Sequels of McDune: Hunters of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson

                                             

All of these things are true in my opinion: 

• People are too hard on the Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson Dune books (aka, "McDune").
• The books are nowhere near as good as Frank Herbert's originals.
• I enjoy the McDune books the same way that I sometimes enjoy McDonald's (or really Taco Bell for me) even though I know it's not good.
• It's fun to learn what happened immediately after the last Frank Herbert book even if I know it's neither the same nor as good as what Frank would have written.

I'm not sure I can awaken my ghola memories enough to write a full review of the plot, but I will say that the more I think about this book, the less I like it. I still think it's fine for what it is. As long as you're not expecting Frank Herbert, you'll be fine. I always appreciate a trip to the Dune universe and there are some interesting ideas (the genesis of the Honored Matres, more clues about what happened in the Scattering, etc.), but it does drag on. How many gholas do they need, anyway?

The difference in writing style is even more noticeable when they're writing a direct continuation of Frank Herbert's story. Frank's writing is introspective in a way that gets the reader thinking, while Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson write in a more marketable, action-based style (yes, Frank worried about entertaining the reader, but he didn't prioritize selling books over his artistic and philosophical explorations). 

Imagine if someone tried to write Dune, but without any of the philosophical interrogations of politics, religion, ecology, mysticism, and human nature... and just sort of turned it into a mindless sci-fi action blockbuster. None of this is unique to this particular McDune book (they're all like this), but it's hard to imagine this is much like anything Frank would have written even if it's based on his notes. Of course, I wasn't expecting Frank, but it's just a bit more noticeable when it's the same characters directly following Frank's last book.

But I think my biggest disappointment requires a spoiler. Sorry.


<spoilers ahead! No, really, at least one pretty big one.> 

Don't say I didn't warn you...

The big reveal at the end is that the mysterious couple at the end of Chapterhouse is actually two of the AIs going back 15,000 years to the Butlerian Jihad. Obviously this fits in nicely with the McDune prequels about the Butlerian Jihad (I read one of them many years ago--it was okay). But it's less obvious it fits with what Frank wrote in the last pages of Chapterhouse, where it's hinted that they're some sort of advanced Facedancer. 

Of course, Frank may have meant for them to be the AIs from the Butlerian Jihad. But my problem is that the McDune version of this becomes standard "robots are going to kill us" fare à la Terminator or The Matrix, which makes for good sci-fi military stories, but doesn't say much about the deeper themes explored in the original Dune books that reliance on thinking machines did not allow humans to realize their full potential of what I've called "expanding human nature." 

I find this to be a much more interesting idea than "robots are going to kill us!", but I seriously doubt this is the direction that will be taken in the next book, Sandworms of Dune, which I'll probably end up reading, anyway, because I crave McDune every so often as much as I crave Taco Bell. I should probably just re-read the original series again when I need a Dune fix, but I can't help myself.

<spoilers over>



In the end I think I agree with Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson in their Authors' Note when they write, "We wish Frank Herbert could have been here to write this book."

See my Goodreads review.