2 Stars

They proclaim on the cover that this book is an ‘epic sequel’ to Dune, yet the first thing that they do when they get their hands on Fremen is to put them in a swimming pool. Talk about being subtle. 

To all those who have been lured in to read this book, considering that it’s going to cover Paul’s Jihad, beware – it does so in only 50% of the pages. Rest is a retrospectively fitted non-canon mythology about the so-called early days of Paul Atreides, along with his father, borrowed heavily and in extension to their ‘Prelude to Dune’ trilogy. I believe they had some material left over from those three books, which they wanted to use – let’s intersperse that with Paul’s Jihad – and we get a fat 512-page McDune that banks on the star power of Frank’s Dune books to pull it through. To be fair, I really liked their worldbuilding in ‘House Atreides’ – it was a fresh take and accessible writing – but to retcon that in this book – seemed more like a continuity of the ‘Prelude..’ books than the ‘Dune’ itself. The title is a click-bait, don’t fall for it.

And that shows in their writing – it is only confident when they tread over familiar grounds of their own worldbuilding – with Rhombhur, Ecaz, Saddam – they really don’t know what to do with Paul or his Jihad. 

And they fumble with the Jihad, big time. The first third of the book is a blase repetition of the facts that we already know, regurgitated over and over again, one chapter after the other (felt like both the authors divvied up chapters they were going to write – independently repeating the same things over). We know that Paul had a terrible purpose – that he felt bad about it – it ate him alive. But using the exact, same phrases – like this paragraph – is going to bug readers. A lot.

Also, what’s the obsession with Hasimir Fenring? He isn’t a great foil to Paul – and I don’t believe that Paul from ‘Dune’ would fuss over Fenring as much as Paul from ‘Paul of Dune’ did. They have so many minor plot points to cover that they don’t let anything build and simmer – they start a fire in one chapter, extinguish it in the very next. It is a rat-tat-tat of chapters, with easy resolution every third chapter. The erstwhile emperor of the Universe, Shaddam Corrino, was pretty useless throughout this book; his appearance in the book amounted to nothing. They make Irulan a saint, which’s fine – she is a good character, but Irulan from ‘Paul of Dune’ would never do what Irulan from ‘Dune Messiah’ did. Where’s the build-up, where’s the continuity?

I did like some parts – like when Paul had to counter multiple venom attacks, or how they closed the plot point of Lady Margot’s daughter with Feyd.

But reading this book was an exercise in patience. This one needed better editing.