Reviews tagging 'Infertility'

Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert

33 reviews

randirush's review against another edition

adventurous dark reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

*3.5-3.75ish 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Death

Moderate: Genocide, War, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Child death, Incest, and Infertility

thebibutterfly's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This was an interesting continuation of the previous book and a satisfying end, if a sad one. It was much stronger prose and tightly edited, which I appreciated. It was fascinating to see how an abundance of water affected the desert people and their culture. It was the tiny details that really sold this narrative and I appreciated the solid attempts to explain the systems and societies at work. The audiobook was well articulated, but I will have to buy paperbacks to dissect.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Death of parent

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Dysphoria, Infertility, and Pregnancy

laura_nel13's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Grief, Pregnancy, Violence, Infertility, Drug use, and War

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Slavery, Genocide, Incest, and Death of parent

annikathereader's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Pregnancy, Suicide, Medical trauma, Fire/Fire injury, Child death, Infertility, Incest, Grief, and Death

draven_deathcrush's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book was kind of a bumpy ride for me, but I ended up completely loving it. You can really see how George Lucas made Star Wars at the end of this one haha.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, War, and Death

Moderate: Pregnancy, Adult/minor relationship, and Infertility

Minor: Ableism and Incest

trvs49's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This is a more philosophical, character-driven entry in the Dune series. The elements of adventure, new worlds, and sci-fi take a back seat to the intense character interactions, politics, and schemes. Paul's struggle for control over the universe and the events of the world is the main focus and is highly engaging throughout. Suspicions, schemes, plots within plots, and the reality of a universe ruled by Paul with his Sister at his side as pseudo-gods all culminate in a fantastic narrative with a satisfying end.

Paul's character development is impressive and genuinely satisfying, and it stays true to the character. However, where this book lacks is in the writing of the female characters, which is considerably weaker, although Alia does present as a really cool, complex character. The incest stuff and the age gap between her and some of the characters, as well as the stuff about her dad being her lover, are not necessary, in my opinion.

Also, Irulan just being super in love with Paul, although it is alluded to early in the book. I feel it doesn't get enough build-up and attention to make it understandable and believable, especially since she is supposed to be Bene Gesserit but throws away all her loyalties after he dies.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, Death, Drug use, Drug abuse, Injury/Injury detail, War, Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Child death, Grief, Incest, Infertility, Murder, Pregnancy, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Violence

dakizu's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Interesting and though-provoking companion to the first novel. Writing this review after having finished the next novel in the series (Children of Dune), I am surprised by how well this novel acts as both: An epilogue to the original Dune; and a bridge from the original into Children. The scope is lowered considerably from the first novel and the scheming and plotting becomes much more focused. One issue that I found unique to this entry in the series is the prose: The first half of the novel contains many awkward phrasings and strange sentence structures; I found myself having to reread some sentences multiple times to understand them. This issue, thankfully, seems to go away past a certain point just before the middle of the novel. It seems to me that this novel had a less intensive editing pass than the proceeding and succeeding entries, but, much like the other entries, the depth of meaning behind the words makes up for the sometimes clunky delivery. Unlike the first novel, I found the ending of this one to be fantastic.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief

Moderate: Infertility

Minor: Body shaming, Suicidal thoughts, Addiction, Drug abuse, Genocide, and Drug use

jelliclejules's review

adventurous mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Drug abuse, Murder, and Violence

Moderate: Grief, Pregnancy, Death of parent, Religious bigotry, Xenophobia, War, Addiction, Medical trauma, Ableism, and Classism

Minor: Incest, Infertility, and Suicide

sarah_tani's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Murder, Adult/minor relationship, Incest, Violence, Suicide, Grief, War, Genocide, Death, Drug use, Infertility, and Pregnancy

gvstyris's review against another edition

adventurous challenging slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

 Religion, too, is a weapon. What manner of weapon is religion when it becomes the government? 

Dune Messiah is strikingly more didactic than its predecessor, jumping twelve years to follow a conspiracy against Paul's now-established rule over the empire. I'm struggling a bit to rate and condense my feelings about this novel, primarily because of how different it is to Dune.

Dune Messiah is theoretically right up my alley: it explores the corrupting influences of power and the inherent problems faced by a government built on religious worship and fabricated idolatry. Herbert is not intending to replicate the first novel's epic sense of adventure, but I would still argue that this sequel suffers a little without it. Its slow-burn is a bit painful, yet it ultimately still offers a much more nuanced (and needed!) character analysis of Paul, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I also really loved the discussion surrounding the Fremen's loss of cultural identity with 'modernisation.'

I'll definitely be considering continuing the series, but am mainly just hyped to see how Villeneuve chooses to adapt this story given his changes to Chani's character. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Grief, Infertility, Medical trauma, and Pregnancy

Minor: Incest