam! He rides the first worm. You see a group of recluse women and BLAM!, they are the proto-Bene Gesserit.
It seemed that the authors went out of their way to CREATE connections, and with that in mind, they felt it necessary to connect to EVERYTHING. I find it hard to believe that in a Galaxy whose history is well over 12,000 years old, that we would see the beginnings of so many familiar settings within a span of a year. I would think they would be stretched out over a greater period of time.
Re:I bought the first two of the Prequels (Score:2, Insightful)
Stop the Sequels please!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Dune, while not the best book ever, was incredibly entertaining and some really unique concepts in it.
Pretty soon the Dune series is going to start showing up in the cheesey scifi book section next to the Star Wars and Dragon Lance crap. They should put the Robert Jordan stuff there as well since he seems to be writing an unending exploitation of his first couple of ok books.
Sigh.
that wasn't a review (Score:5, Insightful)
At the risk of being moderated as a troll, axis-techno-geek's review wasn't a review at all, but just a summary of the book's contents. Except for the second to last paragraph, there was absolutely no analysis of the book.
It wouldn't be a bad idea for Slashdot to make informal arrangements with a couple contributors who are widely read in science fiction, and who are able to write reviews worthy of what quality sites Salon.com can muster.
Re:"Acclaimed" writer Kevin J. Anderson? (Score:3, Insightful)
Not worth it (Score:3, Insightful)
They have a great universe, but neither of them is up to writing in it. It just gives me the feel of a couple of amateurs trying to be clever. They should stick to writing adventure storeis or some such. They can't handle the complexity Dune deserves.
Re:Mildly Interesting (Score:3, Insightful)
Didn't Like "House Atreides" - Is it worth it? (Score:5, Insightful)
I loved the original Dune series, all the way through Chapterhouse, must have read Dune 10+ times, and the entire series 3+ times (I know, no life). However, I was sorely disappointed by House Atreides, and couldn't even finish it. I found the the characters where extremely stiff, black and white, and uninteresting - totally lacking in the passion and subtlety found in the original series.
Anybody out there who had the same reaction to the first of Brian Herbert's Dune books have an opinion of whether things have gotten better or not? This review makes it sound like it might be worth it, but burnt once . . .
Re:Stop the Sequels please!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact that the book is out on Tor signifies that this has already happened.
Re:Mildly Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
What's next? Prequels to
Re:Simple view of history... (Score:2, Insightful)
Personally, I've always thought that Orson Scott Card did that quite well with his transition from Ender's Game to Speaker for the Dead. At the end of Ender's Game, Ender Wiggin is a hero. At the beginning of Speaker for the Dead, he is so despised for what he did that nobody even uses the nickname "Ender" anymore.
Historical coincidence ticked me, too (Score:5, Insightful)
But I'll add that this seems to be in part a Kevin J Anderson thing. Don't know if Herbert Jr. fought it, went along with it, or encouraged it. But my son is a big Star Wars fan, and reads the novels, including the KJA ones. These types of historical coincidence happen all the time in the Star Wars universe.
Maybe that's why I read only one or two for the 'good father' value, along with only one or two Redwall books a few years earlier.
Fan fiction tends to be that way.
At least in the later Dune (God Emperor of Dune+) novels by Herbert Sr. he had the good sense to allow some drift. Arrakis became Rakis, and other things got a little blurred over 3000 years. Yet we have 10,000 years of greater turmoil (probably leading to poorer bookkeeping) Atriedes, Harkonnen, Butler and the like come through with no corruption, and not even a giant worm to remember the correct spelling and pronunciation.
Re:"Acclaimed" writer Kevin J. Anderson? (Score:5, Insightful)
I find that most people who like him just haven't read anything by good authors. I do seem to recall a collaboration he did with someone that I didn't hate but I can't remember what it was. So maybe there's hope for him when he has someone riding herd over him, but with fanbeings like you around, it's unlikely he'll be forced to improve.
10,000 Years (Score:5, Insightful)
Why so long? They setup family names, institutions, types of government, nations. All of this is supposed to last 10,000 years?
Very little of any of these last more than a few hundred years just here on earth. Unless their universe goes absolutley stagnant for 10,000 years, what do they expect to be the same?
The rest of the history sounds interesting, but it would be more reasonable to set it less than a thousand years past. At least you could have some expectation that something would last to the "Dune" era in recognizable form.
Re:Once again, the slashbots focus on a small erro (Score:1, Insightful)
a.) The EU is more interested in economics than racism. If you think their actions are motivated because of racism over economics you're clueless.
b.) What thesis are we supposed to invalidate? His idiotic comparison to Star Wars which is just stupid. Or his.. uhhh, what? What _IS_ his thesis, that the book doesn't impart some life-changing moral?? Good lord.
Re:"Acclaimed" writer Kevin J. Anderson? (Score:3, Insightful)
That said, I found his books to be some of the worst Science Fiction I've encountered. I can't blame the setting, since Timothy Zahn did some wonderful things with the same universe. But his stories are predictable and generally nothing more than reincarnations of movie plots with a few variables switched around. His dialogue is cliche and he limits himself to a static interpretation of the characters -- it's as if somebody told him "Yes, you can write a Star Wars novel, but the characters from the movies had better be exactly the same people at the end of the book as they were at the beginning!"
It may be that he was stuck in regurgitation mode after having written novelizations of the of the movies (assuming it was him that did that, I haven't read the book versions of the movies). Unfortunately, that's the same mode I was in after reading his tripe.
I sincerely hope that some of his other work can prove me wrong, that the foulness of his SW novels is the exception and not the rule. But that's one heck of a black mark, if you ask me.
hoo boy, McPatience strikes again (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it's not necessarily our own galaxy, or even our own universe for that matter. Things move more slowly. Humanity has slowed its pace, lost some of its pioneering, colonizing will. With the Guild Navigators' prescience, the Universe is open and available. No need to explore.
If you'd read the original books you'd understand that. Leto II's reign, for example. Lasted 3500 years. Not much changed. Planets changed, but attitudes didn't. That was part of the point.
Re:Once again, the slashbots focus on a small erro (Score:3, Insightful)
Um, it certainly invalidates this part of his thesis:
If the refutation of a proferred example doesn't weaken a thesis, then of course, a valid example itself cannot strengthen it... and that's just silly: The point of an argument is not the stating of an opinion, bald and without elaboration. It's the marshalling of fact and logic to support your point. Choice of a poor example -- one betraying a certain sloppiness in research -- most definitely does impugn the whole effort, and rightly so.
Re:Good grief (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you really know that many people who should know better and actually do? ;)
Re:"Acclaimed" writer Kevin J. Anderson? (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know about is other work, but the prose in "House Atriedes" was close to unreadable. Dreadful. Awful. So bad that the only reason I finished it was that was that I was stuck somewhere with nothing else to read, and I'm a reading addict.
Whether the prose is the fault of K. Anderson or B. Herbert I've no idea, and I'm not likely to find out as I've no intention of wasting my time with anything else by either them unless recommended by someone I trust.
And it's not like I'm a snobbish about such things. Not everyone can be a Simmons or Ellison. But I don't like to flinch while reading.
Re:"Acclaimed" writer Kevin J. Anderson? (Score:1, Insightful)
Timothy Zahn wrote some StarWars books which were entertaining. Anderson's stuff is boring drivel.
dave
Christopher Tolkien, anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Brian, if you're reading this...
Your father was a very talented man, and we all enjoyed his work tremendously. Dune is my favorite work of SciFi. But...it's your father's work and not yours. If you'd like to please his fans and put a little cash in your own pocket, could you please take a lesson from Christopher Tolkien?
While your work is interesting, it's not Dune and can never be. Dune is the work of Frank Herbert, and none other. So, may I humbly suggest taking his unpublished work and notes and arrange those into a book? I'd throw down cash today for a Dune:Silmarillion type work. I'll bet a lot of other people would too.
Weaselmancer
capsule review of Dune:Houses & brief ip rant (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's the slightly elongated version:
I am huge Dune fan. I wanted to cry after I read the last line of Chapterhouse Dune, because I knew there would never be anymore, I had read the very last line of the very last dune book.
Well, imagine my surprise when the Dune:House N series appeared. I was torn but hopeful.
Well, the first two were like good fan fiction. They built a little bit of structure for events that happened later, were mostly consistent and pretty fun to read. But nothing like Frank's work.
The third book (House Corrino) was awful. I'll never get those hours back.
What bugs me is that no one else can add to the Dune canon except the copyright holders, so those of us who love it but do not profit from it are forced to watch in horror as the average quality of the official series is diluted.
I haven't yet read the book being reviewed here, and against my better judgment I probably will eventually but I'll be shocked if it's any good. It's just a shame that just because Herbert Jr. shares half a set of genes with Herbert Sr. that we have to be subjected to his inferior fan fiction while other, more talented writers who would like to add to the series can't publish and profit from their potential works for fear of legal reprisal.
Thank you for reading.
Am I the only one who thinks Dune sucks? (Score:3, Insightful)
But I have been a SF/Fantasy fan for most of my life. I am a huge fan of the classics, modern writing, and all of the (good) stuff in between. It should also be mentioned that I'm also not JUST a SF/Fantasy reader either--my reading stretches over a fair range.
That said, Dune is the ONLY book I have EVER failed to finish reading, once I got more than ten pages into it. In fact on my third (and last) attempt, I read some 400 pages of it, and couldn't be bothered to pick it up again.
I found Dune utterly uninvolving. Heavy, ponderous, dull, stilted, and just bloody painful reading. I had no interest in characters, stories, or outcomes in it.
So what am I missing that sequel #9, written by the son of the original author, is getting created at all, let alone cheered enthusiastically?
Re:"Acclaimed" writer Kevin J. Anderson? (Score:2, Insightful)
Locus is the only one of these "accolades" I would take seriously.
RESURRECTION, INC. (nominated for the Bram Stoker Award),
"nominated" for an award no one's ever hard of?
and his novel BLINDFOLD (1996 preliminary Nebula nominee)
Wow! A "preliminary" nominee. What an honour.
[X Files novels] GROUND ZERO was voted "Best Science Fiction Novel of 1995" by the readers of SFX magazine.
A novelisation of a TV series was voted "best" by a special effects magazine. Interesting, but what what relation to literature (which is what "books" are) is this?
RUINS hit the New York Times bestseller list, the first X-FILES novel ever to do so, and was voted "Best Science Fiction Novel of 1996.
Another TV novelisation. And voted "best" by who? Anyway, he's a hack, 90% of his output is rehashes of Star Wars, X-Files, and similar dreck (fun to watch, but for God's sake why waste your time reading this crap, you can only carry off this stuff with special efects to distract you from how silly it all is) and now he's "helping" the son of a famous real writer to exploit his memory.
The terrible thing is that garbage like this guy churns out is why real SF isn't treated with any respect.
bravo! (Score:2, Insightful)
BINGO! Bang on the "money" (the key reason I think it's dragging on)! Back when it first came out in the early 90's (or late 80's??) I enjoyed "The Eye of the World", probably "the great hunt" as well as the 3rd installment.
Speaking of TOR (as someone else mentioned), don't waste your money on Terry Goodkind as he seems to get many of his ideas for the "sword of truth" series from Jordan's "wheel of time" (although one could probably argue all sci-fi/fantasy in the last 15 years is cud [regurgitated & chewed around] - i haven't read enough of it to seriously comment). Heh, maybe they're even the same person?
Re:Simple view of history... (Score:3, Insightful)
I disagree, because he tried doing that in the first 3 prequils and it didn't make sense.
For example, he made the Reverand Mother GHM the mother of Jessica. This seems like a nice tricky thing to do as a plot twist right? Now, the ultimately precient Leto II as a child revealed to his grandmother Jessica the knowledge "Jessica out of Tanidia Nerus by the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen". Why would the most precient person ever to live refer to his great-grandmother by a false name? And how would Paul, Alia, and Leto II not have the complete mind of RM GHM from the point of conception at their disposal? No matter how you try to spin it, this foundational change doesn't work. And then what, no-ships were invented more than 15,000 years before Heretics? Come on! This is just garbage. At least in Butlerian Jihad, he stuck to the story and didn't try to rewrite much. Fortunately, there wasn't much to mess up from that far back in time. I actually liked the current book much better than the other prequils. I gained a lot of respect for Brian Herbert after reading Butlerian Jihad, and I have much more confidence that he will do the "7th book" justice.
Did you lose your copy of "Children"? (Score:4, Insightful)
The series really did peak at Dune Messiah, though. A short, simple story showing how a mob can take a movement intended to better humanity and pervert it into an excuse to kill and destroy anyone they don't like. In the end, it becomes a stunning critique of organized religion; how it can destroy even its leader.
Oh, and I agree with you about Brian Herbert. Shooting's too good for the bastard.
A review...hmmmn (Score:3, Insightful)
I've only read the first three books of Dune (the original trilogy), but I understand much of what the reviewer mentioned in the synopsis...question is, it's not made clear whether one would have to read all nine books in the series to "get" Butlerian Jihad.
Pish tosh!
Re:What about Ix and Frank's notes... (Score:2, Insightful)
I mean - Duncan Idaho's visions of "Marty"???
There's also the whole thing about the Honored Matres and whatever it was that they were running from. The Futars and Handlers byline always intrigued me because he painted them as something even more fearsome than the Honored Matres, yet *they* almost manage to wipe out the BG and the remnants of the old Imperium. Then there's the "Weapon and charge" thing used by the HM in the final battle against the BG forces and the Bashar. Very intriguing indeed. There's actually a few paragraphs in CHD (or was it HOD?) that mention that Reverend Mother in the planet that produces Soostones (she was sent there as punishment) actually meeting some Handlers, whereas most of the book deals only with Futars.
It's a shame, really, that Herbert didn't have time to continue the series. Too many loose ends, if you ask me =)
Re:This book is great so far.. (Score:5, Insightful)
No. I don't accept it as canon unless it can prove itself. My point is that IMHO there is no hole in the universe there; not only does it not directly matter what the HM's were fleeing from, we have a very, very good candidate in the form of the independent face dancers. Filling in a non-existant hole in the universe does not impress me as to the possible "canonicity" of the Butlerian Jihad book. In fact, one could make a case that this is just a contradiction, since indeed, they are "filling in" the hole with something other then what the canonical books seem to imply to me.
Not to mention the very act of filling in this "hole" doesn't impress me. Part of the very point of the Scattering was to make humanity too big for any one force to understand (and thereby potentially influence), let alone explain in the span of a book or series of books. This child-like need to "fill in" the universe and make sure everything is explained to the n-th degree betrays much of what makes the Dune universe so cool in the first place.
And it's not just "face dancers"... it's what some independent face dancers became, which were capable of overthrowing their masters, out there in the unregulated chaos that was the Scattering. Goodness only knows how many hundreds of other forces there are at work in the Scattering, which were never even hinted at in the book.
The Scattering was huge...
Amen to that! (Score:3, Insightful)
Not even Michael Stackpole and Aaron Allston (best known for their original ideas in the X-Wing series) and Zahn's return could salvage the whole steaming pile that is "New Jedi Order".
And as for shameless exploitation of a franchise, I'd like to mention a few Foundation sequels being authorized by Isaac Asimov's estate (ie relatives who want to milk the old guy's corpse for all they can get). Poor Isaac. At least he'll never have to suffer through the eyesore that is "Foundation and Chaos".
Hey, I enjoyed this. Is there any chance for me to be a paid book critic? Anyone hiring?
Re:Once again, the slashbots focus on a small erro (Score:2, Insightful)
The error is an important one.
Why? Because it allows the reader to ignore that Dune is an influential work in the genre. Certainly George Lucas borrowed from it liberally. By misunderstanding the relationship of Dune and Star Wars, the main argument (paraphrased: Dune sucks.) is undermined.
I agree with other posters that Dune (Frank Herbert's Dune I'm talking about here, not movies or miniseries or works by other authors) is heavy reading. It is devoid of any sense of humor. Characters tend not so much to speak as to make pronouncements. However, when I first read it, Dune affected me similarly to how LotR seems to affect other people. I was fascinated by the scope of it, the cultures, the technology, the society, and all the themes.
It's interesting to me how similar the criticisms leveled at Dune and LotR are. It's dull. It's slow. It's ponderous. It's overrated. The derivative works of the son don't live up to the original by the father.
But one should not judge the quality of the original work by the derivatives. Dune and LotR are both indicators of this.
Re:"Acclaimed" writer Kevin J. Anderson? (Score:3, Insightful)
Obviously, "shallow, uninvolving plot" isn't going to cut it.
Well, maybe if it's well-written, the plot won't matter much. But it would have to be really well-written indeed, to get away with a crappy plot. A "perfectly written" book is probably too much to ask for, but "well-written" would certainly be nice.
You seem to think there's a third alternative, besides "trash" and "well-written with a deep and involving plot". What books would these be? Books that are neither well-written, nor deep and involving, but are still not trash? Can you give any examples of such a book?
Re:A few thoughts (Score:2, Insightful)
If you don't try to compare their writing styles and just enjoy the book, I think you'll enjoy the read.SPOILER SPOILER - Also, he does flesh out the history of the Fremen somewhat with things like the origin of the Zensunni wanderers, the beginnings of the spice trade, the beginning of the distrust of outsiders, the abandoning peace loving Zensunni tradition and travel into deep desert. The Missionaria Protectiva won't have arrived yet, since the Bene Gesseret hasn't even been founded.
Re:This book is great so far.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Waiting for Dune 7 (sic)! (Score:3, Insightful)
Personnally, I don't have time for any of them. Brian is not Frank in either imagination or skill. Not that this is a major insult, Frank was a master.
However, Brian did recently find his father's COMPLETE OUTLINE for Dune 7. So, Brian and Kevin will write that, which I will gladly purchase, after they are done with their prequels. Hurry up guys!