Sandworms of Dune
by Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson
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Book Summary Information
Author: Brian Herbert, Kevin J. AndersonEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Published)
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2007-08-07
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 496
Publisher: Tor Books
Book Reviews of Sandworms of Dune
Book Review: A big disappointment
Summary: 1 Stars
I recently revisited Frank Herbert's entire Dune series for the first time in close to twenty years. I re-read Dune itself every few years, and it's among the most brilliant and imaginative books I've ever read, science fiction or not. I recall being underwhelmed by the remaining books in the series. Upon rereading them, however, I came to realize how much of my problem with the five later Dune books came from my being too young (in my teens) to really understand what Herbert was trying to do, and, perhaps more importantly, why he was trying to do it. By the end of the series, the teenage version of me was essentially just flipping from one page to the next, without much actually registering--including the cliffhanger ending of Chapterhouse: Dune. I basically put the book down and immediately looked forward to reading something I could understand.
Upon my second time through the whole series, I was pleasantly surprised by how much more sense the second through sixth books of the series made. (I didn't get any smarter between my teens and thirties, but I am a better reader.) And that translated into a much more enjoyable read. The series still didn't knock my socks off--I think Herbert's reputation wouldn't have suffered, and might even have been strengthened, had he published Dune and then never written another word--but the latter books were much better-written and intriguing than I remembered.
Intriguing enough, in fact, that I felt a small surge of interest when I found that Herbert's son, Brian, and another author had used Herbert's notes to conclude the series with Hunters of Dune and Sandworms of Dune. I was leery of the new books, because I couldn't think of many cases where something great (or close to it) can be taken over by somebody else and still maintain its greatness (Tim Burton's Batman movies in comparison to Joel Schumacher's Batman movies, for example). But nevertheless I checked both books out from the library, expecting to be moderately disappointed.
As it turns out, moderate disappointment would have been great news. I thought both of these books were awful. One of the things that intrigued me most about Frank Herbert's books is his dealing with characters that, while human, are exceptional not only physically but also mentally--even the ones not gifted with prescience are brilliant, far-seeing, controlled, and clever, their dialogue oblique, clever, and packed with meaning that it takes the average dope like myself hard work and some time to follow.
The characters in Hunters of Dune and Sandworms of Dune have none of this. Characters that, in previous Dune novels, have represented the not just physically but also mentally advanced products of thousands of years of crafty genetic planning, are reduced to shrill, irrational, over-emotional children.
Herbert (the younger) and Anderson also seem to have no concept of many of their characters' basic motivations--motivations that have been well established over the couple thousand pages of previous novels. In Frank's hands, characters' decisions were usually made (or forced) based on a clear vision of their futures, and both their successes and their failures, their glory and their dooms, are accepted either nobly or shamefully; in Hunters of Dune and Sandworms of Dune, decisions are made by whatever headless chicken is currently running around at the front of the pack, while the rest are often frozen by fear of the unknown.
My arguments might stand up better if I could quote specific instances of these complaints, but that'd require re-reading the books, and it's not worth it. I should have stopped with Chapterhouse: Dune and its cliffhanger ending.
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