“Children of Dune”, by Frank Herbert

408 pages, Berkley Books, ISBN-13: 978-0425074992

Children of Dune is the third book in the Dune series; although there are six Frank Herbert authored books in total, the first three form a trilogy, essentially the biography of Paul Atreides and his family (the other books take place much later, as you’ll soon find out). Nine years after the conclusion of Dune Messiah, Paul Muad’dib’s orphaned twins, Ghanima and Leto, are quickly growing up and realizing that they are pawns in an epic struggle for the control of the Imperium. Paul is believed to be dead, a martyr last seen at the end of Messiah. The political and religious empire he had created is prospering under his sister, Alia, who is acting as regent until Paul’s twin children come of age. With indications of decadence already appearing, a mysterious Preacher is speaking out against the failings of this empire, and there are those who believe that this Preacher may in fact be Paul, still very much alive.

One of the reasons that this book is stronger than the second book is the return of Lady Jessica, absent since the end of the first book. With her daughter Alia seemingly going mad (read the book to find out what’s really going on), Jessica becomes entangled in plots that could be fatal to her and her grandchildren. The twins themselves, intellectually far older than their physical ages and gifted with inherited talents, are hardly helpless in all this intriguing. However, Children is no light-hearted romp through a perfect future, for Herbert created one of the richest and most detailed universes in science fiction, extrapolating Earth history into a much larger cosmic history. There are so many ideas at work here – religion, politics, conspiracies, ecology, energy, culture – plus subplots that don’t appear to go anywhere (at first); Herbert reveals them gradually like peeling away the layers of an onion. In this third book, the story expands in ways that are almost bewildering at times. But I never lost interest. A dense, almost convoluted narrative that is both fascinating and frustrating, and a worthy ending to the first trilogy.

“Louis XIV (European History in Perspective)”, by David J. Sturdy, edited by Jeremy Black

222 pages, Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN-13: 978-0312214289

It turns out that there was more to the Sun King than Versailles, wars, wigs and a killer set of legs (according to him). David J. Sturdy’s Louis XIV is part of a larger academic series of books called European History in Perspective, and is really meant for the serious scholar or the history geek extraordinaire, designed as it is to provide a concise study of the defining aspects of the reign of Louis XIV: the nature of French monarchy, methods of government, the King’s relationship to his subjects and to the church, the organization of cultural life and France’s relations with the rest of Europe, are all considered. Sturdy relates Louis and his regime to the longer-term movements of French history and to some of the wider historical forces at work in 17^th Century Europe. He raises past and present historiographical controversies surrounding Louis XIV and indicates some of the major problems in interpretation which still confront historians. All-in-all, Sturdy manages to penetrate beneath the well-known events, personalities and images of the reign to gain an understanding of the historical forces and realities with which the Sun King and France had to contend; he presents a carefully organized and lucid account of the defining aspects of the reign, although, it must be said, in a rather dry and academic style that should appeal to the serious student of France, but which may turn off the more casual reader.

“White Heat: A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties”, by Dominic Sandbrook

976 pages, Abacus/Little, Brown UK, ISBN-13: 978-0349118208

White Heat: A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties by Dominic Sandbrook is, like its predecessor Never Had It So Good, brilliant – and, like that previous book, it takes its title from a speech given by the dominant political figure of this era; namely, Harold Wilson, the Labour Prime Minister from his narrow victory on October 15^th, 1964 to his unexpected defeat on June 18^th, 1970 (“[t]he Britain that is going to be forged in the white heat of this revolution will be no place for restrictive practices or for outdated methods on either side of industry”). Wilson’s government was, perhaps, unique for its supreme arrogance, frivolity, intemperance and misapplied ideology (which is saying a lot for government); and though the PM had committed his government to reforming British society in the “white heat” of a scientific revolution, Labour rarely managed to do more than smash things up or tinker about at the edges (which seems to be a common Labour theme, then and now: promise revolution, deliver stagnation). It must be admitted, however, that Wilson and his modernizers were hampered from the get-go by public finances which had been debauched by the Tories and their chancellor, Reginald Maudling (as Jim Callaghan, the new Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer sat at his desk at No. 11 Downing Street on October 17^th, 1964, Maudling stuck his head round the door and said from under a pile of suits: “Good luck, old cock. Sorry to leave it in such a mess”).

I found White Heat to be better organized than Never Had It So Good, with each chapter coming in at a reasonable 20-pages or so, and with Sandbrook tending to alternate chapters on political and economic matters with social history, which helped the book flow seamlessly between more weighty issues to more frivolous ones between 1964 and 1970. Thus, while we get the low down on Britain East of Suez, the conflict in Rhodesia, the crisis in Aden, the Vietnam war, grammar schools, the Time of Troubles, the Bogside district of Derry, George Brown, Barbara Castle, Richard Crossman, Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn and Cecil King, we also learn all there is about Doctor Who, pop art, Terylene and Formica, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, the new towns and Ronan Point, foreign holidays, mods vs. rockers, the 1966 World Cup, the Hayward Gallery, The Avengers, Biba and Till Death Us Do Part (crikey!). It all leaves little room for the pompous industrial themes of the period, from Concorde, to the AGR nuclear power stations or the motor industry (mind you, this does not deflect from Sandbrook’s achievement in cramming so much into so little; rather, it just serves to underscore all that was going on in Britain during this most turbulent of decades).

Sandbrook’s ultimate argument seems to be that, for all of the chaos and upheaval that seemed to be going on, British politics, society and culture in the so-called Swinging 60s were predominantly characterized by continuity, conservatism and conformity. The Beatles, for all their avant-garde musical showmanship, were firmly in the British mainstream traditions of the music hall and the Goons to the bohemian scene of the 50s and the satire of that era. Similarly, the Rolling Stones were apprentice country gentlemen (offstage), and Sandbrook relishes the anecdote that the bibliophile Keith Richards “was later forced to cancel several concert dates after falling off a ladder while searching for Leonardo da Vinci's book on anatomy”. Sorry, old cock, indeed. White Heat, along with its predecessor, are a pair of must-reads for anyone wishing to know more about this fascinating period in English history, especially for ignorant Yanks, like me.