Rating: 
Summary: Even better than House Atreides
Review: I loved the last book, but this one packs an even greater emotional punch. The authors are definitely making the Dune universe both complex and personal. This book gives some insight into some of the events that made Leto Atreides what he was up to the time he met Jessica. The family of Harkonnens (the book follows both good and bad ones) gains depth. Tragedy weighs heavily toward the end of the book, but it left me wanting to know what comes next.
Rating:
Summary: At last!
Review: House Harkonnen hasn't satified my appetite for Dune--it's made it worse! This prequel explains Duke Leto's seemingly exagerrated reactions to the attempts on Paul's life and Jessica's reputation in Dune...With that kind of background, his reactions now seem somewhat subdued! Towards the end of the book, the dueling Houses do get confusing, but I'm waiting for the third prequel before I make a judgement about it. I really enjoyed reading this book, just as much as I enjoyed House Atreides, and just as much as I will enjoy House Corrino. I think BA and KJA are doing an excellent job bringing it all together, especially in the face of, at times, very rabid, very venomous, "dedicated" Dune fans. Thank you for allowing us into the Dune Universe again!!
Rating: 
Summary: Good addition to DUNE universe
Review: I liked this book being a big dune fan and also as a fan of kevin j. anderson's other works. i would recommend this book to all DUNE fans
Rating: 
Summary: wait until the public library buys it
Review: Dune: House Harkonnen is the worst book in the entire series. It lacks the imagination of the six original books, and makes House Atreides look like a masterpiece by comparison. Readers of the Dune series have grown used to an intricate and well-developed plot. House Harkonnen fails to reach past a single layer of subtlety, and often does not even attempt to. It is a "muscle-minded tank brain" of a book, to use one of Frank Herbert's phrases. It's strongest suit is action sequences, but the action does nothing to advance the plot and seems to be added in to appeal to 12-year-olds. Not only do Herbert & Anderson fail to develop connections within their plot, they also display an utter failure to keep character development consistent or coherent. Each 6 page snippet seems coherent, but the scenes are largely unnecessary to the rest of the book. Indeed, House Harkonnen fails to develop or maintain a plot essential to the Dune series. In addition, the book neither begins, nor ends. The book could easily be excised from the series without the reader feeling that she has lost anything of importance. New monsters areintroduced, only to vanish completely from the text. The introduction of Gurney Halleck is forced into the text without any eye for developing him as more than a name. Abulurd Harkonnen would better remain a cipher than to have the bizarre interpretation that is placed upon him. In House Harkonnen his characterization is out of place with our knowledge of him from these other texts. Ditto for Wellington Yueh. Ditto for Liet-Kynes. Ditto for Duncan Idaho. Ditto for C'Tair and D-Murr Pilru. Ditto for Kailea and Rhombur Vernius. The list goes on. In addition, Herbert & Anderson have warped the space-time continuum of Dune far more than is probable of necessary. The introduction of cyborgs, the continuation of the melange project, the development of Salusa Secundus, the entirety of the ecological project on Dune: each bears but a scant resemblance to the world created by Frank Herbert. Frank Herbert had and created a vision of a fantasy world. He also had a master plan. Sadly, the younger Herbert and Anderson have chosen to cast aside the epic style of writing and write a book that cannot stand alone and that should not be considered part of Frank Herbert's Dune world.
Rating:
Summary: Vermillion Hells this is awesome!!!
Review: I have heard many readers of this book and its predecessor say it stinks. Its bad. It doesn't live up to Frank Herbert's original. Yadda yadda yadda. I am a big Dune fan. Yes this doesn't read like the original. But that is not necessarily a bad thing. Frank Herbert wrote the original Dune a long time ago. It was a different world then and he was a different man than his son and Kevin Anderson. So it is bound to be different. But after listening to the audio version of these two books I am blown away. Tim Curry's narration and vocal skills truly bring the characters to life. The story he and the authors tell is in a word epic. It is the age old struggle of light and dark, good and evil, love and hate. But it all still seems new and fresh. Listening to Curry's rich voice you almost feel as though you are standing in the halls of Castle Caladan or the slave pits of Giede Prime. It was awesome! Each character seems like a real person. They have breath and thoughts and dreams. I have always said a good writer/actor will make you feel as though you are reading an excerpt from a real person's life. Misters Curry, Anderson and Herbert do this in spades. So maybe it is not as great as Frank Herbert's stuff (i.e. Gurney Halleck and Liet Kynes meeting years before Leto's arrival on Dune) but just on its own merits I have to give it 4 stars.
Rating: 
Summary: Decent, but i expected more
Review: Reading the other reviews, I must agree with them to some degree, I have read all the Dune books and they are one of the few series of books that made me think to a great degree. These two new books don't do that for me but I enjoy them all the same. He is a decent writer, but his father was by far the master writer of the family. I do hope that he does not try and undertake a book that would follow Chapterhouse Dune. I think that would cheapen the series. This trilogy seems to spark an intrest for readers to get into the Dune series itself, and I hope thats what it continues to do.
Rating:
Summary: The most readable Dune book
Review: Let's face it: despite its brilliant plot and philosphical musings, the original Dune was not a book that you could simply sit down and read. It required thought and thorough concentration. Let's face something else: the current generation does not particularly enjoy working through a huge, complex, multi-faceted book. I think that House Harkonnen was written for kids more than adults: fast-paced and not spending much time on reflecting about the nature of the universe. Though traditionalists may wince, I think that the new book is keeping up with the times nicely. This is definetely the most readable book in the series. I've only had it for 3 days and I'm already on page 400!
Rating:
Summary: Not a match to Dune, but still a good read for Dune junkies
Review: It's almost infinitely hard to match the talent of Herbert the elder; however, Brian Herbert does a good job in trying. "House Harkonnen" fills in some of those missing gaps and provides additional info that you're left wondering about if you truly love the book "Dune." It provides additional traits about the Atreides impending rise to power and offers an intensely in-depth look at some of the main characters, and also the smaller ones, like Hasimir Fenring, which are never entirely explained in the original Frank Herbert series. The series is about as addictive as melange. Although true Dune fans will certainly be disappointed, they should recognize that nothing comes close to the Elder Herbert. It's still a stimulating fast read for those that want to be labeled as true addicts.
Rating:
Summary: Despite all the flashy fighting, nothing interesting
Review: I consider myself pretty well versed in Dune and science fiction in general, and aside from all the flubbed details and odd additions, the most disappointing thing about this book is that it's not really about anything. The Dune books are about how humans change and are changed by their environmanet, how religions can run away with people, how knowing the future would rob life of all meaning, and lots of other things. Science fiction is supposed to make you think, for instance, what would it be like if a single institution, like CHOAM (or OPEC, for instance), owned the single most important resource in the world. This book was not only written at a pre-teen level, there was no depth to it, nothing to think about. I was bored. P.S. Not to be too pedantic, but some of the errors were really obvious, like mixing up a fixed and an unfixed crysknife, (look it up in the Glossery to Dune!) and misquoting the Orange Catholic Bible, (not an obscure quote, one the characters actually discuss in Dune) though perhaps that was for politically correct reason. Between the authors, who were making their own kind of Dune encyclopedia, and the editors, someone should have caught that stuff.
Rating: 
Summary: WHERES THE BEEF?
Review: This book reads like a STAR WARS novel for 15 year olds. Definitly not up to par to the epic mesmerizing sci fi classic.
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