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3.77 AVERAGE
3.77 AVERAGE
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
After re-reading the first Dune novel, I finally picked up Dune Messiah (audiobook), curious to see how the story would develop. I still found the setting rich and compelling... with the intricate world-building, political intrigue, and philosophical depth remaining as strong as ever. However, I was deeply disappointed by the treatment of the female characters in this sequel.
In Dune, the female characters had agency and complexity. Paul's mother, Jessica, was portrayed as a powerful Bene Gesserit with both political and spiritual influence. Chani, his partner, was a warrior and a survivor. Even Princess Irulan, though on the margins, was introduced as a clever chronicler and strategist. But in Dune Messiah, the women are reduced to almost purely reproductive roles. Jessica is conveniently sent off to another planet and only appears in an irrelevant letter. Chani and Irulan are locked in a shallow rivalry centred entirely around bearing an heir. Their identities are flattened to little more than “two women desperate to get pregnant.”
The only woman given any real space in the plot is Alia, Paul's sister. At just fifteen, she’s repeatedly described as dangerously powerful, but the narrative can’t seem to stop fixating on her appearance. Even more disturbing is the romantic plot involving Duncan Idaho (in his ghola form), who once considered Paul a son but now sees Alia as a lover. It’s a deeply uncomfortable dynamic that undermines whatever agency her character might have had.
While Dune Messiah continues the saga with philosophical weight and political intrigue, its portrayal of women is a significant and frustrating step backwards from the first book. It left me feeling uneasy and a bit betrayed by a story that once promised more complexity and power to its female characters.
In Dune, the female characters had agency and complexity. Paul's mother, Jessica, was portrayed as a powerful Bene Gesserit with both political and spiritual influence. Chani, his partner, was a warrior and a survivor. Even Princess Irulan, though on the margins, was introduced as a clever chronicler and strategist. But in Dune Messiah, the women are reduced to almost purely reproductive roles.
The only woman given any real space in the plot is Alia, Paul's sister. At just fifteen, she’s repeatedly described as dangerously powerful, but the narrative can’t seem to stop fixating on her appearance. Even more disturbing is the romantic plot involving Duncan Idaho (in his ghola form), who once considered Paul a son but now sees Alia as a lover. It’s a deeply uncomfortable dynamic that undermines whatever agency her character might have had.
While Dune Messiah continues the saga with philosophical weight and political intrigue, its portrayal of women is a significant and frustrating step backwards from the first book. It left me feeling uneasy and a bit betrayed by a story that once promised more complexity and power to its female characters.
Al menos me ha servido para ponerme en orden. Acabé Dune un poco perdida y ahora me han quedado claras muchas cosas
adventurous
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Where dune is a bit more nuanced with Paul’s progression, Messiah likes to BEAT you over the head with a wooden mallet that this is no longer a hero journey. Paul quite literally ends up Blind to his own path by the end. If anything it has me thinking of how depressing the movie trilogy is going to be
challenging
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Dune and Dune Messiah have a strange quality of highly enjoyable pretension. They want to be about subtle manoeuvring between the most intelligent people in the galaxy and their deep philosophical reflections. This is impossible, unless you actually are one of those peak human super geniuses, but the way Herbert writes it is still very entertaining. The atmosphere and style fits the goal perfectly, and especially in the first book, the complicated setting and somewhat convoluted plot make an excellent fog between the reader and the text. Confusion about the basic elements of the story distracts the reader from asking "do the things being said here actually make sense?" Now, sometimes they do. But quite a bit of the time they're illusory deepities. And yet, I don't find this a detraction. It's fun. Nobody who could write those scenes would, and nobody else could understand it. I liked Dune enough to read it twice and Messiah was quite good too.
I'm also struck by how un-dated this series is. The fact that it's about a society on a totally different technological track from us, with a totally different social system helps, so the reader isn't struck by vacuum tube computers in the year 4000 or stay at home wives after the total transformation of society. The abhorrence over the use of atomic weapons is slightly cold war-ish, and Baron Harkonnen as evil pederast probably wouldn't fly today, but it's not overpowering. On the whole, these books could've conceivably been written at any time in the past seventy years if I didn't know the actual date.
This book was quite a bit simpler than Dune, since the huge worldbuilding burden is mostly dealt with already, and the plotlines are a bit more tightly interwoven here. It wasn't exactly better, but it went down quite a bit easier than the first book. I probably should've read it much earlier, it's more of a coda to the first book than a story in its own right. Hopefully I won't take 8 years to read the next one. I look forward to seeing what, if any, role Jessica and Irulan will have going forward.
Now for Barlowe's Guide.
I'd really love to ask Barlowe how he justified not using the iconic sandworm and went for the guild steersman instead (which isn't even an extraterrestrial). The steersman is great, and this was one of my favourite pictures in the book when I was a kid, but the reality is a little bit underwhelming compared to the way they were talked about in Dune. The way they were portrayed in the Lynch movie was the best incarnation so far, even if it wasn't faithful to the books. I like the polydactyl hands and feet on Barlowe's design, and the blue skin makes sense as an extreme version of the blue eyes normal humans acquire, but the fish scales are bit too much of a literalisation of some of the descriptions in this book, plus the long face is really goofy.
I'm also struck by how un-dated this series is. The fact that it's about a society on a totally different technological track from us, with a totally different social system helps, so the reader isn't struck by vacuum tube computers in the year 4000 or stay at home wives after the total transformation of society. The abhorrence over the use of atomic weapons is slightly cold war-ish, and Baron Harkonnen as evil pederast probably wouldn't fly today, but it's not overpowering. On the whole, these books could've conceivably been written at any time in the past seventy years if I didn't know the actual date.
This book was quite a bit simpler than Dune, since the huge worldbuilding burden is mostly dealt with already, and the plotlines are a bit more tightly interwoven here. It wasn't exactly better, but it went down quite a bit easier than the first book. I probably should've read it much earlier, it's more of a coda to the first book than a story in its own right. Hopefully I won't take 8 years to read the next one. I look forward to seeing what, if any, role Jessica and Irulan will have going forward.
Now for Barlowe's Guide.
I'd really love to ask Barlowe how he justified not using the iconic sandworm and went for the guild steersman instead (which isn't even an extraterrestrial). The steersman is great, and this was one of my favourite pictures in the book when I was a kid, but the reality is a little bit underwhelming compared to the way they were talked about in Dune. The way they were portrayed in the Lynch movie was the best incarnation so far, even if it wasn't faithful to the books. I like the polydactyl hands and feet on Barlowe's design, and the blue skin makes sense as an extreme version of the blue eyes normal humans acquire, but the fish scales are bit too much of a literalisation of some of the descriptions in this book, plus the long face is really goofy.
SLIGHT SPOILERS
This one was much more scattered than the previous book. In the second book, the story takes a new perspective, focusing much more on Paul's prophetic abilities and the difficulties that come with being emperor, but the dialogue and progression of the story is so wack. Herbert builds up all this tension with the conspirators and how they have some kind of master plan but their shit kinda just falls apart for no reason. Like, this guy really does not know how to write endings. The same thing happens in the first book - it feels like the author just got impatient and decided to skip to the happy ending as fast as he could. The female characters in this book are also extremely upsetting. Paul's wife Chani is basically just a walking womb, and she barely develops at all and then just fucking dies? Alia, Paul's sister, has so many cool powers that could have been explored, but throughout the book she's kind of just Paul's sidekick. You'd think that an author who spent three years writing a book while his wife paid the bills would show a little more appreciation for his female characters, no? I just feel like they could use so much more development. The same can be said with so many other characters. The dialogue in this book is also so shit compared to the previous one. Half the time I don't know wtf they're talking about. Not to mention the fact that Paul is just way too powerful. There really isn't much suspense in this book, because Paul is just going to be Paul.
TLDR: Decent story, interesting politics, but wack dialogue, shitty progression, bad female characters and way too powerful main character. 2/5. I hope the third book will be better.
This one was much more scattered than the previous book. In the second book, the story takes a new perspective, focusing much more on Paul's prophetic abilities and the difficulties that come with being emperor, but the dialogue and progression of the story is so wack. Herbert builds up all this tension with the conspirators and how they have some kind of master plan but their shit kinda just falls apart for no reason. Like, this guy really does not know how to write endings. The same thing happens in the first book - it feels like the author just got impatient and decided to skip to the happy ending as fast as he could. The female characters in this book are also extremely upsetting. Paul's wife Chani is basically just a walking womb, and she barely develops at all and then just fucking dies? Alia, Paul's sister, has so many cool powers that could have been explored, but throughout the book she's kind of just Paul's sidekick. You'd think that an author who spent three years writing a book while his wife paid the bills would show a little more appreciation for his female characters, no? I just feel like they could use so much more development. The same can be said with so many other characters. The dialogue in this book is also so shit compared to the previous one. Half the time I don't know wtf they're talking about. Not to mention the fact that Paul is just way too powerful. There really isn't much suspense in this book, because Paul is just going to be Paul.
TLDR: Decent story, interesting politics, but wack dialogue, shitty progression, bad female characters and way too powerful main character. 2/5. I hope the third book will be better.