This article is part of the meta-post Another 3000 words or how copyrights are creating a controversy on Chartreuse. This article gives a few details of the upcoming book in the Dune universe Hunters Of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson which will be published on the 22nd of August 2006.
The main reason why I am rereading them is the upcoming release of Hunters of Dune.
Here is a short review of the upcoming novel. Hunters of Dune will appear in stores on the 22nd of August 2006. Sandworms of Dune will come out next year.
From Publishers Weekly
After two prequel trilogies to the legendary SF epic (the Legends of Dune and Prelude to Dune series), Frank Herbert’s son Brian, in collaboration with Anderson, launch a new trilogy that takes up where Herbert Sr. left off with Chapterhouse: Dune (1985). This entertaining if over-the-top update begins three years after the refugee “no-ship,” Ithaca, has fled Chapterhouse and the brutal Honored Matres, a corrupted faction of the all-female Bene Gesserit order led by Mother Commander Murbella. Duncan Idaho, Murbella’s ex-love slave, guides the ship carrying reincarnated warrior Miles Teg, the dissident Rev. Mother Sheeana and 150 other refugees. While Murabella deals with violent rebels from within, another more sinister enemy, Omnius of the Synchronized Empire, secretly infiltrates the Honored Matres and other challengers with shapeshifting Face Dancers as he plots humanity’s destruction and the ascendance of a civilization of machines. Using genetic material, the refugees begin recreating historical Dune legends, including Paul Muad’Dib and Lady Jessica, setting the stage for the long-foretold battle at the end of the universe. Herbert’s ecological and religious concerns now seem oddly prescient, but this sizzling update, still filled with crazed women who sexually enslave men, sometimes borders on campy 1950s B-movie parody.
I guess that the Butlerian Jihad served as a pedestal to seed the storylines of the upcoming books. I found this artifice somewhat lagging in ingenuity. After 10000 years, the machines are back. We know now, because Omnius send out deep space probes from when Geidi Prime was a Synchronized World, to all corners of the galaxy. Somehow, I find this distasteful. Even more distasteful is the return of Muad’hib, Lady Jessica and others. This is just plain wrong. In the current chronology, they died thousands of years ago and I do not think that Frank Herbert wanted them to return, even if they could. The characters have been explored in depth before and there is no need for them. I think that the cast of Duncan Idah, Miles Teg, Reverend Mother Sheena and others should have been enough of Herbert and Anderson. Well, we will see how it all turns out in two weeks.
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It is also part of the meta-post Another 3000 words or how copyrights are creating a controversy on Chartreuse.
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