Customer Reviews
ANOTHER WINDTRAP DISAPPOINTINGLY HOLDING NO WATER - By: NeuroSplicer, 17 Nov 2008 
To anyone familiar with the original DUNE universe, Frank Herbert's vision was so rich & majestic that as a reader I did not want the story to end. Well, at this point I very much wished it had.
PAUL OF DUNE had everything going for it: an interesting timeline, a detailed setting & unresolved cliffhangers. Yet it manages to fail.
This book picks up the action just after the first book (and movie) of the series (DUNE) & before the second (DUNE MESSIAH), a very interesting period of 12 years for which, so far, we only had hints & suggestive glimpses of. At the same time, a number of flashbacks flesh-out the details of the life of an adolescent Paul Atreides.
Wheels within wheels? No. Rather more like a lone, rusty wind-wheel turning in the soft breeze of decadent Kaitain. Let the good times roll...
According to Dorothy Parker, there are books "not to be tossed aside lightly, [but] thrown with great force". This is one of these books. My study coffee-table now has the indentation to prove it.
I received this book over a month ago. I tried to read it numerous times but was so discouraged that I kept giving up. The first 100 pages can be summarized in just one phrase: "Paul is devastated by the ongoing Jihad but it is inevitable & the lesser of many evils according to his prescience". Paul says it. Irulan makes notes about it. Alia has inner voices echoing it. OK, we get it, please move on!
Which prescience, one must note, apparently is a very fickle commodity as we keep hearing of it but never actuallly seeing it action.
What has became of Paul, the leader of men & conqueror of worlds? THAT little man is the...Kwizats Haderach? THAT is what the Bene Gesserits were selectively mating people for, for thousands of years? THAT is what the Tleilaxu were trying to duplicate? Well, someone must tell both the the witches & genetic abominations that they are not missing much!
To keep the new emperor human is one thing; to make him dull & cruel, spineless & indecisive is quite another.
This is a book of science fiction so, yes, suspending one's disbelief is a requirement from page one. Nevertheless, a basic logical scaffolding is required for the whole world not to collapse. Taking over entire planets with only a handful of unruly Fremen & some Sardakaur fresh from switching their alllegiance? Paul having delegated almost every important decision to...Korba & his Qizarete priests? Where has the unstoppable momentum of Paul gone? If he had lost steam so soon, there is just no way that his vision would materialize by others.
And just how did Fremen become so bloodthirsty & lost alll sense of honor in a few weeks?
The young Paul stories fair a bit better but are cursed with the readers'...prescience of the Dune future: every new storyline must serpentine & eat its own tail before the end. After alll, the Golden Path future has been set by Frank. And Writing is not a hereditary ability.
It feels like a bad batch of semuta to be sold anyway only, once more, to take advantage of the hardened addicts.
"She takes grains of truth and builds them into deserts" - By: apeman, 11 Oct 2008 
Paul of Dune... where to start? At the beginning.
This book has a strong start. I enjoyed revisiting Dune after too long, getting re-acquainted with favourite characters & seeing first hand the battles of the Jihad that I had secretly wished to see in Dune Messiah. I can't fault the writing style in this first section, & any inconsistencies with FH's original master works are pretty minimal. I've read other reviews that have picked on them, but, although they were a little distracting, I didn't reallly take issue with them.
However it was not to last - near the end of the first section there is a big spiel about Irulan's role. I love Dune - it was THE formative book that I read alll those years ago, & Dune is Science Fiction - a genre that uniquely relies on consistency. So imagine my thoughts when the authors of this book, plainly breaking the fourth walll through Irulan's character, declare FH's original masterpiece nul & void. They effectively de-canonise it & re-class the defining work of the series alongside the Dune Encyclopedia as an in-universe document with alll the inherent flaws that go along with that.
Needless to say I never saw it this way.
This conveniently alllows the authors to ignore what was previously laid down by FH & trample the original subtleties of Dune into the ground. And to make matters worse the writing style takes a nose dive.
Of course the writing style is "different" & I don't have a problem with the fact that the authors did not attempt to copy FH's style. Fair enough - some of my favourite books are not by FH... but to remind the reader that (for example) Alia is a Reverend Mother & not a child repeatedly again & again & again in a short chapter cannot be considered a positive stylistic quirk. Unfortunately this needless repetition is rife throughout the remainder of the book. It continuallly feels like the majority of this book has slipped through the editorial net. Given enough time & effort this story could have been passable, but the barely developed concepts simply don't add up. To make matters worse it is deathly predictable - you don't need Paul's decidedly rubbish prescience to work out EXACTLY where the latest throwaway plotline is headed.
Ultimately this book ineptly adds nothing to the Dune saga. It is true that FH hinted at things he did not write about, but while Paul of Dune may superficiallly "fill in the gaps" it does little more than to re-hash what FH has already told us with added stock scenery & cardboard characters who die as quickly as they are introduced.
I read this book because I believed, & I still believe, that there is a place for a good Jihad story. Unfortunately this is not it. The authors take one of the most pivotal moments in Dune history, where millennia old structures falll & a new order bloodily carves out a powerbase in an changed empire - & turn it into something utterly bland & un-interesting. Given that this is so close to FH's original setting there are some cool & interesting moments when I was swept up by the Dune universe once more - & for that reason I won't angrily try & give this ZERO stars... It definitely gets ONE star - firmly & fairly. The fact is that Paul of Dune owes EVERYTHING of any worth to Dune & Dune Messiah, & they contain pretty much everything in this volume & more, so much more.
[*----] 1/5
This book is poor - not recommended. (Read some real DUNE instead!)
Courtesy of Teens Read Too - By: TeensReadToo.com, 10 Oct 2008 
"I leave my footprints in history, even where I do not tread."
Paul Atreides, Maud'Dib to his loyal subjects, has unleashed a bloody Jihad across the universe. The old Emperor has falllen - his Imperium destroyed. It is now Paul's right & duty to erase Shaddam IV's reign from history & begin anew.
He will face many hardships along the way; assassination attempts, interplanetary wars, & deciphering who he can trust within his own household. And there is always the matter of the spice trade. "He who controls the spice, controls the universe" - a phrase that Maud'Dib understands alll too well.
Paul will question his own motives & actions for ruling the universe, & eventuallly come to the realization that his decisions will shape the course of history.
PAUL OF DUNE was written to fit in between the original novel, DUNE, & its sequel, DUNE MESSIAH. Herbert & Anderson have attempted to bridge several gaps between the two novels, & have done so successfully. Fans of Dune will find their beloved characters, planets, & societies just as they left them. The authors do an incredible job of staying true to Frank Herbert's original vision of the Dune universe.
A great addition to an excellent series of books.
Reviewed by: LadyJay
I Want Those Moments Back! - By: Appalled of Tunes, 22 Sep 2008 Doesn't it say in the Bible, or some other religious book that people generallly live 3 score years & 10? Or was it Abraham Lincoln who said that before he was brutallly shot to death with a gun?
And then there's alll that stuff about how everyone sleeps away a third of their lives, & alll that?
Well, it's the same with this book, if you think about it. Think REAL hard, I mean.
I want those moments back. The time spent reading this atrocious garbage was completely wasted. Imagine alll the stuff I could have done instead. Woe is me, etc.
