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.
This book is great so far.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Simple view of history... (Score:5, Interesting)
The characters did what you'd expect as it was a historical view. This means they just took the easy route and re-iterated the stuff from before.
Now for anyone who has studied history you know that what actually happened is not what people _think_ happened. US Revolution against the evil British Empire, read history and it becomes US Revolution against despotic British(German) King who was losing power at home and sought to impose his will on the colonies. Hitler, short-arsed Nazi who terrorised his way to power thanks to poor economic conditions... or foundations laid by Otto Von Bismark who first united Germany when he tried to create a German Empire which pissed off the Brits and French who had enough trouble stealing countries without more competition.
Neville Chamberlain, total coward "peace in our time" and yet he ordered the increase in military spending and manufacturer, if Germany had attacked 6 months eariler would Britain have been able to hold out ?
etc etc etc
What would have been more challenging was a book that challenged our perceptions of the foundations of Dune, and which led through a series of books to the reasons for the later generations perceptions.
But then since Frank Herbert died this has just been the Star Trek of the fiction world, and endless Saga with little or no reason for existence.
Re:Heretics (Score:3, Interesting)
[1] Dirty Old Man. There is a definate relationship to the age of your average Scifi author, and the amount of sex in his latest works.
Re:Stop the Sequels please!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
In this zany sequel to the Classic novel of Late Victorian England's underclass, Pip has discovered that he's really prefers to wear women's clothing. Also, he changes his name to Bob. I'm not sure if Dickens had intended a space ship to land and take Pip on a crazy adventure hunting down the White Whale (this book ties in Moby Dick's story line too - kind of a two for one sequel), but Dickens is dead, so I can write this story any way I want.
Did I mention that the book has a fully CGI racial stereotyped character and explains the science behind force?
Re:Stop the Sequels please!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree.
Part of the magic of the original Dune books was the monumental amount of unpublished history written by Frank Herbert. In the actual books, there were references to the "Butlerian Jihad" the "Holtzman Effect" and many other defining events of the universe but the details were kept out of the novels. All these mysteries made the world of the novels a much more interesting place.
Each one of these hack prequels makes the Dune universe more mundane.
Re:Oh great, RedWolves 2 is back (Score:1, Interesting)
You're stupid.
Re:Once again, the slashbots focus on a small erro (Score:3, Interesting)
The rest of his thesis is a naive, too. The original Dune series was five books long. That was the series. The four new books, and up to six more [dunenovels.com], are the serialization of the Dune universe akin to what's happened with Star Wars and Star Trek novels. They're novels which can't be taken too seriously.
Re:This book is great so far.. (Score:4, Interesting)
There's no need for another force to wait mysteriously in the wings for 14-15 thousand years, when the whole point of Leto's reign was that humanity was "stagnating" on its multiple hundreds of thousands of planets, and nobody was expanding anymore, because there was no mysterious force (or anything else) to encourage humanity to grow. His "Golden Path" was a means of forcibly holding down humanity, so they would explode outward when he died. (He acts all mysterious about it but it's not that hard to see.)
A few thoughts (Score:2, Interesting)
I'll probably buy this book. When it comes to Dune I just gotta have it. Sorta like having to buy the latest Depeche Mode album even though it sucks rocks. There are some things in life you just gotta have.
But anyway, back to Dune. The House* prequel series were OK, I guess, even though they suffered from an all too apparent desire to come up with plausible explanations of the pre-Atreides dominated universe. For example, involving the whole House Vernius and the Ix thing was a great idea, but it was presented in a slightly crass way. You know? Frank Herbert could introduce new elements into his books (i.e., the Honored Matres) with subtlety but his kid just can't do that, no matter how much the other guy helps out. The twin Guild Navigator thing was also a good byline, but it wasn't presented very well. And so on.
One of the things I can't understand is *why* this guy can't go back to basics. He has tons of material to work with laid out by his father, yet he can't score a 10 to save his life. For example:
- Flesh out the story of the Fremen. The whole Missionaria Protectiva deal that's implied when Jessica and Paul find the Fremen on Dune as well as the migration of the Fremen throughout the centuries is a very interesting aspect of the books.
- The Sardaukar and Salusa Secundus. The House Corrino prequel book doesn't even come close to covering this area, which I think is very interesting.
- The relationship between the Bene Gesserit and "old world" religions like the Jews (Chapterhouse Dune) and so on. Very interesting byline as well.
I could go on and on. I believe Frank Herbert wrote Dune as a complex exploration of politics, religion, ecology, sexuality and the strength of the human spirit. These books are mushing those ideas to churn out nothing more than swashbuckler thrillers, and to be honest I really don't like it. They should open up the writing to other, more talented SciFi authors who grew up with Herbert and see what happens. I would *love* to see a Tales Of Sanctuary/Tempus-like franchise. I bet they would sell a crapload of books and keep us Dune fanatics happy for many years.Oh well.
Re:Dune, meh (Score:5, Interesting)
I actually finished this book last week. Although, you cannot even begin to compare the writing abilities of father and son, I've enjoyed the new books. Each book has gotten a little bit better and I actually enjoyed this book.. it had good pacing and got you involved in the story. SPOILER??... My only complaint is that it seemed to me that several things that were claimed on the book jacket [amazon.com], like the betrayal that made mortal enemies of Harkonnen and Atreides, were not actually in the story! Maybe I missed something?
Re:capsule review of Dune:Houses & brief ip ra (Score:3, Interesting)
With the first Frank/Brian collaboration, I could tell TO THE WORD where Frank stopped writing and Brian took over. The difference in real content was that dramatic, at least to my writer/editor eye.
Anyway, after reading 3 or 4 of Brian's books and co-books (if that's a word.. well, it is now), I gave up on him entirely.
You're right that other authors can't write in the venue -- unless they get permission from the franchise owners (I'm not sure who the legal owner is at this point, having not followed it that closely). But certainly if someone really wanted to, they could ask to be licensed for a book. Tho for all I know, arguments over creative control, and whether Brian Herbert reserves the right to [gods save us] rewrite the resulting novel may be the real show-stopper.
(Now let's see if slashdot is speaking to me. It's been disappearing my posts ever since the move.)
I like the mystery better (Score:3, Interesting)
The Butlerian Jihad having its own book sort of spoils some of the mystery of it for me. Does anyone else feel this way?
Re:Dune, meh (Score:2, Interesting)
Of course Dune ripped off Lawrence of Arabia, right? :)
Re:What is year zero in Dune Universe? (Score:3, Interesting)