Alas, we come to the end of a fantastic series.

books:


	• Chapterhouse Dune (Dune Chronicles, Book 6) Frank Herbert Ace, 1987 - 435 pages average customer review:based on 106 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Alas, we come to the end of a fantastic series.

In Chapterhouse Dune, the usual players are back with the Bene Gesserit and the Bene Tleilaxu coupled with the Honored Matres, who are hell-bent on destroying everything in their path coming back from Leto the Second's Great Scattering. Previously, the reader briefly meets the Honored Matres, the corrupt offspring of the Bene Gesserit sent out into the Scattering and Heretics of Dune ends with the capture of a valuable Honored Matre in Murbella. Fast forward to the present and Murbella is becoming more and more heavily influenced by the Bene Gesserit and starts to give up her Honored Matre roots to become a full Reverend Mother. In Chapterhouse Dune, Murbella becomes a valuable tool for the Bene Gesserit, both in giving them invaluable insight into the ways and ideas of the Honored Matres but also as a valuable advisor to the Sisterhood itself. In addition, the Bene Tleilaxu are being wiped out in incredible numbers from both the Honored Matres from the Scattering and their own corrupt Tleilaxu that came back from the Scattering.

As indicated earlier, the Honored Matres are back from the Scattering and hell-bent on not only destroying every planet in Leto's Old Empire, but intently seek the Bene Gesserit's home planet of Chapterhouse Dune so that they may have a firm rule on the galaxy once and for all. Yet, there are some questions surrounding the Honored Matres that the Bene Gesserit begin to ask. Why are the Honored Matres back from the Scattering? Is it strictly their hatred of the Bene Gesserit and all it represents? Or were they driven back from the Scattering by someone or something? These questions are answered in Chapterhouse and the answers are fairly surprising.

In come the Bene Gesserit and their quest to save the known empire. Odrade is now a full Mother Superior stepping in for the deceased Mother Superior Taraza. A lot of the issues that faced Taraza are on Odrade's plate now. A lot of the book revolves around Odrade's "mysterious plan" that she lets others in on in bits and pieces. However, Odrade throughout a lot of the book goes against the typical Bene Gesserit grain and she must balance maintaining order within the Bene Gesserit and it's few factions with battling the Honored Matres against the slaughtering of all of the planets they've worked so hard to populate. There are a few new cogs in her plan as Murbella comes to their side, as Sheeana gradually begins her training for the Bene Gesserit, and a new ghola of an old friend from Heretics of Dune are all part of Odrade's new plan.

What I liked a lot about this book was the fact that the Bene Gesserit finally SEEM to be human. For the past 5 books or so, all the reader saw was a very manipulative religious sect that did whatever it could as long as it benefited the Bene Gesserit line. If it didn't benefit humanity too then that was just too bad. Chapterhouse Dune gives the Sisterhood a very human side as their new Mother Superior in Odrade struggles against time honored traditions and rules of the Bene Gesserit in her attempt to adapt the Bene Gesserit into the modern world and for once, saving humanity as well.

The main reason I give this book only 4 stars, is the fact that the final battle between the Bene Gesserit and Honored Matres was a disappointment overall. I expected a little bit more of an epic battle/struggle/etc that what transpired in the last 40 pages or so. In addition, an improbable solution between the Bene Gesserit and Honored Matres seems a little ridiculous after their vicious hatred for each other and especially their histories throughout the last 2 books or so. Then the Tleilaxu getting very little face time in Chapterhouse and being passively slaughtered without a big fight really was a little disappointing. They were such an intriguing group in the whole plot against Paul, Leto II, and the Bene Gesserit.

Yet, despite my few complaints towards the end, I still absolutely loved Chapterhouse Dune. I haven't enjoyed a series this much since I read Stephen King's Dark Tower Series and J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter Series. As others have said, Herbert spent 6 years just researching the concepts that would make the Dune Series alone and in a great portion of the books, you can tell it's very well-researched and thought out. Couple that with the fact that a lot of these books are going for bargain prices on Amazon Marketplace makes the series an even more attractive one to any potential Dune readers. I almost gave up on the Dune Series 3 years ago when I couldn't understand the first book in Dune. The terminology sometimes is difficult, but my best advice would be just to read through it. Particularly do a lot of your glossary reading in the first book and even though there aren't any glossaries in the rest of the books, you can deduce a lot of terms just from the first book alone. Above all, Thank you Frank Herbert for some of the best science fiction I've read.

-Travis

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American Gothic, Face Dancers, or What?

It appears at God Emperor Leto II's Golden Path has brought the destruction of not only Dune, but humanity itself. The Bene Gesserit are, slowly, turning their beloved planet Chapterhouse into a haven for sandworms, but the whorish Honored Matre's are breathing down their neck and the ax is raised. The last of the Atredies must find a way to escape into the Scattering or be trapped forever beneath the thumb of a chaos worse than any that has come before...

This book is slow, tedious, confusing, and utterly captivating. From someone who finishes 2 or 3 books a day if they're good enough, this one took me 2 weeks to finish and, circa page 275, helped me towards a nice hour-long nap. The last chapter only adds to the confusion, one in which I've yet to decide the old couple the most recent ghola-Idaho sees throughout this novel are emancipated Face Dancers, the elderly couple from American Gothic, aliens from the Scattering, or what-not.

Still, if you're a fan of the series, you'll want to read this last work of F. Herbert's before his death.

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Acceptable, but not worthy of its predecessors.

The problem with this book isn't so much about the book. It is pretty much standard sci-fi fare, with a bit of intrigue thrown in for good measure. The problem is, it gets progressively worse, page by page. The break where the children finished the book is stunningly obvious; it is fairly clear that they didn't inherit their fathers talent. If it were on its own, it would be decent, hence the third star. However, when placed at the end of a line of excellent books, it is at best overshadowed, at worst an insult to its predecessors.

Starts good, gets bad, has a kiddy break somewhere after that and goes downhill fast. Simply put, if you have never read a Dune book, or if you are a hardcore fan who simply has to know how it ends, then this is a maybe. If you are a softcore fan who just read them because they were interesting at the time, don't waste your energy.

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Interesting "Sort of" Ending

I just finished re-reading my copy of this. I like it because I am a huge Dune fan. But I didn't necessarily like it as much as I did the other books in this original Dune saga. What was most interesting to mewas the transition of power and the technical aspects. But I think many things didn't have a complete wrap-up and this didn't provide an ending I had hoped for for the masterpiece that is the original Dune story. I haven't read enough about Frank Herbert to know whether he planned anything else, and since his son went on to write a lengthy multi-book prequel, I don't know if any notes existed for a book to follow this. I guess I felt a little unsettled and like I had just read a long mystery that didn't explain itself in the end. I don't think this type of ending takes away from the greatness of the series but I think it does leave it slightly unfinished.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

The desert planet Arrakis, called Dune, has been destroyed. Now the Bene Gesserit, heirs to Dune's powers, have colonized a green world and are turning it into a desert, mile by scorched mile. In this, the final book in the Dune Chronicles, Herbert again creates a world of breathtakingly evolved characters and the contexts in which to appreciate them. The richness of detail and perspective fascinates, while the multi-layered plot evolves as pages turn. Riveting from end to end, the legend lives on in the greatest science fiction epic of all time.

" Impressive...the whole saga will be one of the monuments of modern science fiction." (Chicago Sun Times)

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