Finished the Last Dune Book

So I finally finished most of the entire Dune series (via audio book on my commute). Frank Herbert's son Brian and Kevin J. Anderson finally finished off the big tale that started in 1965 and was left with a major 20 year cliff hanger in 1987 when Frank kicked the "sand" bucket. So it only took a measly 20 years to get the rest of the story.

Brian and Kevin wrote two prequel trilogies prior to adding to Frank's last novel. In every genre there are fans who hate it when the "cannon" is added to or tweaked (as if a sci-fi book is like scripture or something!). I'm not one of those kind of fans. Those guys are idiots. If an author sets up a huge mystery and dies before he can tell everyone what the end of the story is, then someone else should finish it for him. If the writers of the TV show "Lost" died tomorrow I would hope ABC-Disney would hire new writers and finish the show. At least in this case, Brian and Kevin had boxes of notes and an outline from Frank for this story. Frank was even planning on working with Brian on the Dune prequel story before he died. So I don't understand what the geeks have to complain about.

Anyway back to Dune...

Dune is science fiction for grown ups. Heroes are flawed. "Super" heroes are even more flawed and screw everything up for the human race. Its a complex universe where power and wealth take very different forms that what we're used to. You have to keep your head in the game to learn the players follow all of the twists and turns. Dune novels are good brain candy.

The final chapters in the Dune Saga ("Hunters of Dune" and "Sandworms of Dune") were a satisfying conclusion to an extremely long story. They never stray too far from the feel and ideas set up in the original Dune 1965 novel. In a lot of interesting ways, these two books are more like the original 1965 book than some of the later books in the series that Frank Herbert wrote before his death.

However, there was a long build up to a relatively short conclusion. Yes, there was a surprise ending that I didn't see coming at all, which pleased me (its good writing if you can still be surprised in book 14). I guess in the Lord of Rings you have the benefit of Tolkein writing a long detailed ending for almost every character (which drove a lot of people crazy). That really didn't happen here even though all of the major players are given a short goodbye.

**Minor Spoiler Ahead**
The only problem is that in "Hunters of Dune" the authors started bringing clones of people back to life from every other book, which meant there were a lot of characters to deal with. The Dune Saga is more character-based than plot-based so adding all of these old friends and enemies seemed to really drag on the plot by the time you get through the first two thirds of the final book. Every old character they added brought a ton of baggage with them that needed to be addressed in the narrative. When there are 13 prior novels covering 15,000 years of history there are a ton memories and loose ends and old rivalries and old loves and hurt feelings that needed some attention. I suppose it would be irked me if they ignored all of the possibilities that such a large cast offered.
**Spoiler Over**

You can tell that authors really love these characters in the way they spend chapters trolling around in their heads rather than moving the basic story forward. Kevin and Brian didn't ignore the big cast at all, they just didn't DO enough in the early chapters of "Sandworms" for my tastes. At least it will be easier to turn these stories into movies if the plot can be resolved in two hours. If you already love all of the major Dune characters, there's a lot of good stuff in these books.

However, I can't recommend these two books for non-Dune fans because its a capstone on a very long back-story. If you read Frank Herbert's last novel "Chapterhouse Dune" and felt unsatisfied, these are a must-read. Realistically, you need to have read at least one of the "Legends of Dune" prequel series to get the backstory for certain things to make sense.

*** Another Minor Spoiler Ahead ***
I only have one more little gripe. The only Dune book set on Earth is the first book in the story chronology called the "The Butlerian Jihad" and it gets nuked at the end. After 15,000 years and a bunch of the text in Sandworms devoted to bringing dead planets back to life, I felt a return to Earth was in order. The old story point about why it was nuked in the first place was sort of resolved in "Sandworms" so it would have been nice to make a stop there in the epilogue and bring the series full circle back to the origin of humanity. I guess they couldn't squeeze that paragraph into their 495 pages.
**Spoiler Over**

Final vedisct: "Thumbs Up".

My next post ... the lazy person's guide to the Dune Universe.