Book Review: Heretics of Dune (Dune #20 Chronological Order, #5 Publication Order)

 

Heretics of Dune, published in 1984, is the fifth of the original six novels in the Dune saga written by the original author, Frank Herbert. It is the 20th book in the saga (including the novels co-authored by Frank's son, Brian, and Kevin J. Anderson) if you read the series chronologically. In this novel, there is another significant time jump from the prior book. This book is set 1500 years after the events of God Emperor of Dune and Leto II's reign, with his "golden path" having been implemented. After an event known as "The Scattering," in which humans spread out across the universe, power is divided among three groups: the Ixians, the Bene Gesserit, and the Tleilaxu. A new matriarchal group called the Honored Matres begins to wreak havoc throughout the Old Empire through violence and sexual conquest.

The length of the book will depend on which version you have, but it is generally around 400 pages. The story is not all that easy to follow, especially since, aside from Duncan Idaho, most of the characters are new (because of the time jump). And this version of Duncan is a ghola (basically a clone), so he is really not the same character as in the original novel. The story also jumps around a lot, so it is not all that easy to follow what is going on, and the overall point of the story is not all that clear until the last couple of chapters. To me, because Herbert had the massive time jumps between his Dune novels, by the time you get to this one, it is so far removed from the original story that it does not really feel like it is part of the same story. It is just a new story set in the same universe, with the names of the original characters dropped in here and there. Ultimately, I would describe this as an okay story that improves toward the end of the book. I would not, however, call this a must-read, especially if you were only really invested in Paul's arc, since that story has almost nothing to do with the events in this book.