his volume concludes the second Dune prequel trilogy begun with The Butlerian Jihad (2002) and continued with The Machine Crusade (2003).
The events of this volume initially take place some 60 years after the events of the preceding book. Partway through the narrative, an additional 20 years intervene. Taken all in all, then, this prequel covers a whole century in the most crucial period in mankind's galactic history, in the scenario first envisioned by Frank Herbert some 40 years ago.
At center stage is Vorian Atreides, the supreme military leader of the human League which is fighting a war to the death against the Synchronized Worlds, an empire run by the AI named Omnius, from its base of Corrin. In his 80s, yet still youthful thanks to the longevity treatments conferred on him by his detested father, the cymek Agamemnon, Vorian is aching to break the stalemate between the two forces. (The small corps of cymeks is at war with both the machines and the humans.) Vorian wishes to exterminate the thinking machines entirely, making the universe safe for humanity. Assisted by such able officers as Quentin Butler and his sons, Faykan, Rikov and Abulurd, Vorian is continually questing for an edge. (The current generation of Butlers carries on the legacy of Serena Butler, the first martyr and originator of the Jihad. But they also, through intermarriage, perpetuate the less admired Harkonnen line.)
Perhaps the salvation of humanity will come from genius inventor Norma Cenva, who first created the spacefold drive. Norma is struggling to solve the remaining glitches in the drive, and taking more and more of the fabled Arrakis spice to gain insights. On that desert planet, two factions of natives struggle to determine what kind of lifestyle they will embrace. Meanwhile, Norma's Sorceress sister has her own plans, involving careful breeding of the human race for certain abilities.
But when Omnius unleashes an engineered biological plague on humanity, the League goes from proactive to desperately reactive. After enduring much mortality, League doctors discover that spice offers some immunity against the plague, and Arrakis assumes an even greater role in galactic affairs. Recovering but still in chaos, after a third of their population is killed, the League embarks on a genocidal plan to sterilize all five hundred Machine worlds, despite the presence of human hostages. They end up at Corrin, but are stymied by its defenses. Twenty years will pass before the climactic moment when Vorian faces Omnius in a final showdown.
Frank Herbert's
foundation
Any future history worth its entry in the Encyclopedia Galactica must entail a huge hidden backstory. Such was the case with the original Dune (1965) and its sequels. The reader always knew, thanks to allusive hints from Herbert, that many interesting historical events had preceded the personal story of Paul Atreides. But we were presented with all the institutions and conflicts of Herbert's cosmos as givens. We never got to see the formative events that resulted in Herbert's universe.
For some future histories, such as Cordwainer Smith's Instrumentality, this mystery is part of the allure. We do not want things explicated too fully. For others, such as Asimov's Foundation series, the impulse to substantiate every perhaps-chance-dictated quirk of the original by reverse-engineering is strong. (In fact, it's a curious parallel that both Asimov himself and Herbert's heirs needed to explicate a scenario wherein robots had once been numerous but were now absent.) Given this insatiable but perhaps unwise motivation and drive on the part of both the authors and the fans, I think that Brian Herbert and Anderson have done just about as good a job as possible.
This is a series that has grown better with each volume. Unlike the previous prequel trilogy, which was set a generation or two back from the time of Paul Atreides, this series does not labor so much under the aura of the originals. By going back in time 10 millennia, the authors were able to carve out their own territory. The characters and conflicts all possess their own dynamics and individual natures unallied to the exact forces of Frank Herbert's narratives. Yet they retain a familial connection that allows the reader the pleasure of seeing Frank Herbert's universe in embryo. For instance, we finally learn the satisfying origin of mentats, the navigators, face dancers, the Bene Gesserit and the Atreides-Harkonnen feud, among other facets. And these origins ring true with Frank Herbert's vision.
Also appealing is the Greco-Jacobean revenge-tragedy aspect of the tale. Anderson and Brian Herbert boldly inflict vast disasters on individuals and worlds. No one comes out unscathed, but even a despicable character such as the robot Erasmus gets to reveal a sympathetic side, evoking pity in the reader. We get a true sense of individuals as pawns and knights, kings and queens, in the grip of cosmic forces. Equally admirable are those moments of off-kilter weirdness, akin to the stylings of Alexandro Jodorowsky in his various series connected to Incal. A fan of Dune, Jodorowsky originally borrowed much from Herbert, and it's only justice that the Dune books borrow back some of his sophistications.
