The Battle of Corrin (Legends of Dune, Book 3) [Hardcover]

Brian Herbert (Author), Kevin J. Anderson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 17, 2004 | Series: Dune (Book 3)

Following their internationally bestselling novels Dune: The Butlerian Jihad and Dune: The Machine Crusade, Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson forge a final tumultuous finish to their prequels to Frank Herbert's Dune.

Dune: The Battle of Corrin

It has been fifty-six hard years since the events of The Machine Crusade. Following the death of Serena Butler, the bloodiest decades of the Jihad take place. Synchronized Worlds and Unallied Planets are liberated one by one, and at long last, after years of struggle, the human worlds begin to hope that the end of the centuries-long conflict with the thinking machines is finally in sight.

Unfortunately, Omnius has one last, deadly card to play. In a last-ditch effort to destroy humankind, virulent plagues are let loose throughout the galaxy, decimating the populations of whole planets . . . and once again, the tide of the titanic struggle shifts against the warriors of the human race. At last, the war that has lasted many lifetimes will be decided in the apocalyptic Battle of Corrin.

In the greatest battle in science fiction history, human and machine face off one last time. . . . And on the desert planet of Arrakis, the legendary Fremen of Dune become the feared fighting force to be discovered by Paul Muad'Dib in Frank Herbert's classic, Dune.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Dune addicts will happily devour Herbert and Anderson's spicy conclusion (after 2003's Dune: The Machine Crusade) to their second prequel trilogy, Legends of Dune. A fearsome robot-engineered plague opens the tumultuous Battle of Corrin, climaxing the century-long galactic war between humans and the computer Omnius's robotic Synchronized Empire. Vorian Atredies, supreme commander of the human Army of the Jihad, initiates the no-holds-barred feud between House Atreides and House Harkonnen by exiling Abulurd Harkonnen for cowardice, while Vorian's granddaughter Raquella molds the Sorceress survivors into a biochemically based sisterhood and Ishmael leads his people into Arrakis's sandwormy desert to become Fremen of Dune. All the Dune themes-religion and politics, fanaticism, ecology, opportunism, totalitarianism, the power of myth-exhaustively prepare the way for Frank Herbert's sweeping classic of corruptibility and survival.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

What appears to be the end of the Herbert-Anderson Dune prequels opens 56 years after the death of Serena Butler. The Jihad offers hopes of victory over the sentient machines and peace on human terms to a war-scarred galaxy. Unfortunately, the machine leader Omnius conceives a final, desperate, and, coming from a machine intelligence, ironic plan: biological warfare that spreads devastating plagues across scores of human-settled worlds. Herbert and Anderson vividly depict the plagues' effects, although given such a large cast of characters, some readers may feel the emotional impacts of particular characters' fates are rather blunted. The action rises to a thunderous climax in the account of the Battle of Corrin, which occupies a good third of a long book but more than makes up for previous deficiencies in pacing. At the end, we understand why House Corrino sits on the imperial throne, why House Harkonnen is out of favor, why House Atreides is where it is, and why Ishmael has led the ancestors of the Fremen into the desert wastes of the planet known as Arrakis. Thence on, or back, to Frank Herbert's perdurable classic. As before, a job well done. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 624 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; 1 edition (August 17, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765301598
• ISBN-13: 978-0765301598
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.6 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (108 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #161,550 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

68 of 81 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars series continues downward spiral, November 1, 2004

By 

B. Capossere (Rochester, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Battle of Corrin (Legends of Dune, Book 3) (Hardcover)

One steps into this series not expecting the achievement of Dune, an unfairly high standard, but a good read with maybe some flashes of Dune's complexity of character, plot, and philosophy. The first book of this trilogy, the Butlerian Jihad, failed in the latter two areas but the plot was a good enough read to overcome those flaws. The second book was a step backward, with the same weak characterization, but this time not balanced by a strongly told story. The Battle of Corrin, unfortunately, continues the downward trend. As in the other books, characterization is almost uniformly shallow, which is tough to do since some of these characters we've seen over the course of several long books now. Those characters we've seen in prior books don't seem to have developed much and the new characters are mostly two-dimensional. The plot is weak, mostly an episodic narrative of battles among the three major groups at war (the humans, the cymeks, the robots). The weakness of the plot is exacerbated by the "been there, done that" sense of repetition. It seems the three books could easily have been combined into two, making for a more streamlined, less repetitive narrative. Not everything needs to be a trilogy (Tolkien be damned). Another flaw affecting involving both plot and character is that too many actions seem arbitrary or contrived, done more for a plotline than developing out of character. Some, in fact, seem wholly out of character or simply unbelievable. Finally, whereas the first book mostly avoided the prequel problem of rote action meant to connect the dots of later books, this one is rolling in it, filled with awkwardly introduced or clumsily handled events/phrases written in so the reader can go "ahh, so that's why they call them xxxxxxxx in Dune". Admittedly, it's a tough problem to overcome for any prequel, but seldom have I seen it so poorly handled.

If this were book one I'd definitely recommend against starting the trilogy. But chances are, if you've reached Battle of Corrin, you're going to read it no matter what just to finish the series and see those connections to later Dune books. So all I can say is don't expect much, don't feel bad about skimming, and have a good book set aside to dive into when you're done; you're going to want to recapture a good read quickly.

41 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not as Good as Previous Novels, September 19, 2004

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Avid Reader (Willow Springs, MO United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Battle of Corrin (Legends of Dune, Book 3) (Hardcover)

Where others have attacked this series of books for not living up to the original Dune, I've tried to give them the benefit of the doubt. Sure, they don't compare with Frank Herberet's masterpiece, but then I never expected them to. On their own, the first two novels were good "Star Wars"-style space opera; however, this book was just not as good. It was almost as if the authors wanted to get the series done and over with so they could move on to other ideas. I think it also lacks in continuity between the other novels. The first two books featured the same characters and followed within several years of the Jihad timeline. This book jumps ahead several decades and introduces and entirely new cast of characters, with the exception of Vorien Atreides who survives because he received life extending treatments from his father. Near the end, the book seems rushed and falls flat. What started out as an OK continuation of the Dune saga fell flat with this novel.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The Power of Proofreading, November 28, 2005

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P. A. Lee - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Battle of Corrin (Legends of Dune #3) (Mass Market Paperback)

Like so many others, I did not expect this series to equal or surpass the original Dune series.

I have been quite pleased with this series until now, enjoying the opportunity to view the world of Dune from a new perspective. Watching Herbert's universe take shape has actually been quite entertaining.

This particular book, however, falls short. The writing feels forced and rushed, the dialog completely inane, the characters stripped of any complexity. The villians are stupid and easily manipulated. The characters make rash decisions with vast, universe-shattering consequences but do not even pause to do a bit of soul-searching for the benefit of the by now befuddled reader.

The sentences are often redundant and obviously barely edited, if at all. The book is readable, but the poor writing intrudes constantly.

If you're a follower of the series, you might rent it from the library to find out how the conflict ends, but I'm not sure it's worth the 7.99. (To add insult to injury, my copy, at least, is poorly printed.)