Children of Dune

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⭐ 8/10

I looked back at Goodreads for my first review of this book, and shockingly I gave it 10/10! I know the first time I read it I was in Death Valley, which is surely the best place in the world to read this. I also distinctly remember the final sequences of this book blowing me away, the most unexpected event happens that completely reshapes what these books are going forward, and the first time I read it it might have been the most shocking moment in a book for me ever. That moment still lands - it took me 4 months to read 3/4 of this book and then a day to read the last quarter. However, this book is mostly a bunch of commentary. Politics, mysticism, philosophy. Every character's inner thoughts are all sort of the same thing, full of scheming and planning. Leto and Ghanima are the most interesting here, especially compared to Alia, and I had a memory of this book being a lot more of them. There are just whole arcs here I was checked out on, especially knowing what was coming.

Dune Messiah surprised me by being better than what I remembered, and this one was the opposite. Still, I am glad I read this, and I am hoping notes of this story show up in the next movie. Probably not, and I bet there will be a terrible TV show pitched for it after the movie is a hit, I just think this story could be really condensed, probably an excellent movie. The philosophy and meandering thoughts are mostly beyond me, and anyone who claims this is some religious text that they understand would be lying. I kept think this felt like a book Elon Musk would like, which is offensive to Herbert, but I can imagine fake intellectuals acting like they understand this book and feel some sort of kinship to these characters.

This is the end of my Dune reread, and I will probably just check out some summaries of the next three. It was worth it to read Messiah again.

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