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3.61 AVERAGE
3.61 AVERAGE
I enjoy the Dune prequels and sequels. The prequels lay a firm foundation for the genesis of the classes of the main Dune storyline, yet weave intricate and interesting webs all their own. I have read all of them by publication date but am now on my quest to do them by timeline and find them even more enjoyable.
adventurous
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Physical abuse, Sexism, Torture, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Trafficking, Religious bigotry, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, War, Classism
Moderate: Slavery
Minor: Ableism, Addiction, Infertility
The events in this new Dune book takes place 80 years after the Battle of Corrin where Mankind finally beat the Thinking Machines. It is fulfilling an essential role, since it is looking into the beginnings of the Bene Gesserit school, the Guild any many other institutions we have taken granted in the Dune universe. The writing itself may not be great, but it is worth reading for the gaps it fills in the story.
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
I know the purists will and have bagged this but for pure pulpery I love me a KJA/BH Dune book. Don't expect much and enjoy...
A good continuation from the Legends of Dune trilogy. Glad I could get this finished before Dune Prophecy is released to get some background on the characters.
I was intrigued because of the new Max series that will adapt this book, but Kevin J. Anderson's writing is as flat and lifeless as I recall. Skip.
Star Rating: 4 stars
Note: This is the 1st book in the Schools of Dune trilogy but the 4th book in the overarching Dune universe (chronological order) so for the sake of potential spoilers, this will not be an in-depth review.
Individuals who pay attention to my reviews and reading journey will know that late last year, I decided to randomly pick up Dune by Frank Herbert, and it became my FAVORITE book of all time as well as helped me realize what my ALL-TIME FAVORITE genre (classic science fiction and fantasy) was. Sisterhood of Dune, in particular, tells of the second major event to occur in the Dune universe. It has been approximately 80 years since the events of the first trilogy, which I won’t spoil, and humanity is now facing its 2nd threat, religious fanaticism. Due to the events in the 1st trilogy, a new religion has cropped up within the planets of the Imperium, and this new religion’s tenets may cause detrimental effects across every facet of society, particularly the activities of the 4 new schools that have been founded as a result of events in the 1st trilogy.
Before we get to the merits of this book, in particular, I want to address some issues that I see cropping up regarding this series. There is a schism in the fan base of Dune when it comes to the additional books that Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson have written on to the original series. Although I understand how some people feel Herbert is riding on the coat-tails of his father’s success, I think the additional Dune books add clarity to his father’s narrative, in that, within Dune, his father mentions a lot of events and organizations but doesn’t really elaborate on their significance. He mentions that they happened and that they do have some connection to what is happening within Dune, but never goes into detail, instead preferring to focus on the events at hand. This choice was one of the things that bothered me about Dune as I felt if those occurrences had anything to do with what was happening in Dune itself, we needed to know details, and this is why I feel that the additional books that Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson are writing have merit.
Another issue that I see getting brought up a lot and this has to do with the classic science fiction and fantasy genre as a whole is that authors from the classic fantasy and science fiction are predominantly male and that they don’t know how to write women well. For one, there are a lot more female authors during that time than people realize, they just weren’t as popular, but you can find them if you do a little bit of research. When it comes to classic fantasy/sci-fi authors not being able to write women well, in my experience that simply isn’t true as most of them do a great job; women don’t have to main characters to be powerful or written well, as Herbert and Anderson state, “Women have always been the driving force behind society, whether or not men wear the mantles of leadership.” It also doesn’t bother me whether women feature predominantly or not as I read for entertainment and find the book/series just as enjoyable whoever the main characters are.
When it comes to this book, though, my favorite thing was the themes: fallacy/hypocrisy of religion, the fact that in most cases, intelligence=power, and the cycle of history. In this book/trilogy, a new religion gains power and in the course of this, they cross some lines that shouldn’t be crossed, no spoilers I promise, thus opening the discussion of the fallacy and hypocrisy of religion. Herbert and Anderson tend to write intelligent, powerful characters rather than strong, powerful characters, and they make a point to state in multiple different ways that history is not black and white or right or wrong, but just individuals doing what they thought was right at the time with the information they had at the time, thus not only alluding indirectly to the cycle of history, which I will discuss next, but also to the fact that individuals are in power or heroes, not because they are strong, but because they are smart enough to gather information and use to the betterment of themselves and the people who put their trust in them. Finally, back to the aforementioned cycle of history, this book discusses extensively the fact that there is a cycle to history, in that, over time people forget the importance and pain of past events, especially as new generations are born and time passes, and this, often, leads to them getting repeated, and how we should actively strive to keep this from happening.
Although I loved this book, it was weaker than some of the other installments in this series. At the beginning of the book, when Herbert and Anderson were trying to introduce us to new characters and fill in the gap between this series and the previous one, they chose to do short, choppy, chapters, switching perspectives between each one, and I don’t think this was the right move, at least not at the beginning. I feel we needed longer chapters or at least to stay in one character’s perspective for longer so that we could get to know them and get a feel for the story before we started jumping around, for me, it was very jarring. However, once the story got established, it stopped bothering me as much because there was enough going on in all the perspectives to merit it. However, this is the reason I decided to deduct a star, but as I said the story in and of itself was perfect, I just had slight problems with how it was presented.
All in all, this was an amazing addition to the series, but please don’t start here if you want to read the additional material. Start with the Butlerian Jihad as you will get so much more out of this series, in my opinion, if you read them in chronological order. 4 stars!!!!!
Note: This is the 1st book in the Schools of Dune trilogy but the 4th book in the overarching Dune universe (chronological order) so for the sake of potential spoilers, this will not be an in-depth review.
Individuals who pay attention to my reviews and reading journey will know that late last year, I decided to randomly pick up Dune by Frank Herbert, and it became my FAVORITE book of all time as well as helped me realize what my ALL-TIME FAVORITE genre (classic science fiction and fantasy) was. Sisterhood of Dune, in particular, tells of the second major event to occur in the Dune universe. It has been approximately 80 years since the events of the first trilogy, which I won’t spoil, and humanity is now facing its 2nd threat, religious fanaticism. Due to the events in the 1st trilogy, a new religion has cropped up within the planets of the Imperium, and this new religion’s tenets may cause detrimental effects across every facet of society, particularly the activities of the 4 new schools that have been founded as a result of events in the 1st trilogy.
Before we get to the merits of this book, in particular, I want to address some issues that I see cropping up regarding this series. There is a schism in the fan base of Dune when it comes to the additional books that Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson have written on to the original series. Although I understand how some people feel Herbert is riding on the coat-tails of his father’s success, I think the additional Dune books add clarity to his father’s narrative, in that, within Dune, his father mentions a lot of events and organizations but doesn’t really elaborate on their significance. He mentions that they happened and that they do have some connection to what is happening within Dune, but never goes into detail, instead preferring to focus on the events at hand. This choice was one of the things that bothered me about Dune as I felt if those occurrences had anything to do with what was happening in Dune itself, we needed to know details, and this is why I feel that the additional books that Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson are writing have merit.
Another issue that I see getting brought up a lot and this has to do with the classic science fiction and fantasy genre as a whole is that authors from the classic fantasy and science fiction are predominantly male and that they don’t know how to write women well. For one, there are a lot more female authors during that time than people realize, they just weren’t as popular, but you can find them if you do a little bit of research. When it comes to classic fantasy/sci-fi authors not being able to write women well, in my experience that simply isn’t true as most of them do a great job; women don’t have to main characters to be powerful or written well, as Herbert and Anderson state, “Women have always been the driving force behind society, whether or not men wear the mantles of leadership.” It also doesn’t bother me whether women feature predominantly or not as I read for entertainment and find the book/series just as enjoyable whoever the main characters are.
When it comes to this book, though, my favorite thing was the themes: fallacy/hypocrisy of religion, the fact that in most cases, intelligence=power, and the cycle of history. In this book/trilogy, a new religion gains power and in the course of this, they cross some lines that shouldn’t be crossed, no spoilers I promise, thus opening the discussion of the fallacy and hypocrisy of religion. Herbert and Anderson tend to write intelligent, powerful characters rather than strong, powerful characters, and they make a point to state in multiple different ways that history is not black and white or right or wrong, but just individuals doing what they thought was right at the time with the information they had at the time, thus not only alluding indirectly to the cycle of history, which I will discuss next, but also to the fact that individuals are in power or heroes, not because they are strong, but because they are smart enough to gather information and use to the betterment of themselves and the people who put their trust in them. Finally, back to the aforementioned cycle of history, this book discusses extensively the fact that there is a cycle to history, in that, over time people forget the importance and pain of past events, especially as new generations are born and time passes, and this, often, leads to them getting repeated, and how we should actively strive to keep this from happening.
Although I loved this book, it was weaker than some of the other installments in this series. At the beginning of the book, when Herbert and Anderson were trying to introduce us to new characters and fill in the gap between this series and the previous one, they chose to do short, choppy, chapters, switching perspectives between each one, and I don’t think this was the right move, at least not at the beginning. I feel we needed longer chapters or at least to stay in one character’s perspective for longer so that we could get to know them and get a feel for the story before we started jumping around, for me, it was very jarring. However, once the story got established, it stopped bothering me as much because there was enough going on in all the perspectives to merit it. However, this is the reason I decided to deduct a star, but as I said the story in and of itself was perfect, I just had slight problems with how it was presented.
All in all, this was an amazing addition to the series, but please don’t start here if you want to read the additional material. Start with the Butlerian Jihad as you will get so much more out of this series, in my opinion, if you read them in chronological order. 4 stars!!!!!
adventurous
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I went into this book expecting details on the origin of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood. And details there are to be had aplenty! It is not, however, just a history nor is it a standalone book. It's part of the Schools of Dune trilogy so covers other school origins as well. Interesting stuff if you're a a Dunehead! I am not but found it worthwhile. The writing style wasn't all that great, imo, with too much repetition of facts that were already adequately covered. I just glossed over those again and again.