One of my all-time favorite books is Frank Herbert’s DUNE. Today I finally got my hands on HUNTERS OF DUNE, the long-awaited ‘sequel’ to the original 6 DUNE books. I’d been reworking my way through the original series (DUNE, DUNE MESSIAH, CHILDREN OF DUNE, GOD EMPEROR OF DUNE, HERETICS OF DUNE and CHAPTERHOUSE DUNE) to get all the backstory fresh again in my mind before continuing on in the DUNIVERSE as they say, especially now that the ‘last’ book in the ‘trilogy’ (8 books later!) is out: SANDWORMS OF DUNE. (Kind of reminds me of Douglas Adams’ ‘trilogies’ with their 6-8 books!!) Funny how the backs of the books after DUNE MESSIAH proclaim each to be “the astounding climax to the story that is DUNE” (or something similar to that) only to have yet another book come out a few years (or in this instance, decades) later continuing that very same story… Hummmm…

While I like the ‘prequels’ Frank Herbert’s son Brian Herbert, who along with Kevin J Anderson, has written based on Frank Herbert’s original notes (HOUSE CORRINO, HOUSE ATREIDES, HOUSE HARKONNEN, BUTLERIAN JIHAD, MACHINE CRUSADE, BATTLE OF CORRIN), they felt a little too much like STAR WARS 1, 2 & 3 – since we’d seen what had already happened to the characters by RETURN OF THE JEDI, the ‘earlier’ episodes (or in the DUNE case ‘prequel’ novels) just don’t have enough surprise in them for me as seeing/reading the originals had. A little bit of a ‘been there, done that’ flavor to them. Just like the Star Wars prequels, though, the DUNE ones did have some good sections with enough ‘new’ background info to help flesh out the whole multigenerational story arc. I’m hoping that HUNTERS OF DUNE, also based on notes left by Frank Herbert, will give me the continuation of a story left hanging by a master, and not too much rehash of the previous events to ‘fill this one out’ to book-length.

The one book that was quite interesting in the somewhat ‘prequel’ category, though, was THE ROAD TO DUNE, where Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson took the early notes for the original DUNE and fleshed them out, showing how the whole thing evolved from a fairly pedestrian story/novella to the now classic book. It also includes Frank Herbert’s correspondence, giving insight into his personal ‘voice’.

It should also be fascinating to see how the ‘character prequels’ by BH/KAJ will be: PAUL, JESSICA and IRULAN, all supposedly based on their early years which have only been hinted at or slightly fleshed out in the earlier books. These will be more Brian Herbert/Kevin J Anderson based work, so the comparison will be fascinating between these and the ones where they had the working notes of the original author to spring from…