Doug’s Sounding Board

I needed a quick read while brushing my teeth so I chose this book I’ve been carrying around since I was probably in elementary school. I remember picking it up at a library book givaway but it’s one I never got around to reading. It’s hard to tell if it’s trying to get young people interested in the nuclear industry or if it’s just trying to assure people that it’s safe and useful so get used to it.

Information wise it’s good. I didn’t know that radioactive sources were used in paper and steel mills to detect that the sheets are the correct thickness. And I didn’t know that we had used radioactive tagging to determine what plants absorb and in what quantities to determine the optimal fertilizer. Some of it is out dated because I don’t think we put small radioactive quantities into gas and oil pipelines to trigger a switch to redirect slow down the line. Seems like that would be some computer control now. It briefly goes over problems and dangers, usually followed by how quickly and effectively they can be cleaned up.

So I’ve now completed the last Dune novel that Frank Herbert wrote. Reading it reinforced my notion that Heretics of Dune is much like the original Dune. It is re-introducing you to the universe they live in since it is now drastically changed. Chapterhouse: Dune fits in to the mold of being like Dune Messiah (except it is a much easier read). In Dune Messiah, Paul is under attack and is trying to see a path clear that will guarantee a future. In Chapterhouse the bene gesserit are being attacked and are holed up trying to find their path.

The issue of continuity in people is brought up throughout the Dune novels:

• The bene gesserit reverend mothers have access to the memories all the back along their maternal lines.
• In the first three novels, the rich houses can afford spice addiction which extends life 2-3 times its normal length. Which gives those ruled a political continuity.
• The fremen have a set of practucal rules for survival that gives them continuity over the generations in addition to working towards their common goal of Arrakis no longer being a desert planet.
• Leto II redefined what longevity really was with his rule of 3500 years.
• Gholas grown by the Tleilaxu being able to have their original memories restored kept the same bene tleilax leaders in charge for about 5000 years.
• The most recent Duncan Idaho ghola, being grown from all the cells from his previous gholas, is able to remember all the lives he lived across the 5000 years
• And the Jews have maintained their religious continuity largely unchanged since the time on Earth which according to the timeline is about 26,000 years.

The Jews are interesting because they provide the example of why it is necessary to re-evaluate the past in the context of the present so you don’t get stuck in patterns for the sake of maintaining the patterns. All the other groups have that forced upon them or they go extinct. The Jews have hidden themselves so well that their neighbors wouldn’t even know what they are.

The end is as I remembered it, with a big cliff hanger just waiting for the next book, only this time I have that next book.

This one is fairly strange coming after God Emperor of Dune. 1500 years after Leto, the God-Emperor, dies there is no centralized ruling body for humanity. Conflicts still happen but they are fewer by far. There are powerful bodies but without a government to influence, what is the point of their power? You either get power for the sake of power, or you get power to perform noble causes and try to aid society. The Ixians (machine makers), the Spacing Guild, the Bene Theilax, and the Bene Gesserit are all in it for themselves.

Leto forsaw a famine and then the scattering of people far and wide. It is the scattering that would preserve humans, but now those people are starting to come back to the old empire. One group in particular from there are the Honored Matres. They seem bent on taking over the old empire worlds and gaining control of the spice. They have their own stimulant drug though it’s no spice.

There is a girl who can control the sand worms. After the worm carried a group to a hidden message for the Bene Gesserit I started thinking about the pearl of consciousness orf Leto that was supposed to be locked in each worm. He seems to still be running things, could the worms as a distributed intelligence still be holding everyone on the path Leto saw long ago? Well yes, that got confirmed later. The more the worms get destroyed, the more the path of humans is free from anyone’s control.

The Atriedes bloodline is still playing a big role in the universe. Their ability to not be seen by the prescient is in large demand, and the prescient abilities of the Atriedes are still right beneath the surface. The awakening in one of them is what shows them what needs to be done to attain freedom for the future.

Still no idea why Duncan Idaho is brought back over and over. This one has been grought back with upgraded reflexes though. He’s fast even for that time, but not as fast as Teg becomes.

Gerald will think I’m crazy, but I think this is possibly the best Dune novel thus far. It doesn’t stand on its own like Dune does but it’s just about great in every way. It’s about humanity, what it means to be human, and where they should go in the future, and where we have been in the past. The previous books have been about that to some degree but this one is all about that. I feel like I can read it again right now but I need a rest first. Heck, I think I’ll have to read it a few more times to get everything, or one more time really slowly.

You find that Leto, true to his word has become a 3500 year old sandworm and ruling the universe to keep people constrained. The point? To bring about a restlessness in people so they will expand far beyond the boundaries they have reached until that point. Also to make them think twice about what government they will let be in place in the future.

It’s interesting that Leto can see pretty much anything in the future but because he he he cherishes anything that surprises him. Part of that is that he refuses to see how he will die, though he does seem to know when it will happen.

The results of the breeding program poses interesting possibilities for the future books. I’m thinking that Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson didn’t read this too closely before writing their Butlerian JJihad series. One small part in this book contradicts what they wrote in there about the origins of the guild ships and that, along with the end of this book makes be have a dread of the conclusion to the series that they are writing. Maybe I can read it and just remember the basic story elements that are from Frank Herbert’s notes.

Now that I’ve finished Children of Dune I better understand that Dune Messiah was a necessary story to tell first. Children of Dune takes place nine years after Dune Messiah.

More Dune ramblings to skip.
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