Dune Messiah

The Book in 1 Sentence

A constant working timeline that requires the reader to forgive an unending sentence "What is the vision showing?"

Brief Review

This book is the finalization of the story from Dune without the more down to earth elements. The split perspective of both Paul and Alia feels like the exact same voice with browbeating foreshadowing on what the ultimate end notes will be.

Why I Read this book

I love Dune, the movie, and after finishing the book I wanted to know the rest of the story.

In-Depth Review (Favorite Quotes)

This book does not continue where I thought it would and wasn't the story I expected. The first book ending with a great fight, I expected to talk more about the jihad that was constantly mentioned in that book. Well this book starts years after the jihad when the world has begun to settle again and corruption is taking hold.

Again we follow Paul for the most part, but the introduction of new political factions and every bad player have access to the "Preciance" means that it is a lot like my review of The Bourne books where it is a lot of "I am doing this, but they will expect that, so I will do this …"

Also, there is no failure in this book of the protagonist. It is heavily implied that Paul and Alia are significantly better than the others in their Mentat and oracle abilities and never once do they make a mistake. It is mentioned that he has seen the other possible futures, and so he has found his way and won't deviate. Everything is a nice bow.

I think the only character that really grows in this book is the Gola, and even he was the expected "twist" at the end. It wasn't really had to see that coming or to predict it yourself. Granted, I consume a lot of entertainment and this book was written in the 60s originally so maybe I have the benefit of learning from what others stole from Frank Herbert.

How my life / behavior / thoughts / ideas have changed as a result of reading the book.

I know there are at least 2 other books, but I don't think I will read anymore.

Rating

Overall, I was really disappointed with this book. I was expecting a lot more of the first book to be in this one speaking of the number of additional sequels there are, but this book just really falls flat for me. The story is predicable, rudimentary, and ultimately boring, but for a book that is only about 300 pages, what do you expect. It is a 5.

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