Review: Hunters of Dune

Recap: Frank Herbert wrote the sci-fi equivalent to Lord of the Rings in his stunning series called Dune. He wrote six novels in the series, which basically span…oh, 5000 years? Yes, it’s insane. But very good books. I won’t even get into what they are about. You can read Wikipedia just as well as anyone.

The seventh book in the series (meant to be the last) was never written because, alas, Frank Herbert passed away. Talk about a cliffhanger!

Fastfoward years into the future when Brian Herbert (his son) finds a safety deposit box of his outlines of Dune 7 as well as back stories galore. What does he do with this information?

Teams up with Kevin J. Anderson (yay!) who write a trilogy of prequels, a trilogy of prequel-prequels and have recently (in the last month) written Dune 7 (which basically have been split into two novels – Hunters of Dune and Sandworms of Dune).

I picked up Hunters of Dune and was worried that I wouldn’t remember where the story left off from Chapterhouse: Dune but I found myself immersed into the story quickly. The authors realized that there were more extreme cases than myself (having read the book in the past few years) whereas some people haven’t read Dune 6 in TWENTY years. So they wrote the prequels to get interest back into the Dune universe before unleashing the conclusion of the series (which, surprisingly has a lot of prequel information within it. Think Star Wars: Special Edition.)

I really enjoy the writing style of the both of them and find this novel highly engaging and was probably one of the more interesting Dune books out there from the main Dune series. One must wonder how much is really Frank Herbert’s vision, but I trust his own son to be true to his father’s plans.

I enjoyed the clashes between the Honored Matres and the New Sisterhood, as well as the Face Dancers taking a larger role (people who can shift their appearance? Always cool!) and the every mysterious Old Man and Woman who showed up in the last paragraph of Dune 6 and people have been wondering for 20 years who the heck they are. You find out in this book which is amazing. Never saw it coming.

In the end, this was just a tease to me because the book basically sets up the major story which will occur in the conclusion – Sandworms of Dune. In hindsight, I should have waited until Sandworms was out in paperback as I hate buying hardcover books. So now I’ll have to wait a year to find out how the Dune saga ends. I’m excited to read it as I’ve invested myself fully in this universe and enjoy even more than the Lord of the Rings world.

I feel I can’t even really talk about major plot lines in this story because one mention of them would ruin the story for potential fans…so if you have enjoyed the Dune series up until now, go out and grab this book. It’s a page turner. But maybe you should wait until you can read Sandworms of Dune because I feel like a Harry Potter fan without his next novel. Helpless and upset.

iplaying: Society – Eddie Vedder – Into The Wild