Sandworms of Dune by Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Sandworms of Dune
Book Review: A great read and a great wrap up
Summary: 5 Stars
I've been reading the Dune books as they've come out since the beginning, and while Kevin and Brian certainly have a different writing style, I like how they write, I like it a lot. They've done something that just didn't seem possible when I finished up Chapterhouse all those years ago, they've managed to explain the back story and tie it in with the original story and then wrap it up about as cleanly as you could. Are there more stories to be told? Sure, there could be more and I hope there are more, actually I'm pretty sure there are going to be more. I don't see it as milking anything, the original books are still there in their original state for any purists that don't like seeing anyone else in this space, but I for one absolutely love having more stories in this space that are well written and quickly engaging. Bravo to Mr. Herbert and Mr. Anderson for a great book.Book Review: A page flipper for sure
Summary: 4 Stars
I do not claim to be a Dune enthusiast, but I do enjoy reading Science Fiction novels and Sandworms of Dune caught my eye in the bookstore. The authors do an excellent job of describing the characters and the scenery. The reader is sure to have a good sense of how everything appears, while observing the characters develop at a moderate pace. The ending is surely a surprise, and it wraps up many of the scenarios developed in previous books. Gholas of several key Dune characters are involved in the main story, and it essentially takes off decades after the escape from Chapterhouse. Leto II, Jessica, Alia, Scytale, Yeuh, Paul, Channi, and several characters make a re-appearance. The Ultimate Kwisatch Haderach is revealed towards the end and it's quite a surprise since I never expected it. I am unsure of why there are so many negative critics of this book, but it will surely please Sci-Fi readers.
One thing that I found myself doing often was imagine the Bene Gessurit and Honored Matres to be more attractive than what many artists depicted in artwork, and how the Bene Gessurit were portrayed in the movies. I imagined Murbella, Janess, and Sheanna to be rather attractive "supermodel" heroine/secret agent figures like the ones you see on television serials (Alias, Chuck, etc...) with a full set of hair and high heels... certainly not scheming bald-headed evil women with dark leather clothing.
Book Review: A stunning ending to a grand epic.
Summary: 5 Stars
Finally the conclusion to an epic that started before my lifetime. A conclusion that fans have been waiting for for 20 years! Sort of like with Star Wars, only different. With Star Wars you knew where things had to go (since 4-6 had already been done, you knew that 1-3 would end up setting the stage for 4-6). This is different in that it is the end rather than the missing beginning. The twists and unexpected side currents were a joy and a delight. The pace for both Hunters and Sandworms was fast (or maybe that was just my hurry to get there). While Kevin's & Brian's style is not the same as Frank's in the original I appreciate that they didn't try to force themselves into a style that wasn't there own. I really enjoyed all 8 books these two have added to the dune universe. Adding to the history and character development of what Frank originally envisioned. The epic of Dune is great, and the final book was a delight to read. Kudos to Anderson & Herbert for a job well done!Book Review: A travesty
Summary: 1 Stars
A travesty of epic proportions...
This book will forever be synonymous with the literary holocaust that is KJA...
The authors should be prosecuted for crimes against literature...
The average chapter length is 5 pages. The reason they don't number chapters is you don't realize that 20% of the the book is the blank page that separates each chapter.
This book equals fail.
I eagerly await the deletion of this review by KJA's special forces.
Book Review: A very credible effort to bring closure
Summary: 4 Stars
I must confess to having been an absolutely voracious Dune series fanatic back in the mid-1960s when the legendary Frank Herbert began producing his amazing epic stories. His narrative writing was as concentrated and potent as I'd always imagined the fabled spice or melange to be, and certainly as addictive! When Herbert died (too soon) in 1986, it seemed that the Dune stories --- really a single-extended odyssey unrolled year by year --- would end with him.
Like other giants of science fiction and fantasy (Tolkien, Heinlein, Asimov, Roddenberry, for example), it turns out that Frank Herbert's fertile imagination produced mountains of notes, sketches, ideas, outlines and musings destined for future novels. And this is the daunting legacy taken up by his gifted son Brian Herbert and long-time collaborator Kevin J. Anderson. After the years of hiatus following Herbert Sr.'s death, they produced additional lore derived from the original Dune elements that evolved among powerful religious and familial dynasties (notably the Atreides clan) that ruled the fictitious desert planet, Arrakis.
SANDWORMS OF DUNE is the second of an extended double-novel conclusion to the series that was launched in 2006 with HUNTERS OF DUNE. Over an intense and breathlessly varied 500 pages, Herbert and Anderson simultaneously unravel and re-weave the fabric of Frank Herbert's immense plot structure in a very credible effort to bring its many components into a more or less harmonious state of closure.
As readers will find from the opening pages, the Herbert-Anderson technique of encompassing huge expanses of time, place and change results in a large story told through many small slices of plot that jump acrobatically through myriad dimensions. As disorienting as such vast leaps in sequence and character can seem, SANDWORMS OF DUNE does in fact establish a hypnotic rhythm and pace quite early in the tale.
The point of this (apparently) last Dune novel is to reconnect many dispersed key characters through their artificially gestated descendents, a race of space-bred clones called gholas who carry the memories, but not the direct experiences, of their illustrious precursors --- Paul Atreides, Jessica, Duke Letos, Chani, Stilgar, Dr. Yueh, Baron Harkonnen and Duncan Idaho.
The gap between concrete human experience and implanted ghola knowledge runs as a subtle and powerful undercurrent throughout this story, whose quest or mission is to reveal the final "Kwisatz Haderach," the superhuman, part-divine leader who can save humanity. The pointed irony is that such a leader does emerge, only to realize that people have changed so profoundly over the millennia that the entire race needs to undergo a complete philosophical and spiritual overhaul.
The broad structure in which the action and reaction of SANDWORMS OF DUNE takes place explodes from a decisive drawing of battle lines between human and machine intelligences, who don't limit themselves to the possession or destruction of mere planets, but of entire solar systems and galaxies. What drives the machine-beings are chillingly familiar traits learned from humanity (lust, greed, vengeance, curiosity); what drives the uprooted space-wandering humans are hauntingly familiar aspirations of the soul, bound by a kind of syncretised pan-theology that sanctifies both war and wisdom.
Forming another key subplot that takes on growing importance, like a slow crescendo throughout the book, are the sandworms themselves, who have a special rapport with certain humans and that harbor an unexpected antipathy to machine intelligences. For years, the behemoth worms have been the aliens readers love to hate, but they are portrayed in this final link of the story as both perplexing and paradoxical creatures with as-yet-untold potential to reform entire worlds.
While the Herberts, both father and son, have often been dismissed as theatrically long-winded writers who tell their stories the way Richard Wagner built his gigantic meandering operas, such criticism is too generalized to be meaningful. People have joked about Wagnerian opera for generations, but his Ring of the Niebelung is considered a pillar of human artistic achievement. The Dune series has done at least as much for large-scale science fiction.
And, we can't be so sure that the final curtain has yet come down on this grandiose "space opera."
--- Reviewed by Pauline Finch (paulinefinch@rogers.com)