Sandworms of Dune By Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson.

Why is religion important? Because logic alone does not compel a person to make great sacrifices. Given sufficient religious fervor, however, people will throw themselves against impossible odds and consider themselves blessed for doing so. Missionaria Protectiva, First Primer.

What was started in 1965 with the publication of Dune now finally concludes in 2007 with Sandworms of Dune. In the year 10191 the Bene Gesserit program to create the universes superior being got out of control and instead, produced Paul Maud’dib, a prophet whose visions plunged the universe into war, and unified the universe for millennia. There is a danger is precognition; once the future is seen, it is set, and the course of humanity must follow that vision.

Now, seven novels later, five written by Frank Herbert, two by his Brian, with Kevin J. Anderson, the saga comes to its climatic conclusion. Further enhanced by six prequels, three on the generation leading up to Maud’ Dib, and three set far back in history describing the Butlerian Jihad, the Universes, (to that point) defining conflict. Thirteen novels, and a fourteenth, Paul of Dune, due out in a few weeks time; that is definitely an epic saga.

Dune introduced many concepts, the most important of which is the Spice, Melange. Spice vitalizes the body and greatly extends life. It also expands consciousness, and it was this property that made it so vital to the Guild Navigators. Space travel is easy; surviving it is hard. To do that, you have to plot a course through hyperspace, and Spice gave the Guild Navigators the precognitive power to do that. They were absolutely vital to space travel, and that made Spice absolutely vital as well, and that made the source of spice the key to controlling the universe, the planet Arrakis, nick named Dune.

There are four power groups. The Guild we have spoken of. They consume massive amounts of Melange, and have absolute authority on Space Travel. The next power block is the political, the Landstraad, the governing body of the hereditary rulers of each world. They are headed by the Emperor. The next two are schools, and diametrically opposed to each other. The Bene Tleilax are scientists, and produce the Mentats, the human computers, because in the wake of the Butlerian Jihad, no machine can be made in the image of the mind of man. The Tleilax are cloners, calling them ghola, and splicers, creating Face Dancers, shape shifting spies. Tleilax represent man’s technology forcing nature to submit to its whims. All Tleilax seen are male. The Bene Gesserit Sisterhood are concerned with the perfection of humanity by selective breeding, personal training, and societal shaping. Their plans and goals are measured in thousands of generations. They wield seduction and religion as their weapons.

Maud’ Dib destroyed that world order; his Jihad united the worlds of the universe in a common faith. His control of spice production insured the Guilds cooperation, and the Landsraad he controlled by becoming Emperor.

The Bene Schools continued, each plotting and scheming, and much time passed in what passed for social order. But both sent missions into the dark regions of unexplored space, and from those returned forces unrecognizable to their parents.

One such group was the Honored Matres; they were females, honed to killing machines, with a passionate hatred of the Bene Tleilax, and their Jihad against them drove the order almost to extinction.

Also out of the dark came another threat, this one from the Bene Tleilax, Face Dancers so flawless that even the Bene Gesserit telepathy and truth sense could not unmask them.

And these forces played through the universe for thousands of years, warring, plotting, and hatching plans with in plans with in plans.

And these are the disparate threads that the final volume must gather together; threads reaching all the way back to the thinking machines that started the Butlerian Jihad.

Sandworms of Dune

Aboard the no-ship Ithica Sheeana, a Bene Gesserit with powers that allow her to control the sandworms holds a hidden repository of treasures. The ghola Duncan Idaho who was Paul Atredies’ weapons master, who has lived and died and been brought back continuously since that time thousands upon thousands of years ago. The Last Bene Tleilax Master, Scytale, a collection of Bene Gesserit sisters dedicated to the preservation of the order, a group of Jewish refugees from Gammu, four Futars, half cat men bred to hunt the Honored Matres, the ghola’s of all the major players of Dune, including Paul, Jessica, Yueh, and Stilgar, and seven sandworms. They elude the search of the enemy’s tachyon net, and face saboteurs aboard ship.

Meanwhile, in the Old Empire Murbella attempts to rally humanity against the attack of the Thinking machines. The Machines release plagues on world after world. Mother Commander Murbella commissions Ix to create more of the planet killing Obliterators. However this plan is in danger since the leader of the Face Dancers, Khrone, has replaced the leader of Ix.

The Face Dancers have further created mayhem by persuading the Guild to replace their navigators with Ixian Nav computers. The Navigators are being starved for spice.

But the Navigators are powerful precogs themselves, and have commissioned a Tleilaxu, Waff, to create a new sort of Sandworm. He does, an aquatic variety, with viciously potent spice, and they are released into the water world of Buzzell.

Waff then travels to Rakis, as the ruined world of Dune is now called, and tries the reintroduce the worms there.

The Face Dancers evil gholas, the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, and his protégé, Paolo, (Paul Atredies) are taken to the Thinking Machines home world Synchronicity.

As all these forces are brought into a final conflict that looks doomed to obliterate all life in the universe, both human and machine, it becomes obvious that only a Kwisatz Haderach, a super being, can resolve this. Where will they get one? Paul ghola? Paolo? Or is there another option?

The Analysis

When dealing with themes are diverse as religious zealotry, societal engineering, mind expanding drugs, human eugenics, genetic manipulation, the nature of time and prophecy, and artificial intelligence, it seems a monumental task to bring them together to a satisfying conclusion. Brain Herbert certainly tried, and by and large, he succeeded. There are some weak points in the plotline here, a certain lack of character development, and a feeling that some of the solutions were deus ex machina.

Of course, considering the number of plotlines under discussion, it is hard to imagine that each would receive exhaustive treatment. And as far as character development goes, the same claim can be made; there is a huge cast of characters here. And several characters, particularly the gholas young Wellington Yueh and Leto II achieved remarkable development, as did the memory of Reverend Mother Bellonda, reduced to a ghost in other memory; still, she grew into that role as well.

The last point, the god from the machine answers to certain problems…you can look at this one of two ways. It was a failing, pure and simple, a device to get to the end before the story budded off another volume. Or, you can look at them as the inevitable working of Prophecy…Paul Muad’ Dib’s act of seeing the future set it in stone; his son, the God Emperor Leto II saw much further, “The Golden Path.” I saw foreshadowings of some of these events when reading the Butlerian Trilogy. Others were carefully laid out from events that unfolded in Chapterhouse: Dune. Was it a masterful construction of divergent threads converging into a preordained resolution? Perhaps, but I still say it felt a little deus ex machina.

My own reaction to this pastiche, and its sister volume Hunters of Dune is one of profound enjoyment. Are they as good as what Frank Herbert would have done? No. But I put to you on the relative strengths of Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune in comparison to the earlier four volumes it is possible that Frank Herbert himself was not up to the task of concluding the saga with the same brilliance and panache with which he started the series. Still, the action sequences sizzle, the plot is engaging and the book is populated with characters that I have grown to care about over the course of my life time. If I have any single criticism it is this; I feel the rebirth of the gholas of Paul, Jessica, Stilgar, all the wonderful characters from the first book was a little heavy handed and over done. They were dead for thousands and thousands of years. Having them back felt a little like a comic book where the hero never stays dead for too long.

Still, it is wonderful to have an ending. The cliffhanger at the end of Chapterhouse rankled at me for many a long year; it cried out for completion. And now we have it, and it was bold, and visionary, just as was it’s beginning.

The Greatest Science Fiction Epic Ever.

The Frank Herbert Books:
Dune
Dune Messiah
Children of Dune
God Emperor of Dune
Heretics of Dune
Dune: Chapterhouse

The Butlerian Jihad Trilogy:
The Butlerian Jihad
The Machine Crusade
The Battle of Corrin

The Dune Prequels:
Dune: House Atreides
Dune: House Harkonnen
Dune: House Corrino

The Last of the Saga: The Posthumous Pastiche.
Hunters of Dune
Sandworms of Dune

The Jihad Years:
Paul of Dune
Jessica of Dune
The Support Books:
Dreamer of Dune: A Biography of Frank Herbert
The Road to Dune.

The Movies:
Dune
Dune: The Extended Version

The Mini Series:
Dune
Children of Dune