Dune Legacy

A sand-covered planet, poison gas hidden in a false-tooth, assassins, spice, Fremen, stillsuits, a gom jabbar, giant sandworms, thumpers ...

Those are the wonderful and vivid images that spring to mind when I hear the word "Dune".

I remember reading Frank Herbert's Dune about 15 years ago. I was fascinated with the complex universe created by this amazing author, and especially intrigued by the concept of stillsuits. (In case you've never read the book, a stillsuit is worn by people living in the desert; it recycles all water produced by your body and turns it into something you can drink.)


My dad introduced me to the world of sci-fi and fantasy ... Tolkien, Eddings, Jordan, and Herbert, were a few of our favorite authors. I remember many bookish conversations between him and I about them. (I also remember trying to get mom in on the conversation but she thought dad and I were nuts, especially for our fascination with stillsuits.)

That's my dad to the left. It's not the best picture but it's the only one I have handy.


Anyway, back to Dune. According to the official Dune website "Classic Dune" books include the following:

• Dune
• Dune Messiah
• Children of Dune
• God Emperor of Dune
• Heretics of Dune
• Chapterhouse: Dune
  

I read all of them many years ago, except perhaps the last one (I can't recall anything about that one at all). I loved the concept of the books, but there was one thing that bothered me: how did Paul go from leader of the Fremen uprising to Messiah/God Emperor? You see, book 2 picks up many, many years after book 1 ends and there is never a clear explanation of what happens in between.

So you can imagine my surprise and delight when I learned about the new book Paul of Dune, by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. I knew these guys had been writing Dune books for years but I didn't want to get sucked into a never-ending series so I chose not to read any of them. But their latest book - now that's a different story! It picks up where book 1 left off and fills in the gaps between the first two books. YES!

I received a review copy of the book in early September but had to put it aside until I finished several other books I'd committed to review. It has been staring at me from my bookshelf for months and I've been dying to pick it up. I was leery though ... what if I didn't remember enough about Dune? What if I had no idea what was going on?

I'm happy to report that it is FANTASTIC so far. I'm only a few chapters into it but I don't feel lost at all. If I remember the end of book 1 correctly, this new book begins only a few months later. The characters are coming back to me, the plot is coming back to me, and all those fantastic memories are coming back to me as well. I can't wait to get back to reading!