Heretics Of Dune: The Fifth Dune Novel: The inspiration for the blockbuster film

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This novel introduces us to a new Dune universe that will be expanded (but possibly not fully explained) in the final novel.

But at a certain point, Sheeana’s story seems to drop by the wayside, after which her character is rarely seen. An effort is made to develop characters properly - admittedly limited to a handful of childhood details, the occasional noting of a character's personal preferences, and the odd musing on the nature of love, but this is uncharted ground for the Dune series, where characters are usually far too busy planning the future of humanity to darn their own socks. You would think that everyone in the Duniverse would have had their fill of ancient prophecies by now, but alarmingly this is not the case, and so the juggernaut of history rolls on. In this re-read, the fourth, if I'm not mistaken, I had almost all of my attention on a certain young BG who was meant to imprint our young Duncan Idaho in his latest of five thousand years of incarnations. Delivered in good time, showing the expected signs of age but perfectly intact and with a cover matching the rest of the series editions I have.Why this could only happen AFTER the death of the God Emperor is anyone's guess, but whatever, I'm sure it made sense to Herbert as he was writing the book and who am I to tell Herbert what is stupid in his own universe? With Leto's death, the complex economic system built on spice collapsed, resulting in a period of famine followed by trillions of people leaving known space in a great Scattering. Apart from weaponising sex, the Scattering has also resulted in a lot of really weird tech filtering through into the Duniverse, much of it copies of, and yet infinitely superior to, Ixian manufacture. And so, this time around, all I could think of was how mediocre it was, how it wasn't as well written as Fragments, how the characters weren't as interesting as the creations of Dan Wells, how the story was so distractingly vague and didn't seem to be going anywhere. But Herbert had to come down with that whole George Lucas Syndrome thing and well, here we are, with a book that desperately needed an editor in the worst way, and never got one.

And so we begin this volume of the series at a Bene Gesserit fortress located on the planet Gammu (formerly Geidi Prime, home of both the Harkonnens and the original Duncan Idaho) watching as a young ghola is being trained for purposes that even his teachers and protectors aren’t fully aware of.

The opening sentence of ‘Heretics’ is one of the most arresting in the entire sequence to date: “Taraza told you, did she not, that we have gone through eleven of these Duncan Idaho gholas? While I’m not sure I would go that far, I loved that book, with all its lengthy philosophical diatribes, as well as the character of Leto II. Lucilla arrives at a Bene Gesserit safe house to discover it has been taken over by a young Honored Matre named Murbella, who has partially subdued Idaho.

I enjoy the first four books of the Dune series, but by the fifth book, I must admit something in the story is getting old. However, in the run-up to the book's conclusion, one of the main characters reaches a heightened level of physical and mental ability and embarks on an orgy of destruction, a whirling kung-fu dervish pulverising everything in its path. Which is a great pity, because in my view ‘Heretics’ is the best of the sequence up to this point, a tautly plotted sociopolitical thriller that, strangely, largely consists of extended verbal jousts between the wonderfully diverse cast in a range of exotic locations, from desert to snow, and even the beguiling world of Chapter House itself. Bene Gesserit Imprinter Lucilla (yet another descendant of Siona's) is also sent by Taraza to bind Idaho's loyalty to the Sisterhood with her sexual talents. The idea that sex can be so damn good with these women, that any man that has it is a slave for life made me grimace.It lacks the original's extraordinary novelty and its mythic, archetypal plot, but this is a thoughtful, intelligent and well-structured work that stands with Herbert's best. I read Fragments by Dan Wells immediately before picking up Heretics, and that was so much better written, with so much more interesting characters, in a much more interesting setting, with a better story that is told better in every way than Heretics of Dune. While it’s easy to ridicule these aspects of the novel as Herbert working out his kinks or sexual fantasies, the concept is interesting. PS: I also don't think this volume brings much insight for its readers, but I will read the next book anyway. The universe that was once ruled by Houses Corrino and Atreides have fallen into chaos and is controlled by dozens of bickering factions.