Rating: 
Summary: A Ripping Yarn
Review: Well, it's an engaging story and difficult to put the book down. Although I missed how Father Frank plumbed the depths with his character development and his ecological philosophy... I'm still glad that Son Brian isn't trying to be the father. He and Anderson are doing it their own way, which I think is cool. I'm sure that fans will be vexed by lots of contradictions and discontinuities; such as how do the characters jaunt around the universe in trips that don't seem to take longer than a month without The Spice, when 10,000 years later poor Emperor Saddam is humiliated because there won't be an Empire without it? Trying to figure out this kind of stuff might take away the fun, which is what I'm there for, not waiting for everything to be explained to me. Some things may never be answered, but I don't care. Can't wait to read the next book in the series, and can't wait to see what they do with Father Frank's notes on post-Chapterhouse Dune!
Rating: 
Summary: Subtleties
Review: How many factors known to the participants are remembered thousands of years later in legends, or even a few years later in history? How are facts distorted by influential people and why would they want to do it? How does a legacy begin? What constellations of sad events and tiny interactions among ordinary people can precipitate an avalanche? Herbert and Anderson explore these dimensions and many others in their retelling of early Dune history. Don't be fooled by the apparent simplicity of plot and character - it's very bold and terribly true. Erasmus, for example, is definitely not your standard Asimovian robot. Great going, guys! And yes, please, I'll have another helping.
Rating: 
Summary: Too Simplistic
Review: While many readers poo-pooed the Dune prequel trilogy, I really enjoyed it. The stories and characterisations were interesting and they opened up the background to me as well. With this experience in mind, I was happy to treat myself to The Butlerian Jihad. This event, dropped into the original Dune story in dribs and drabs, has always spoken to me because of it's epochal effect on the Dune universe. Dune's characters all suffered from the same interesting prejudice in that they hated machines due to the Butlerian Jihad. Their very piousness was rooted in blind prejudice and this made them extremely interesting because they were so obviously flawed. A sci-fi universe with no thinking machines was ground breaking stuff and I'd been looking forward to reading about it and the great figures of the time (Tio Holtzman etc) for many years. I've nearly finished the book and have to say so far I'm disappointed because it's just too one dimensional. The book for starters begins at the beginning of the end. The old empire has already fallen and Human planets face off against the robot ones (the Synchronised Worlds). The humans are clearly goodies and the robots (and their lackeys) are obvious baddies with very few shades of grey inbetween the characters at all. Likewise, the storyline offers very few genuine surprises. Many plot threads and facts are explained in depth by the authors as they happen. This happens enough times that the reader recognises a pattern and can easily notice the instances where a plot thread is introduced and the authors then fail to immediately explain it (eg the 2nd transmission towers on Giedi Prime). You just know why it will come up later on and this precognition effect destroys the suspense. The hardest task for the authors has been to create robot characters (would robots be individuals?) who are alien - the human brained cymeks making a good exception. An easy quandry to understand becasue if the robots are too alien, they will be too hard for a reader to understand and connect with. This seems to be the reason why the authors create characters like Erasmus, an independantly minded robot who aims to study human-ness. However Erasmus is inconsistantly portrayed and the authors slip up at times. For example Erasmus tries to create art but cannot comprehend the creative process and **in frustration** tears the canvas apart. The robots act inexplicably human despite all the assertions to their machine intellect. Instead of a machine mind (such as the Borg or in the Matrix) they act surprisingly dumb and fail to utilise their machine advantages that we so often read about (longevity, lack of emotion, productivity etc). Instead, they keep human slaves for menial tasks when machines would be far more efficient and much logistically cheaper, they allow human slaves to work in extremely critical areas, they limit themselves to worlds that support human life, they do not outstrip the humans in productivity, the machine overmind (Omnius) often communicates verbally rather than via any machine link, the machine minds to not actively seek to gain information other than a paltry few spy drones and the machines make tactical decisions that are worse than unimaginative because they aren't even based on cold logic. For example on Giedi Prime they open their assault with a "brilliant tactic" by using a sacrifical kamikaze cruiser to destroy a ground target. Asteroids (as used in Niven and Pournelle's "Footfall") would be far more effective (and efficient). I really wanted to enjoy this book. So far I'm singularly unimpressed with the threat of the robots because they aren't much worse than the one dimensional mechanical badguys found in the Transformers cartoons.
Rating:
Summary: lighten up
Review: The trouble many Dune fans are having is their reluctance to
admit that Brian Herbert's prequels are more accessible and oft times more entertaining (on a visceral level) than the original series. Show me someone who claims to actually enjoy the religious/political/social/economic ramblings of the original series, and I'll show you a liar. Dune Messiah is a prime example of Frank Herbert's gleeful frolicking in areas most readers don't give a da__ about. To his son and K. J. Anderson: a heart-felt "Thank You."
Rating:
Summary: A solid fourth installment in the Dune prequel series
Review: The Butlerian Jihad is a very entertaining book, and that is why I gave it four stars. I still read books for the pure enjoyment of it, and discovering the ways in which Frank Herbert's son imagines(and hopefully researched) that the Dune Universe, the one that we all know from the origional Dune, came to be is about as enjoyable as most storylines I can envision. That said, this book is not incredibly well written. The character developement is the poorest of any book in the series so far, and the plot lines take on some awefull turns. The predictability gave way to a feeling of a massproduced science-fiction story that was released more to make money than to pay tribute to the world of Dune. If you are looking for a litterary masterpiece, move on, but if you are looking for a highly entertaining read that is near impossible to put down (no matter how predictable it sometimes can be) look no further.
Rating: 
Summary: Do not apologize
Review: It is so obvious that the 5-star ratings are from the authors or the editors/publishers of this book. [Please! I love this book after the first 100 pages?] What kind of review writes, "Pick it up, and see how they envision how it all begin," seems a lot more like a sales pitch. The book has its strengths, like it reveals some of the basic origins of phrases we hear a lot, such as Holtzmann and Butler. However, I can't help but feel like Herbert and Anderson got it wrong. I've always inferred from the original Dune that the Butlerian Jihad was a rebellion from within machine-dominated worlds, like slaves rising up and smashing machines, the triumph of the human spirit. This book tells it as if there were always two sides, one machine and human, and they decide to fight a war, except the machines don't have atomics. It very much belittles the struggle of humans (so what if Serena had to go through some torture? her boyfriend Harkonnen has SHIELDS and ATOMICS and TELEPATHS(don't ask)), I mean, how can humans have been so dumb for 10,000 years if they've always had those weapons but couldn't use them even after billions of people died. I am not an apologist, if I wanted to read "simple, easy-to-read, straightforward and easy-to-comprehend" I'd go read some Star Trek novels or watch some Pokemon. If I wanted easy plots and simple cause-and-effect, I'd go watch the Discovery Channel or Crocodile Hunter (blimey!). So there is no excuse, really... And one last hint for the publishers, don't say the original series was hard to understand (it hurts sales, don't it?) and don't say that you enjoy the prequels b/c the originals were so hard to read... if you didn't enjoy the original Dune's, why in the world would you even pick up a prequel? Sounds like one of the many bad plots devices you'll find in this book.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Turgid and easy to put down. The last prequel series was fairly interesting, and I was looking forward to this one, but this thing lacks energy, invention or characterization. It just plods. I can't seem to get through more than 20 pages at a time before I'm thinking about necessary chores I could be doing. Doubt I'll finish it. 2 stars for "has moments"
Rating:
Summary: Substance over style.
Review: The first piece of the latest pre-trilogy from Brian and Kevin is not a highly intricate literary masterpiece. But let's face it, niether was the first Dune book. The famed wheels within wheels didn't really start to take hold until late in the series, and some of the "political intruige" that so flabbergasted sci-fi audiences could have been pulled from a random Clancy novel. But what made Frank's works so enjoyable were the depth and the characters. Even as the complex situations began to grow around them as the series progressed, you still had an iron grip on each character's motives and personality. What has haunted the prequels so far has been Kevin J Anderson's background in the modern pulp fiction of licensed novels, and their decision to assign writing duties by standalone chapter. That pacing style is screamingly evident in the 4-page chapters that successively address a different subplot each chapter with a regularity you can set your watch by. So why 4 stars? It's still Dune. The 'lite' newsstand fiction approach makes it very easy to get into the galaxy-shattering events that are taking place, wheels-within-wheels or not. This writing duo may not have the stylistic Midas touch that their elder God did, but the yarn they're spinning is highly enjoyable nonetheless. I say keep it coming, and I can't wait for Dune 7.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Background to Dune, Stands on its Own.
Review: I just finished Dune: Butlerian Jihad. This is an outstanding prequel to Dune, and seeks to help explain the origins of the different factions in the Dune universe. This is every bit as good as the previous House Harkonnen, House Atreides, and House Corrino.
Not quite as complex as the Frank Herbert novels, but interesting nonetheless. You can tell that there was a tremendous amount of research that went into the story. This sets up a couple more future books to get to the time of the three noted above. I look forward to more Dune activity from the authors.
Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty Good.
Review: This book was a nice addition to the Dune-prequel series. The one thing that kept me from giving it 5 stars was that I started the book believing it was a stand-alone book, a belief which was reinforced by the wording of the inside jacket summary. About 3/4s of the way through it, I figured out it was turning into another series akin to the "House Atreides-Harkonnen-Corrino" line. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I was kinda hoping to not have to wade through another 3 books to get to the end. On a personal note, the way this book presents the Butlerian Jihad is not the way I ever pictured it from the original series. I always saw the Dune past as a world not too different from ours (albiet with much more advanced technology). Then a group of anti-technology unabomber-esque radicals seized power and went on a rampage, destroying all "evil" computer technology. And because they controlled society, they wrote history to reflect their own views (not unlike Orewell's 1984). Over the millenia, the people of the galaxy attatched religious and mythological significance to the "Jihad", forgetting the truth of what really happened. I always thought this coincided much better with Herbert's world of complex religious, political, and societal maneuverings. But that's just me. The book was enjoyable to read, and in the end, isn't that the real truth?
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