Rating: 
Summary: Not As Good As It Could Have Been
Review: Having read most of the dune novels, except the house series...this one is pretty decent. It was very irratating at the beginning of this novel, how they kept repeating the information on "manion the innocent" having read the first in this trilogy and knowing the ending it was not necessary to continously repeat this. If i was not a large fan of the dune series i would probably have stopped reading the book because of this.Character development was decent, but killing off almost all major characters at end of novel was surprising none the less. Guess they didnt want these characters alive in the next novel. However having started to read the battle of corrin now, i understand why these characters were killed off. All in all it is a great book to read, look forward to finishing the last of the trilogy. Just wonder if they will try to write another trilogy in the dune universe somewhere.
Rating: 
Summary: Continuity and bleievability not consistent with Frank
Review: I read the original Dune novels several times because they were well-written masterpieces not only of science fiction, but also (arguably) or modern literature. The other prequels seemed to carry on that tradition of fine storytelling as well as anyone could be expected to without being on par with Frank Herbert, and I read those once. I noticed minor inconsistences in the other novels, but they never bothered me too much. This second book in the "Legends" series is a different story.
One thing that had bothered my since THE BUTLERIAN JIHAD was the fact that there existed Sorceresses who had telepathic powers. This exists nowhere in the senior Herbert's Dune universe. Granted, he wrote characters with extraordinary abilities, but these abilities always stemmed from extremely intensive development of faculties already possessed by humans in the real world. Paul Muad'Dib was no telepath, but could "see" the future. He was, essentially, a mentat.
Paul was a mentat, and I am not the first reader to make that assertion. The spice melange, in classic Dune, was a drug that modified brain function and, in the case of Paul Atreadies, interacted with his own unique body chemestry that was a result of eons of breeding in a way that the mentat faculties he had been unwittingly trained in since birth were amplified to superhuman levles. Guild navigators enjoyed similar benefits from the spice, but at a much greater cost to their humanity and freedom. In this cost, I find it difficult to accept that humans possessed telepathic powers thousands or years before the culmination of the kwizats haderach program.
The powers of the Sorceresses of Rossak bother me for another reason as well. Presumably, this group of women will evolve into the Bene Geserit. If the Bene Geseret had, in the distant past, possessed powers of telepathy, wouldn't it have been of great importance to them to maintain those abilities? Hell, if they had that, they wouldn't have needed Paul for anything. Not even the Honored Matres possessed such power. Also, why the hell does foldspace have a high rate or success without a prescient navigator? That really bothers me. And why is it possible to manipulate physical matter with your mind after your body has been destroyed? I could ramble on, but I just don't want to say any more about the faults of this book.
Though this work is irreparably flawed, I must read it and those books still to come. If you've read the rest of Dune, like I have, you may find that you have the same problem. But seriously, I could have done better myself.
Rating: 
Summary: Another "Dune" novel enjoyed!
Review: I am a big fan of Frank Herbert and his Dune series and was pleased to learn a few years ago of the efforts of his son, Brian Herbert, and Kevin J Anderson to flesh out much of the untapped material left by his death. I knew however I would have to take these books on their own merit.
The Machine Crusade is one of those books. The second in the "Legends of Dune" series chronicling the great struggle in which humans throw off the bonds of slavery from their machine masters pics up twenty-four years after volujme one, The Butlerian Jihad, at a frightful pace. One which never slackens. Jumping from one important turn of event to another, sometimes without enough buildup, the parts of the book jump entire years at a time. But there is never a dull moment. Because of this all-ctionstyle it seems like we don't really get to see some of the characters as much as we would like. Zufa Cenva and her genius daughter, Norma are archetypal in the disapointed parent/dissapointing child roles. Even when things like this, which are reiterated time and again, are resolved it's a split moment of the book.
I thought the Butlerian Jihad allowed us to roll with the tide of history, but The Machine Crusade pushes us ever faster. It's like the first book was a regular long-distance space ship and now the Machine Crusade has fold-space technology.
I wished that the authors had teken the time to flesh out more characters and events as they had with the first one. I'm sure they could have gotten two novels out of the one if they had wanted to. But for pure adventure and getting a grasp on the history, instead of a glimpse as Frank Herbert had always given, this truly is truly worth reading.
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