Title: Children of Dune
Author: Frank Herbert
Type: Fiction
Page Count/Review Word Count: 384
Rating: 4/5
I was a little bit worried going into this one because it’s been a while since I made any progress on the Dune series and so there was every chance that I wasn’t going to remember where we were in the story or what any of the lore meant. Luckily, I fell pretty quickly back into the world, and once I was absorbed, it was pretty easy for me to keep on powering through it.
I was pretty happy with the way in which we were following a different set of characters, although the original core of characters still remained relevant too. There was even a death that kind of upset me, although maybe that’s because I loved the character’s name as much as I loved their personality.
As usual with the Dune books, we get a bunch of worldbuilding that worked great, and it was interesting to see the way that Fremen society started to evolve after water came to Arrakis. On top of that, because Paul Atreides is presumed dead, the religion that he found himself the figurehead of is experiencing something of an existential crisis.
There’s also all of the politics and intrigue, as well as the familial backstabbing that makes Dune so famous to begin with. It’s basically Game of Thrones in space, but with massive sandworms and a drug called Spice that causes wars and stuff. There’s a lot of fun stuff on offer, and while it’s the same kind of stuff that you might expect from reading the earlier books in the series, that’s no bad thing. It’s good that Herbert is consistent.
Overall, if you’ve read the first two Dune books and you’re thinking about continuing, I’d definitely say that it’s worth it. The same is true if you read the second and weren’t too sure, even though I personally enjoyed that one. I’m also excited to see what the rest of the series has in store, even though I think I’ll quickly get fatigued if I try to just power through it. It’s the kind of series that needs to be savoured, and so I’ll probably trickle it out slowly over time. Good stuff.
