“Dune Messiah”, by Frank Herbert

331 pages, Ace Books, ISBN-13: 978-0441172696

Dune Messiah is the second of Frank Herbert’s Dune series, which is comprised of six novels in total (not including all those books that his son, Brian, and Kevin J. Anderson are writing; don’t get me started). It takes place twelve years after the first book, where we see that Paul Atreides – “Muad’dib” – rules as Emperor of the Known Universe and as the Fremen messiah. In this role, he unleashed a holy war which conquered (reconquered?) most of the known universe and slaughtered 61 billion people; while Paul is the most powerful emperor ever known, he is powerless to stop the lethal excesses of the religious juggernaut he has created; he is also chained to his prescient visions, knowing that there are things he simply cannot avoid. Damn, it’s tough running the Universe.

This first sequel to Dune is only about 330 pages long, but it’s still a dense and complex read, lacking as it does the narrative drive of its predecessor since there is no longer any compelling villains like the Harkonnens to help propel the story forward (welllllll…okay, I won’t spoil it; you gotta read the book). Plot threads and characters from the original that were implied to be of great importance in the future only warrant a brief mention or are totally ignored; likewise, Dune Messiah continues Herbert’s tendency from the original to not depict major events or plot twists, but leave them only to discussion after the fact. The original Dune, for all its thematic complexity, was still a fairly straightforward “Hero leads a rebellion against evil villains” tale, while the sequel purposely unravels this prototypical plotline in favor of…something else. Overall, Dune Messiah, despite the denseness of the work, is a quick read, but it feels more like an epilogue to the original Dune than a proper sequel.