Book Review: The Second Great Dune Trilogy

 

This is a 2022 hardcover printing of the books of the second trilogy of Dune novels written by Frank Herbert: 1981's God Emperor of Dune, 1984's Heretics of Dune, and 1985's Chapterhouse Dune. The first novel tells the story of Leto II's reign over the empire, and the last two involve the Bene Gesserit versus another clan of powerful women called the Honored Matres. The stories in these novels are very far removed from those told in the original Dune novel and its first two sequel novels. Although characters like Paul and Jessica are mentioned, the massive time jumps used by Herbert mean they are long dead and not actively involved in the events of any of the books in this trilogy.

The hardcover version of the trilogy is just under 1000 pages. I found none of them easy to read, mainly because many new characters were introduced without much setup, and the storylines became increasingly convoluted with each book. So, none of the storylines were all that easy to follow. And, not much action happened in any of the books until the last handful of chapters. Ultimately, if you are a fan of the Dune series and have invested the time to read all the other novels, this set is worth reading, if nothing else, to see where the story goes. However, if you are only a casual fan or a fan primarily because of one or more of the live-action adaptations of the original novel, you may not like this trilogy, as none of the novels in this trilogy are as good as the original Dune novel or the prequel novels that were written by Frank's son, Brian, and Kevin J. Anderson.