“Sandworms of Dune” Review

Sandworms of Dune by Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson

2 out of 5 (It was ok)

Based directly on Frank Herbert’s final outline, which lay hidden in two safe-deposit boxes for a decade, Sandworms of Dune will answer the urgent questions Dune fans have been debating for two decades: the origin of the Honored Matres, the tantalizing future of the planet Arrakis, the final revelation of the Kwisatz Haderach, and the resolution to the war between Man and Machine.

Review:

Sandworms of Dune was the second and last of the add-ons to Frank Herbert’s classic Dune series. Since I continued with this book right after the previous one, Hunters of Dune, the rather poor writing style did not bother me as much since I was more familiar with it, however, it was still clearly less than good. I enjoyed Sandworms more than Hunters, but both were kind of unnecessary to add to the originals, in my opinion.

I did not like the frequency of the use of external characters/events (external to the main Dune saga). The new authors have written other expansions to the Dune universe in the past, such as prequels and in-betweens, and it felt like they were giving their own characters a little too much attention. I doubt the original author would have used them in such a way, some maybe not at all.

Again, many characters felt like cheap knock-offs of their former selves. At one point, there was a saboteur amongst one of the character groups, and wow, it was so undeniably obvious who the culprit was, with clear reasons why. Frank Herbert’s Bene Gesserit and Mentat characters (whom the characters were supposed to be) would have figured it out in less than an instant, but here they were clueless.

I could definitely see flashes of what Frank Herbert’s final outlines must have contained, because the basic ending made sense in a lot of ways. Yet I think if Herbert had completed it himself, it would have been much, much better, and also done completely differently.

NEXT BOOK: Shogun. I’ve heard extremely high praise for Shogun, and last month I went through a bit of a Japanese phase.

© 2013 FOTS Fantasy

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