Rating: 
Summary: They are losing creativity
Review: I have read all the prequels, and the disappointing downward trend continues. The cover flaps promise much but do not deliver, ie, the basis for the Atredies/Harkonen feud and others. The authors are overly possesed with how much violence and brutality the robots can inflict, but it is well overdone by several orders of magnitude. While entertaining, as a whole it loses cohesivness as it jumps from snip-it to snip it. It's worth reading, but wait til it comes out in paperback.
Rating: 
Summary: Oh my -- Frank Herbert - you would ...
Review: What a wait and for what a failure. I've lost count of the number of times I've read Dune since the late 1960's when I discovered it (as a follow-on to many of the other greats....). I've read all Mr. Herbert's sequels 3-5 times each, not to mention how many other author repeats during 40+ years of reading Science Fiction... the good, the bad, and sometimes the really..... But the prequels? I will not dignify them by calling them "Herbert." They may be necessary to enrich family coffers, but add NOTHING to the genre. The "..jihad.." at best is just another not necessary and formula-driven "member" of the bunch. I was so fed up with this one (same names, obvious subplots (e.g., selim, etc.), that I didn't even bother to finish it. Why bother. My advice to anyone who thinks they understand something about fiction/literature is to -- at most -- get this one from the library. There is little to add to Dune here except for a way to look at some prepackaged "history," ...; and there is NOTHING to add to Science Fiction. I'm glad I got rid of this one through a ..."sale"... AND, sorry I bought it new.
Rating: 
Summary: A worthy prequel to Dune, despite a number of shortcomings
Review: To say anything sensible at all about THE BUTLERIAN JIHAD, the long awaited beginning-before-the-beginning of Frank Herbert's perennially successful "Dune Chronicles," some background is essential. Not that this worthy addition to a major science-fiction (SF) dynasty by son Brian Herbert and co-author Kevin J. Anderson can't stand on its own --- but more of that later.When Frank Herbert gave us DUNE back in 1965, the desert planet of Arrakis and its mysterious tribal culture seemed exotic indeed. It wasn't only far removed in time and space, but well beyond most SF readers' imaginative experience. At the time (bear with me, all you Boomer Echo folks) we Earthlings were caught up in the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Soviet premier Nikita Kruschev's shoe-banging antics in the UN, the amorphous threat of China under Mao Tse-tung, and of course the televised horrors of Vietnam. It would be another two years before the infamous Six-Day War pitted Israel against a largely unknown (and so far ignored) Islamic-Arab world. So who would even consider the dry and disunited Middle East in terms of literary world-building? Who would dare build an alien planetary culture based loosely on half-a-dozen mainstream Earth religions, but bearing more imitative resemblance to Islam than anything else? Well, we know the answer to that one --- DUNE soared to the top of the bestseller lists for both SF and general fiction and stayed there. For another two decades, until Frank Herbert's untimely death in 1986, DUNE sequels hit the bookshelves at regular intervals. Soon there was a DUNE trilogy, then a second trilogy, and so on. But it was inevitable that growing pre-DUNE curiosity --- based no doubt on the exhaustive endnotes, historical lists, glossaries and maps appended to the inaugural volume --- would force Herbert's literary descendants in the opposite direction. Several more books appeared, broadening the galactic stage and filling in more and more characters. And that's essentially what the hugely ambitious prequel, DUNE: THE BUTLERIAN JIHAD, tries to be all about. It pushes further back than ever before into the convoluted history of Dune's scattered planetary societies, back to a time when humans rose in an arduous, chaotic and culturally devastating revolt against the "thinking machines" that enslaved them. Originally invented by humans, these super-robots, who combined mechanical superiority with relentless "fuzzy logic" reasoning, soon outmaneuvered their creators. From the existing series and the late author's notes, Anderson and Herbert have painstakingly pieced together an enormous, vibrant fabric from a mind-boggling array of tantalizing parenthetical references, subtle asides, detailed fictional genealogies and the like. Over scores of brief, unnumbered chapters that keep the book firmly glued to one's eyeballs (in defiance of real-life necessities like having to get off the bus, get up in the morning, or give in to the lineup at the bathroom door), THE BUTLERIAN JIHAD whirls from one character and subplot to another, allowing some to dramatically intersect, while others are left precariously suspended until later story threads retrieve them. Many of the major family names, notably Atreides, chronologically emerge here for the first time. As well, formative events, like the discovery of riding massive worm-beasts across the sand seas of Arrakis, are introduced. But like so many enormous projects --- especially inherited ones --- THE BUTLERIAN JIHAD falls into some common traps. It tries to navigate too much territory between only two covers; one often craves more sustained focus and less repetitive clutter. Additionally, it lapses far too frequently into extreme blood-and-guts violence that rapidly loses its power to shock, but not to disgust. And the title begs to be questioned. It's unfortunate that these skilled wordsmiths didn't choose a more appropriate keyword than a militaristic distortion of "jihad," which mainstream Islam reserves for discussing the discipline of pilgrimage and/or personal spiritual discernment. Ironically, a thinly disguised oppressed religious group modeled on Muslim culture is thoughtfully and respectfully portrayed. Despite its shortcomings, there are vast stretches of strikingly lyrical and cogent writing here. THE BUTLERIAN JIHAD worthily continues DUNE's original power to draw even the least empathic reader into fascinating realms of morality, philosophy and sheer rampant surprise. --- Reviewed by Pauline Finch
Rating:
Summary: so-so
Review: all i have to say is im disappointed. not as good as the origional dune series, litte worse than the first 3 prequels. i just hope the next two in this trilogy are actually worth the money.
Rating: 
Summary: I really like this book
Review: Like many of the reviewers here, I have read the entire Dune series, and Frank Herbert's Dune books twice. Of the prequels, I like this one the best. It reminds me of Chapterhouse and Heretics, which are two of my favorites outside of the original Dune. I was entertained. I thought they did a good job of putting me in another time and place. It gave answers to a lot of what was referenced in the original Dune series. I like the short chapters, except the skipping around to the different stories was a bit frustrating. The story is very violent. I understand some of the other reviewers' criticisms, but much of what they criticize about the book doesn't matter to me. I am glad that Brian and Kevin have continued the saga, and I can't wait for more.
Rating: 
Summary: A Prequel that Needed to be Written!
Review: There are many people who describe the original Dune series as a great work of art and literature, and should not be altered at all. I am not one of those. I found the latter books of the series to be some of the worst books I have ever read. I actually found the prequels to be entertaining as well. One main problem I had with the three prequels written previously was that they really shouldn't have been written. Though I enjoyed them, they had that profit-taking tinge to it. This series, however, needed to be written. Throughout the whole series, there were constant, constant references to the Butlerian Jihad. This jihad seemed to define a big chunk of the Dune, and for me, was a constant source of wonder. This book starts off this new series by describing the beginning of an epic war between robots and humans. Not only does it help define this struggle, the elements of the dune series begin to develop. The origins of Mentats, Bene Gessarit, Spice, Fremen, Wormriding, the animosity between Harkonnen and Artriedes, and what happened to Earth, are all started here. It's a great way to understand and appreciate the original Dune. This book revolves around Xavier Harkonnen and Serena Butler. In an interesting and likeable twist, Harkonnen is considered a great hero, and serves humanity, while Vorian Artriedes starts off as evil person bent on destroying humanity. This books describes and chronicles three different sets of planets. The computer controlled planets, the aligned planets fighting them, and the unalighned planets of humans. This describes the origins of the computer "Evermind" that controls the robot planets, and the cymeks (human brains, robotic bodies) who work under it. It then starts off with battles. Though the dialogue between robots and other robots is a bit weird, and the start of the revolution is a bit contrived, it still does not take away from the action filled and very informative nature of this book. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who felt cheated with Frank Herbert's last four Dune novels and his philosophical rants, and wanted to return to the world of Dune. This books if fun and a true page-turner.
Rating:
Summary: Just as GOOD
Review: When all is said and done, nothing compares to the science fiction work of Frank Herbert. Try as many might, they can can not match his writing scheme. Untill now, that is. Brain and Kevin have done a great job with the prequels to the dune saga, by competing the house trilogy. But in my opion never did they grasp such a comprehenshin of the Dune universe, as they have in the new book Dune- Butlerian Jihad. It amazed me to find out a lot of the books were from Frank herberts notes, and not the fruitive imagination of Brain Herbert, and Kevin Anderson.
Rating:
Summary: Let down
Review: The original Dune series and the first three prequels sewed the tantilizingly obscure seeds of the ancient man vs. machine conflict called the Butlerian Jihad. Everything that happens later has its origins there. Clearly the Jihad was THE event that shaped the Dune universe. I grabbed this new prequel the week it was released. I was expecting an epic, tourtured narrative of mankinds near extermination a la Benford's "Great Sky River." What I got was brains floating in jars, seriously. How 1950s sci-fi cliche is that? These poor plot choices combined with no real ending made this an agonizing read. I just never believed that THIS scenario created the Dune universe. This is a pulp novel of the disposable kind. Not a bad read in and of itself, but not really worthy of the Dune legacy. I'm going to pretend it didn't happen.
Rating:
Summary: A big disappointment. Poorly written and unconvincing.
Review: The thing that made the original "Dune" novel so great was its plausibility. It imparted a sense of reality and wonder that translated into real authenticity. The characters seemed like real people living on real planets in the far distant future. This book fails to do any of that. Having read all of the previous Dune books, I had lots of questions about, and notions about, what the "Butlerian Jihad" had comprised. When I read this book my reaction was "you have got to be kidding." I thought the other three Dune novels by Brian Herbert and Anderson were pretty worthy prequels. "The Butlerian Jihad," by contrast, misses the mark completely. I rarely give only one star to a book that I have actually finished, but this one will be an exception. Save your money. The authors can do better and should have known better. I don't know how they managed to produce this turkey.
Rating:
Summary: Put this puppy to sleep!
Review: ...this piece of [garbage] is far and away the worst screed I've ever picked up. Did these guys phone this one in? The other 3 prequels were a delight to read, and I was really excited about this one. After two chapters, I sent the thing back. Wouldn't have it in my house! Stay away from this one, readers!
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