Hunters of Dune - Brian Herbert & Kevin J Anderson
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Hunters of Dune is the 7th in the Dune series (not counting the 6 prequels).
A book a couple of decades in the writing after the passing of Frank Herbert. He passed on shortly after finishing the 6th book, Chapterhouse: Dune.
The book picks off from where the 6th ended, a rag-tag lot of people who steals a no-ship and escapes the Bene Gesserit home planet of Chapterhouse just before the forced merger with the hated Honored Matres.
As the group of people make their escape, battles for the control of the Old Empire rage on while out there, unknown to many or perhaps mentally blocked out by the vicious and cruel Honored Matres, the Enemy awaits.
Not in the scale of the original author, his son has big shoes to fill and attempts admirably from his father's notes of this book.
Still, a good read for those who have followed the epic series. 3 1/2 out of 5.
The next instalment, Sandworms of Dune, will be released in August 2007. -
Finished the book about a week ago. Apparently, Herbert's son is an accomplished fiction writer on his own before he started continuing on his father's legacy. "Hunters of Dune" made an old enemy become frightening clear and increased the intrigue level a little more.
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yeah.. it'll suck a lot for those who didn't read the prequels as they go "huh?"
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*lol* Yup, bet they don't even know what's the Siona marker gene is for.Originally posted by the Bear:yeah.. it'll suck a lot for those who didn't read the prequels as they go "huh?" -
Oh yeah, now there will be 2 Kwisatz Haderachs present.
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only 2?
there will be 3.. one of them is a monster tho'Originally posted by Herzog_Zwei:Oh yeah, now there will be 2 Kwisatz Haderachs present. -
I found the books by the original author quite disgusting. It gave the impression Leto is a king that sleeps around with women here and there and he's a giant worm or centipede literally. Then there's crude jokes about how monstrous his centipede *ahem* is. Although he is supposed to be the good guy, Leto is way more vicious and hypocritical then his enemies the Harkonnen? Only the computer game dune 2 was interesting...the Harkonnen nuke cannon and the devastor were my favourite units lol.
Some of the other english books ive read:
Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan - Quite draggy and boring. The only interesting characters are the forsaken and the peddler padain fain. The heros are crap. It is interesting to note that Robert Jordan fantasies himself as being Rand Al'Thor the protoganist of the story who also sleep around with lots of women. When asked by an interviewer he(Robert) admits that he once had 3 girlfriends at the same time.
Wars of Light and Shadow by Janny Wurts - Supposedly to be even more lengthly than RJ's Wheel of Time series of twelve books (Arc 1-3 already 8 books with Arc4-5 forcasted by the author to come), this is IMHO thus far the better read. The use of english is verbose or even bombastic at times and might be difficult for a beginner to understand. The premise of the story has many similarities to RJ's Wheel of Time...
Comparison and similarities:
Wheel of Time:
The world reached an advanced stage in technology known as the "Golden Age". Also super beings were created genetically known as Aes Sedai with strange and mystical powers. But alas a war broke out and the world was descended into the stone age. The evil that was unleash during the war still exist in the world and our happy hero Rand Al'Thor is going to try to defeat over the next twelve books in the story...
Wars of Light and Shadow:
The world reached an advanced stage in technology known as the "Golden Age". Seven super beings were created genetically known as the fellowship of seven. But alas a war broke out and the world was destroyed. The super beings then bring the survivors to another world to settle down. But this another world was already occupied by some animals. The super beings made a deal with the animals to allows the humans to settle down. Over time the evil humans begun to destroy nature again causing the animals to flee. One of the super human even created a evil know as the mist. By some strange ruling, the remaining six super humans do not want to solve the evil problem directly by themselves and instead rely on other lesser humans to do the dirty work for them. Over the next 8-12+ books of the story our sad anti-hero Arithon is going to try to defeat this evil...
Erm ok so both are boring... -
i guess you never figured out the scope of the books.. and how sad and pitiful Leto II was even when he was God-Emperor.. how he was forced into the decisions he made.. the sheer scope of his prophecies, and the underlying theme of the first 6 books: the trap of prescience...
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Originally posted by the Bear:
The first book was passable, until the Atreides started winning. After Frank Herbert killed off his most interesting characters the Harkonnen and Corrino the story went down the drain. When Leto II became a worm/centipede the story started to follow the likes of David Eddings(where the main character is a God and all the villians are shallow incompetent clowns that are killed left and right like a bunch of insects without any effort or strategy)... I stopped reading.
i guess you never figured out the scope of the books.. and how sad and pitiful Leto II was even when he was God-Emperor.. how he was forced into the decisions he made.. the sheer scope of his prophecies, and the underlying theme of the first 6 books: the trap of prescience... -
The Bloody Golden Path.....Originally posted by the Bear:i guess you never figured out the scope of the books.. and how sad and pitiful Leto II was even when he was God-Emperor.. how he was forced into the decisions he made.. the sheer scope of his prophecies, and the underlying theme of the first 6 books: the trap of prescience...
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Originally posted by Herzog_Zwei:
He killed, tortured etc.. 61?++ Billion people for absolute rubbish, imagined fantasies that mankind will become extinct. It is only in the later series by his son that attempts to justify such horrible acts by the "hero". I.e the invention of a new enemy - the machines. Although how a machine can have "prescience" so as the justify the acts of Leto II to selectively breed humans(his own family and relatives were the first target) like rats to make them invisible to "prescience" while killing off billions of failures is still a mystery to me.
The Bloody Golden Path.....
Killing people aside, Leto II in the book also has an entire army for female fish speakers to satisfy his every depraved sexual fantasy. It is no surprise that his former teacher and friend whom Leto clones numerous times for amusement attempts to kill him everytime he has been cloned. -
LetoII is considered by the storyline to be God and Frank Herbert tried to draw a parellel with the Judeo-Christian God of the Old testament.Originally posted by Skibi:He killed, tortured etc.. 61?++ Billion people for absolute rubbish, imagined fantasies that mankind will become extinct. It is only in the later series by his son that attempts to justify such horrible acts by the "hero". I.e the invention of a new enemy - the machines. Although how a machine can have "prescience" so as the justify the acts of Leto II to selectively breed humans(his own family and relatives were the first target) like rats to make them invisible to "prescience" while killing off billions of failures is still a mystery to me.
Killing people aside, Leto II in the book also has an entire army for female fish speakers to satisfy his every depraved sexual fantasy. It is no surprise that his former teacher and friend whom Leto clones numerous times for amusement attempts to kill him everytime he has been cloned.
Anyway, selective breeding wasn't done only by LetoII but also by Bene Geserit and Bene Telixfia. -
Originally posted by Herzog_Zwei:
True, but Leto II did it on a scale of "godly" proportions, causing billions of deaths. In addition he himself admits that he is the most depraved despot in the whole of history.
Anyway, selective breeding wasn't done only by LetoII but also by Bene Geserit and Bene Telixfia. -
Actually the story is very similar to the Warhammer 40K universe story where the emperor thinks he is a "god" and acts like a despot for the "good" of humanity. Where in actual fact he is just as bad(if not worse) than the aliens that he claims to protect humans from. Not sure which story borrowed from who...
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Not as bad as his father, Paul Atreides, who instituted a jihad who slaughtered billions unless they recognised Paul as Mauhdib.Originally posted by Skibi:True, but Leto II did it on a scale of "godly" proportions, causing billions of deaths. In addition he himself admits that he is the most depraved despot in the whole of history. -
Paul tried his damnest not to unleash the Jihad but in the end, it was taken out of his hands... he was powerless to stop it...
Leto II put humanity through the Famine, the Scattering... for a purpose which i think we will see in Sandworms of Dune...
and both were powerless in their own way... trapped by the fact that they were Kwisatz Haderach...
by knowing the future, they were locked into it... -
How true, but Leto II was put to no choice but to desseminate himself as sandtrout when his cart was shot off the bridge and into the river which was part of the Golden Path he envisioned.Originally posted by the Bear:Paul tried his damnest not to unleash the Jihad but in the end, it was taken out of his hands... he was powerless to stop it...
Leto II put humanity through the Famine, the Scattering... for a purpose which i think we will see in Sandworms of Dune...
and both were powerless in their own way... trapped by the fact that they were Kwisatz Haderach...
by knowing the future, they were locked into it... -
i am reading this
The stolen child by keith donohue
http://www.randomhouse.com/nanatalese/stolenchild/excerpts.html
EXCERPTS
On a summer night in 1949, seven-year-old Henry Day is kidnapped by changelings and renamed Aniday. For the rest of the story, he lives among them, another unaging child of the forest, at the borderland between the real world and myth. The changeling, who replaces the boy in his family, leaves childhood behind and lives out the life intended for the real Henry Day.
THE STOLEN CHILD is a tale told by two narrators in interwoven chapters. The first excerpt, from chapter one, is told from the perspective of the changeling Henry, looking back as an adult and remembering the night that he first assumed the child's identity. He begins by making a confession and asserting his guiltlessness over the whole story.
The second excerpt begins the tale of Aniday, thirty years after that fateful summer, remembering what happened to him on the night he became the stolen child. -
By the way, there seems to be a sea child in both Chapterhouse and Hunters. Is there any link between the 2 plots?