The Butlerian Jihad (Dune Series)

Rating:
Summary: Uggghhhhh
Review: Boy, was this book bad. I couldn't get through it quickly enough and onto my next read. None of the complexity of Frank's work. To call the characters "two-dimensional" is being generous.

Is there a synopsis of the following two books? I'd rather not endure the chore of actually reading them.

You know what really scares me? Certainly not a moron like Erasmus. Rather, the fact that B&K are writing two books to follow Chapterhouse. Let's hope they take some of the magic pixie dust that helped Frank come up with such awesome stuff and hopefully avoid the sophomoric tendencies that led to this drivel.

But semi-seriously, I suspect the only reason serious Dune fans spend time on these pulp novels is that we are so hooked on the entire Dune universe that we will wade through the horrible writing just to find out "what happens". Who can resist knowing something of the Butlerian Jihad?

One final question: when are the Dune comics and pop-up books due? ;-)

Rating:
Summary: Simply doesn't measure up...
Review: I have to say, this book does not live up to the standards of the 'Dune' series. Although it's not a half bad book in itself, it just doesn't fit in with anything else - not even the 'house' books by the same author.

For starters, the characters don't have nearly the dimension that they did in previous books. It's hard to connect with them sometimes.

The constant one-line ending to each chapter that the author is using is more than annoying. Ex: (after inspecting a planet to watch for weaknesses against the robots) "And completely unaware of the vulnerabilities he had not bothered to discover..." Of course he wouldn't discover it!!! If he did, there would be no next chapter!!! There are so many stupid endings to these chapters, it's sickening. Half of them could be ended one sentence before, and you know something's going to happen, so why foreshadow?

The book is also inconsistent with the other Dune books. They refer to things that haven't happened yet with a twist. Like the Tleilaxu and their growing of body parts. In this book, they claim to tell people they're capable of creating parts, but then it adds 'but the truth is that technology is years off - they really chop up slaves'. (pls note that is not a quote).

I guess if this book had to stand alone as a story, it wouldn't be bad. It just doesn't live up to the legacy. It's a shame when it seems like the author is hammering out books to make a profit as opposed to carrying on his father's dream for people to enjoy.

Rating:
Summary: A shadow of the original
Review: I didn't expect a lot, which was a good thing. Herbert and Anderson have produced "mainstream SF" -- decent characterization, interesting ideas, and adequate plot, but lacking the richness and brilliantly constructed framework of Dune. As other reviewers have mentioned, the authors practically bash you over the head with things they want you to "get," rather than let you puzzle it out yourself like the inimitable Frank Herbert did.

Bottom line: it's enjoyable enough for a bit of light reading, and for the game of exploring the possible history of the Dune universe, but don't expect anything nearly as good as the classic Dune series.

Rating:
Summary: A Good Example of Bad Fiction
Review: I'm a huge fan of Herbert Senior's fiction. I've read the original Dune series innumerable times. I'm the proud owner of a signed first edition of "Chapterhouse: Dune". I've read SF since I was hooked at the tender age of eight when I stumbled upon A. Bester's "Tiger, Tiger!". I read at least five or six books a month, half of which are SF. I've a pretty good grounding in classical and contemporary English language literature.

Once I've presented my credentials, let me say one thing:

The prequels SUCK!

Now let me elaborate upon that:

In the "House" prequels, the co-authors at least had to be consistent with FH's original universe. Now that they went back 10,000 years, they think they don't need to be that consistent with the originals. The problem is: they can't even invent a consistent, believable universe by themselves.

The premises are simpleminded: For example: How the hell can you sustain a whole technological planet --Poritrin-- with *no* computers (a hand calc qualifies as a computer here), totally around slave labor, and, incidentally, support advanced R&D of Holtzmann's caliber? Whoops! And there are no such things as Mentats or any other augmented intellects yet either.

The characters are cardboard-thin and mentally-challenged: Xavier Harkonnen's vaunted "military prowess" is idiotic. The first scrambler field installations' vulnerability is glaringly obvious to any hard-SF space-opera reader: dump rocks at gravity-well speeds on top of the centralized installation. Boom! Instant crater, forget about kindjal fighters. Yet the heroic soldier missed that through his six month inspection tour, even though he was instantly promoted to command after the same thing happened to his superiors (purely by accident, by the way: the first machine attack missed this too; so much for Omnius's love of efficiency).

The style is wooden, and it reads like the notes the authors passed around via instant messenger while they were bouncing ideas back and forth. "XXXX's eyes were misty, (s)he felt sad." See Spot run.

I originally read the "House" prequels to get my Dune fix, even if it was like having a saccharine-sweetened lemonade when I craved a triple-fudge sundae. I'm halfway through "The Butlerian Jihad", and even if it is awfully, horribly bad, I'm going to finish reading it. Why? I'm having way too much fun demolishing it. It's a beautiful example of how *not* to write fiction, so I'm learning a lot.

On the other hand, if you're not an aspiring writer learning by (bad) example, and you just want to enjoy a good book, stay away from whatever these two have written, it's not worth the hassle.


Rating:
Summary: Interesting interpretation of Dune pre-history
Review: While I enjoyed reading the book, and learning about the history of the technology and people developments that I've read about in the Dune series, I couldn't really get a sense that the events of this book took place millenia before the Dune series (as I recall, according to the original series the Butlerian Jihad was supposed to have taken place several thousand years prior to Dune). The political structures were the same, politics were the same, characters were a little more 2D. And it seemed like all of the wondrous developments of the Dune world took place seemingly at the same time. Portable Holtzman shield generators, the beginnings of space-folding, discovery of spice on Arrakis by off-worlders, Tlaxian organ growing, etc.

The other thing that struck me while reading the book was it's similarity to God Emperor of Dune. Replace Omnius with Sandworm Leto, the intelligent robots with the Fedaykin, the outer worlds with Leto's rebels and you have pretty much the same story as in God Emperor.

Overall, a good book, enjoyable and easy to read, but just not as satisfying as some of the other books in the Anderson/Herbert Dune collection or the original Dune series.