samtherat17's Reviews (162)

Not something dense or complicated. Just a fun romp with some scoundrels which is why I think it's great.

This book is the sequel to Dune and it focuses on the main character from it, Paul Muad'dib and his struggles. The author Frank Herbert seeks to caution us about charismatic leaders through the story. This book is a big subversion of expectations from the first book and Frank Herbert succeeds in getting his message across.
Now, the main problem I have with this book is that I think the author gets too carried away with the philosophy. I appreciate the message that he is trying to give but I feel that the book would have benefited with some of these long philosophical passages being trimmed down. Perhaps a different reader would enjoy these parts a lot more, but I personally thought that they were hard to follow and understand. Also, at moments I was confused as to what was going on, like suddenly a dwarf shows up? While it wasn't to the point where I wasn't understanding anything, I was still in the dark about some things even after reading the book. I think on a reread this would not be a problem, but I had to read some plot summaries online to understand some events.
I think to get Paul Atreides' full story, this is a must-read, as the path that the author takes with his arc is interesting and surprising, considering how his journey was in Dune.
I've seen people say that this feels like a bridge to Children of Dune, and I agree since this is a short novel intended to end an arc and set up another one.
So in conclusion, this book is pretty good, but it could have been great with some changes.

Classic for a reason.