lucasw's Journal: Dune: House Harkonnen; Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson

Dune: House Harkonnen; Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson; May 10, 2003; 3/5; 2000

There's a few mistakes in common with the Star Wars sequels- overuse of allusions to future events from the other works. These Dune books succeed where the SW prequels fail because the authors here also at the time of writing this book intended to prequel their prequels with The Butlerian Jihad novel so also constantly reference events that that novel will deal with in detail. That book is out now, but I'm yet to read it- hopefully that book will also reference a past even if no further works taking place in previous eras are planned, just to give it a sense of context and history.

(Spoilers)

There's only a single reference to the Orange Catholic Bible (or only a handful if I missed a few). In the original Dune, the O.C. is mentioned dozens and dozens of times with a long expository appendix on its origins in the back of the book.

The Bene Gesserit are so prominent in the story that it seems that every powerful figure has one for a wife/concubine. The characters talk much of marrying daughters of other houses in order to forge alliances and make other political gains, but I can't think of a single instance where anyone actually does this in any of the Dune books. Though as others have noticed, the whole series is primarily about the B.G. (and not even Dune in the very last novels).

The B.G. have almost godlike powers, in addition to manipulating everyone of importance to taking one as a wife. The scene with the Baron visiting Wallach was almost believeable, but forceing Rabban to crash by hypnosis from hundreds of feet away? There's constant references to this or that defacto superpower a B.G. female has, and they are put to use at various points. It's possible that the B.G. simply are the strongest power faction prior to the premature advent of their Kwisatz Haderach, but I would have like to see them a little more humble, at least individually, in these prequels. I have a theory that the whole series has a running theme of strong individual men (Leto, Paul, Leto II) and collectively strong women (the Bene Gesserit), while groups of men and individual women all act foolishly and are eventually destroyed (though in the course of the thousands of years the novels span, most everything is destroyed or scattered eventually). The Fremen would be a partial exception, I suppose, but it's just a vague impression.

Kailea has way too many repititious scenes involving her becoming increasingly embittered by the Duke as manipulated by Chiara. Why is the Duke so weak as to put up with this for years and years? (or likewise the readers for so many pages...)

The guerilla attack on IX mentions explosives sent into the research pavilion where the artificial spice operations were taking place, although C'tair is unaware of it's purpose. The next scene involving the research there doesn't mention the attack at all, and later there is a mention that the research was coming to fruition rapidly despite having the labs destroyed and rebuilt (and remanned, presumably). It's not a major part of the book, but were the authors even paying attention there to not deal with the attack and after effects fully?

Major spoiler:

The politics involving House Grumman seemed ill-conceived. The Grummans first kidnap and kill many students from the Ginaz school, and then kill full swordmasters later in an all-out raid, but only the Emperor is appealled to to do anything. This is stupid:

Probably the students killed in the first raid were sent their by other Houses, great or minor. Those houses would have to take the execution of their people personally and retaliate. Furthermore, the swordmasters would have to have all kinds of connections and contacts with Great Houses, and those houses would act against Grumman with or without support of the Emperor out of personal debt even if none of their own were harmed- they would all have in-House swordmasters of their own who would push very hard for that.

Since those events take so late in this novel, it may be possible that more in-depth treatment will come in the House Corrino novel, but I would have liked a least a passing mention of other happenings even if there wasn't space here. There's nothing more annoying than being hit with a sense of wrongness about a course of events in a narrative, and finding no recourse.