The Shrine

Any Dune fans here? I'm about to finish Chapterhouse: Dune. I know FH's son had written a ton of prequels and sequels and such, but my impression is that they are not even worth reading. Has anyone read them?

My Dad did and he said they weren't up to par but if you're a big fan of the setting then it's worth it. I could ask him about specifics if you want and there isn't anyone else around whose read them.

I read from Dune to Children (book 3). I stopped reading about halfway through God Emperor because it was 500 years in the future, and there wasn't a lot of connection points with the characters.

I read the first two. I got the impression that the later novels are more political than the original, which was kind of a psychic thriller. I personally loved the original, but haven't seen the movie and didn't read any of the other books after the second, and consider the computer games in some way to be the most worthy heirs to the franchise. (That may be the only time in the history of humanity that I can say that about a novel and computer game based on it.)

Replay wrote:I read the first two.

You cant read Dune Messiah without reading Children of Dune as well!

It helps to abandon one or the other in the middle, I believe.

Replay wrote:It helps to abandon one or the other in the middle, I believe.

Shit, Children of Dune was the best of the three. I mean, the original was the original and great, but I just really liked the children and how they thought.

The first 3 aren't as different from the others as you might think. Heretics of Dune, for example, has a good bit of sci-fi/action stuff going on. That is a very good book. God Emperor was cool because it was such a different experience from the other books and the ending is really cool.

There is definitely more political stuff going on in Chapterhouse than the others though, which makes it move slower. The story really doesn't come to a head until the last 80 pages.

What's really well done is how the earlier books highly influence the later ones. Everything Paul and Leto II did factor directly into what is going on thousands of years later.

I just wish FH hadn't died before writing the remaining book(s) himself.

Hmmm...I may pick up God Emperor again someday, but there's a 4th Ringworld book I still have the read, and I read maybe one book a year (if even that).