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cookedw 's review for:
Hunters of Dune
by Brian Herbert
Ugh.
This book is terrible. It's not just terrible in the context of the Dune series overall -- it is simply a terrible book, period. I do not begrudge the authors the challenge of finishing off Frank Herbert's legacy, particularly because the series itself had already become ungainly and unfocused. But what they came up with is...real bad.
First and foremost, the writing reminds you at every turn, "Hey, remember this part in the series? That was a thing that happened." Every fucking page there's a summary of something that anyone who read the series already knows. And no one, absolutely no one, should be coming to this book if they've not read the first six books. It is disruptive and comes across as a reminder to the authors about what the hell is going on just as much as anything.
The book is divided into a million small chapters, with like sixteen narrators, some of whom are absolutely dreadful both as characters and individuals. The perspective of the Tleiaxu character in particular is so whiny and over the top that I spent the book hoping for his death repeatedly. And while Frank Herbert may have made a mistake, IMO, with the axlotl tanks, this error is dialed up to 11 with the other Herbert's descriptions of it through the world's most annoying character.
Apart from the writing, which has all the subtlety of Michael Bay and treats its readers like idiots, the plot itself is just waaaaaay too slow in developing. This book and the following could have been a single book, as originally envisioned. It might have been long, and if written as a single book could not have worked as the self-promoting pile of shit that this one attempts to be with its references to side-arcs developed in their own Dune splinter series, but it at least would have had a tighter narrative driving home. This book suffers from series bloat and repetition and tons of chapters that just serve no real purpose in the grand scheme of things.
Worst of all, this book ret-cons characters to fit within the splinter series written by the authors. It's unforgivable, IMO, to outright alter the characters at the heart of a 20+ year cliffhanger just because you want to wedge your new book into an advertisement for your other books. It's awful, and because of this, no matter what happens in Sandworms I would recommend absolutely no one read these two books, least of all anyone hoping to see where Frank Herbert's vision would resolve. Because the Enemy has been reconfigured for Brian Herbert's own ends, a shameful take on his father's legacy.
This book is terrible. It's not just terrible in the context of the Dune series overall -- it is simply a terrible book, period. I do not begrudge the authors the challenge of finishing off Frank Herbert's legacy, particularly because the series itself had already become ungainly and unfocused. But what they came up with is...real bad.
First and foremost, the writing reminds you at every turn, "Hey, remember this part in the series? That was a thing that happened." Every fucking page there's a summary of something that anyone who read the series already knows. And no one, absolutely no one, should be coming to this book if they've not read the first six books. It is disruptive and comes across as a reminder to the authors about what the hell is going on just as much as anything.
The book is divided into a million small chapters, with like sixteen narrators, some of whom are absolutely dreadful both as characters and individuals. The perspective of the Tleiaxu character in particular is so whiny and over the top that I spent the book hoping for his death repeatedly. And while Frank Herbert may have made a mistake, IMO, with the axlotl tanks, this error is dialed up to 11 with the other Herbert's descriptions of it through the world's most annoying character.
Apart from the writing, which has all the subtlety of Michael Bay and treats its readers like idiots, the plot itself is just waaaaaay too slow in developing. This book and the following could have been a single book, as originally envisioned. It might have been long, and if written as a single book could not have worked as the self-promoting pile of shit that this one attempts to be with its references to side-arcs developed in their own Dune splinter series, but it at least would have had a tighter narrative driving home. This book suffers from series bloat and repetition and tons of chapters that just serve no real purpose in the grand scheme of things.
Worst of all, this book ret-cons characters to fit within the splinter series written by the authors. It's unforgivable, IMO, to outright alter the characters at the heart of a 20+ year cliffhanger just because you want to wedge your new book into an advertisement for your other books. It's awful, and because of this, no matter what happens in Sandworms I would recommend absolutely no one read these two books, least of all anyone hoping to see where Frank Herbert's vision would resolve. Because the Enemy has been reconfigured for Brian Herbert's own ends, a shameful take on his father's legacy.