The Dark Side of the Dune ***SPOILER ALERT***

books:


	• Dune Messiah (Dune Chronicles, Book 2) Frank Herbert Ace, 1987 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 179 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

A great follow-up for fans of Dune!

Dune Messiah is the second book from Frank Herbert in the Dune Series. Paul Atreides is now the Emperor/Duke of Arrakis with his Fremen wife Chani and his Imperial concubine, Irulan. In Dune Messiah, the reader starts to see the internal struggle that Paul battles throughout the book. A battle between trying to prevent the jihad from his fremen followers that he sees so much in his future vision and trying to be a husband to Chani and protecting Alia (his sister) at the same time. As with any Emperor with such a following, there are those out to make Paul's life miserable at every turn. I felt this was a much more personal book than Dune itself. It gives you a glimpse at how life is for an Emperor in such a position and the reader gets to see that Paul is infact a human being that struggles with being the possible messiah that his people and all those around him need.

Overall, an outstanding book in the Dune series and every bit as enjoyable as Dune.

for more information click here

Really, this is such a fine book

It is the one time Frank Herbert let himself (or his editors let him) become truly literary in the series of books about Dune. It must be in the nicest sense of that term.

I remember being young, near to thirty, and reading the first time, comparing impressions with friends in the quiet, hands-on moments at our r&d work.

Perhaps we didn't feel the sweep of the original Dune, though in another way it is actually there -- behind, and in the spaces opened by many observations in the text. And it didn't seem to compare with the adventures of Leto and Ghanima and the D-wolves, though today for all that the Children of Dune book is important, it is lesser.

In Dune Messiah, the depth of individual story is drawn almost as with Asian brushes: swift, naturally spreading strokes, that you take a moment with to let the understanding come to you, how evocative. There is not summary, yet also there are summaries of whole thoughts, as in the sad ending not of Paul, but of Bijaz, whose power as a person and character just give glimpses of Frank Herbert's breadth of achievement.

I have never been able to understand the later books after Herbert died, though there can be a certain fascination in some of them, and now think that they are simply very different works, as if a very different historian had been read to us. Then there is credit where due.

Of Frank Herbert's deep and long creation, it's apparent also how he took different avenues himself, perhaps guided by editors, by 'results' for this Dune Messiah particularly. He had a life to support, and could no doubt find fun and satisfaction in putting forward what people most seemed to want to hear, all the way to Miles Teg, who was a great creation also.

Would that he could have pursued the tracks of Dune Messiah further in some places and ways, and perhaps he did -- the rest of the series I also have before me to read over. What he did here shows the soul there was behind it all, and it is a thanking matter indeed to meet him so.

Highly recommended, and as you see, for reading 'again'.

for more information click here

Bought it!

Okay now I have all of the Dune series from way back-but, I did go an purchase the new hardcovers with Brian Herbert's Introductions-They are so wonderful to read! The book is exquisite.

Wonderful book

it's rare to find a sequel on par with the original. This one fits the bill.

The Dark Side of the Dune ***SPOILER ALERT***

Forgive the bad pun. But this book is a bit dark compared to the original. Dune was a sweeping epic. Dune Messiah is a singular story focusing on the darkness implied in Dune. Although Dune ended in a very triumphant fasion...there were unresolved tensions about the coming Jihad and what would happed when Paul Atreides became Emperor/Messiah. Those tensions are explored here. Yes...the writing style is different...and no this is nothing like the original...however I still enjoyed reading this book and had a hard time putting it down.

I love the way the book kicks off giving you the details of the conspiracy. Similar to how Dune laid out the Harkonnen plot within the first few chapters. I also really enjoyed the introduction to the Bene Tleilax. Scytale and Hayt were great characters. I wish Scytale had been fleshed out a bit more. While all the talk about prescience and Religion/Government went on a little too much, I still find it to be intriguing. I think Frank Herbert could have been a philosopher. Other than the ending I thought the coolest aspect was how when Paul loses his eyesight he can still see everything around him because it was part of his vision. The ending of course was the best part of all. Especially when little Leto makes contact with Paul and Paul has a true 'Kwisatz Haderach' moment when he sees all of the male perspectives in his line. Frank Herbert was an incredible writer and did not intend for this book to stack up to the first. I see it more as an exploration of 'The Other Side of the Coin' when it comes to seeing the future and well...being a Messiah.

for more information click here

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

With millions of copies sold worldwide, Frank Herbert's magnificent Dune novels stand among the major achievements of the human imagination as one of the most significant sagas in the history of literary science fiction. Dune Messiah continues the story of Paul Atreides, better known-and feared-as the man christened Muad'Dib. As Emperor of the Known Universe, he possesses more power than a single man was ever meant to wield. Worshipped as a religious icon by the fanatical Fremens, Paul faces the enmity of the political houses he displaced when he assumed the throne-and a conspiracy conducted within his own sphere of influence. And even as House Atreides begins to crumble around him from the machinations of his enemies, the true threat to Paul comes to his lover, Chani, and the unborn heir to his family's dynasty.

for more information click here

hot