Customer Reviews

The Butlerian Jihad (Legends of Dune, Book 1)

5 star:		(54)
4 star:		(67)
3 star:		(53)
2 star:		(48)
1 star:		(65)

 

 

First things first let's level with each other. The fact that you're reading reviews probably means you're like me: You loved the original series, want to know about the Dune Universe pre-Great House Era, but are unsure if you really want to wade through this book.

OK, so let's level.

1. No, this in no way compares to Herbert the elder. Sorry.

The style of writing is much more short and episodic, it lacks that sort of motif based symphony Frank used. This is much more for a generation of Tv watchers and writers. Mini episodes cut between points of action (The Free Worlds, Earth, on a Ship, Arrakis, rinse repeat).

As such you don't have that feeling you had in dune where rising actions continued and then reached a few critical climaxes and faded away.

2. You really want to know what the Butlerian Jihad is. It's a great complling force in Frank's books and you want to know what happened. This book definitely moves in the direction of filling in those gaps.

In all truth, however, i think that most of us would have been satified with a Princess Irulan book: "The history of Pre-Great House Dune." I mean, had it narrated the facts of this book, it would have been *equally* as entertaining. In fact, this book is really a high school science fair 'play-dress-up' of actual interesting events.

3. It does cater to stereotypes and safe political waters. Urge for freedom, that humans are creative an passionate while machines are cold, etc. is familiar ground. Some interesting points were brought up: where do a mechanized human's loyalies lie - man or machine, body mind dichotomies. While Frank H. would have explored these interesting issues, the more pulp style of this series goes the safe route.

A few thoughts I have about Dune and allegory on my web site draws a steady stream of hits day in and day out. There is no possible allegory here. Furthermore, Frank wrote a great deal about the power of numbers, how fanaticism and fundamentalism can be harnessed -- things that made one think months afterward -- I'm not going to think about this book again (likely).

Consider how many sci-fi books have been written about when the machines take over. The authors of the Butlerian Jihad could have written one as well. Frank Herbert had the amazing vision to ask -- OK what would happen /after that/. That's the difference between just a couple of guys who wrote a story and a master.

So in sum. Wait for paperback, don't think that this is going to greatly enrich your experience of the Dune universe, simply view it as a pulp story that will give you a bit of back history on the great houses. That said, the House books were a sight better and this series, should it maintain its present course, will merely be an interesting backstory to them.

I grew up on Dune. I actually loved all the books, up to Chapterhouse: Dune.

What I've always liked about the Dune series is it's sheer believability and consistency. The complexity of it's storyline and characters made the books a challenge to read and understand - but well worth the effort.

Enter Brian Herbert. I had read "Man of Two Worlds", which was a collaboration he did with his dad - and was amazed at the difference. It [was very bad]. The story was a joke. It had some interesting ideas, but I have a feeling they came from Herbert Sr.

Now - I just read the 3 Dune "House" novels. The series had some promise in the beginning, but it quickly decayed into typical and mediocre mass-market space opera for which Kevin J. Anderson is well known. Now - if you like the innumerable Star Trek and Star Wars series out there - you'll probably love this. But to me, franchise stories lack any kind of real passion and creativity. Being a fan of the originals - I stuck it out. Read the 3 books, and tried to like them. But the awful truth is that they're [garbage] - filled with transparent plots, one dimensional characters, and a complete disregard when convenient for Frank Herbert's original ideas.

So - with some trepidation, I approached the new book. It covered one of the most intriguing periods of the Dune timeline.

I could not begin to comprehend how this book got released. Why would a publisher have a complete hack ghost-write an incompetent wanna-be, when there is so much excellent writing talent out there?

What would Gregory Benford or Stephen Baxter (or anyone of the numerous writers of their caliber) have made of this project?

The characterization of the Titans is laughable. And the sentient machines should be called "Artificial Sort-of Roman Hedonist Bad Guys". There are some solid ideas which obviously came from Frank Herbert in there - but the rest is fluff.

"Oh the machines are soooo bad, and they're kicking the humans' collective [butt]... I wonder how the humans will triumph?!?!?!".

I'd say skip it unless you're a devoted Dune fan, or like the first three in the series. But then again, if you liked those books you probably thought "The Phantom Menace" and "Attack of the Clones" were good.

If you want to read some good books about humans struggling against machines, I'd recomend William Barton's "When Heaven Fell", Dan Simmon's "Hyperion" series, and Brian Stableford's "The Omega Expedition". Or for a slightly different take, Karl Schroeder's "Ventus" - and of course, the originator of the idea: Fred Saberhagen's "Berzerker" series.

When the first installment of Dune appeared in Analog magazine way back in 1963, I was immediately captivated. I remained enthralled through all the succeeding seven installments, fascinated by the complex interplay of science, politics, religion, economics, ecology and their manipulation by all the various sharply realized characters. As the sequels came out over the years, I found some good, some not so good, but all, including the recent three 'prequels' written by the two authors of this book, at least deserving of existing in the same universe as the original work. Not so with this book.

The idea of this book is to bring to life that period in the history of man when machine intelligences ruled most of the human occupied worlds, a period referenced multiple times in the original book, and the supposed origin of both the Bene Geserit and Mentat schools as a reaction to such machine domination. Unfortunately, this book fails miserably at its chosen task for multiple reasons.

The first major problem with this book is the characterization. Everyone here is a paper-thin caricature of a human being, from Xavier Harkonnen to Vorian Atreides and everyone in-between. Most of these people are introduced with a short physical description, perhaps a couple sentences to describe their pasts, and are given 'tasks' that pretty much totally define what they are, from Xavier as a military commander to Tio Holtzman as the fading scientist. There is little or no growth of these characters, other than the totally predictable change of heart that Vorian goes through. Dialogue between these people is almost totally limited to the task at hand, with few if any things that would convince me that these were humans talking rather than machines.

Then there is the depiction of the machine intelligences Erasmus and the Omnius. Supposedly their great problem is that they can often be defeated by mere humans because they can neither understand nor predict human behavior. But they've had more than a thousand years in control to observe humans, and as one of the definitions of intelligence is the ability to learn from experience, I found this whole scenario impossible to believe. Some of the 'experiments' that Erasmus performs to help him understand human behavior I found both gross and pointless, coming across very much like the gratuitous violence of a bad movie attempting to hide its failings.

The story is told in very short chapters, shifting viewpoint character with each chapter. This technique can be effective, as A. E. van Vogt showed so many years ago with his massively re-complicated stories, but to make it work you need either very strong characters or a very complicated, non-obvious plot that can be built in layers, neither of which applies here.

The 'science' here is on par with the rest of this book. I thought lines like 'the ship threaded a narrow course through the asteroid belt' and spaceships performing U-turns went out with 1930's pulp science fiction. In fact, this whole book reads as if it was written specifically for a no-brainer Hollywood SF special effects spectacular, and to heck with anything approaching reality or literary depth.

This book doesn't deserve to have 'Dune' in the title.

--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

I'll just start by saying that I'm glad other Dune readers are not treating the material from the prequels as 'canon'. Despite the fact that Brian Herbert shares the blood of Frank Herbert, it was Herbert Senior who had the true vision and the philosophical mindset to write the books in a meaningful, thought provoking way.

This review is not to disparage Brian Herbert's writing ability. I merely noticed that while reading Herbert Senior's Dune, humans were at the center of the story. It was a story about human society and human abilities.

Somehow, the image F. Herbert painted of the Butlerian Jihad was something more akin to a religious explosion. B. Herbert's vision seems to be the 'typical' sci-fi fare of evil machine villains, like Terminator II..with one difference. Arguably, the Terminator series would be a better precursor to the original Dune than the Butlerian Jihad is. Mainly because the creators of the Terminators were human, and the Terminator programs were created by technological increases in mechanical logic. Thus, Terminators are 'thinking' robots. Even the Borg from Star Trek would serve as a better precursor to Dune-the combination of human and technological for 'perfection' at the loss of human qualities would state the story better.

However, B. Herbert's take of evil robotic supervillains seems more like a typical science fiction ploy. Not to give the story away, but some scenes in which the robotic villains take part seem like those scenes in Saturday morning cartoons where all the supervillains stand together and laugh evilly for no reason at all while they plan a plan that makes no sense except to show how evil they are.

I would consider 'A Brave New World' or '1984' MUCH better examples of the way to set up Dune. Dune has never been about 'traditional' science fiction plot points. It seems almost a shame that the prequels seem to wallow in the sort of typical 'hero' vs. 'villain' storylines that Frank Herbert said he wanted to dispute with his series. I remember the brief essay F. Herbert wrote at the start of his branch of the series, regarding setting up heroes for worship.

There is a central weakness to the prequels that perpetuate 'conventional' plot lines and character types at the expense of the greater coherence of the story. The main differences I've noted I will list here:

EG: If Gaius Helen Mohiam was Jessica's mother, Jessica, Paul, Alia, Ghanima and Leto II would have had her in their Other Memory. This is not the case. I don't have my book with me, but I recall in God Emperor, F. Herbert made a big point in showing Letos' knowledge of the Bene Gesserit breeding lines when he said: "Tertius Eileen Anteac, you descendant of Gaius Helen Mohiam..." in the throne room scene. This shows that Mohiam is clearly NOT related to the Atreides, but belongs to a parrallel breeding line.

EG: Baron Harkonnen was disposed to fat, and lived a life of excess. Thus, the prequel explanation for how this came to be goes against the evidence in Dune and Children of Dune. Lady Margot, the BG Breeding Mistress, remarked that the Baron 'let himself go to fat', while Alia put on extra weight after being possessed by the Baron.

EG: Mohiam in the original series was one of the few Reverend Mothers with the Sight. Don't forget that a specific point made in book I of the series, was that she HAD to interview Paul Atreides because at this time in the books, not every Reverend Mother had access to some of her Other Memories. This distinction would call attention to the possibility that access to ancestral memories was no common among all RMs until God Emperor, when Leto II took control of the breeding program, leaving the bene Gesserit to refine their reflexes, sexual imprinting and memory abilities. So, if Mohiam was Jessica's mother, in the Paul/Gaius Helen scene in book 1, she would have noted that they were related; all Reverend Mothers with the Sight knew whom they were related to. They just could not always see the entirety of the Bene Gesserit design. You could argue that Helen Gaius was killed on Arrakis without being able to pass on her Other Memories...however, you would be arguing for this point rather than against it: you only had to Share other memories with people not related to you; if there was a genetic relationship, that person would already be a part of your ancestral memories. I'm sure that when Jessica confronted all of her female relatives, she would have seen Gaius Helen sitting there. Even Paul did not see Gaius among his ancestors, and he had a more complete access to Other Memory than Jessica did.

I think B. Herbert's prequels are a good, typical 'sci fi' read. But it is merely interesting to point out that many hard core 'sci fi' readers don't enjoy the original Dune series because of the human-centric storylines.

This book, and the prequels gets two stars. This book in particular could have been improved if the story was crafted in a way that the Jihad seemed more religious than a typical war. Perhaps if spaceship life support had developed into mechanized city and planet terraforming, eventually turning into artificial life constructs typical of nine to five jobs, arbitrary assignments, and big-brother sort of acitivity (Imagine the possibilities if B. Herbert had written the machines as a supercomputer created by humans to take away the problem of untrustworthy humans in government? - I envision a potential in my vision that would explain the Bene Gesserit's origins...machine made instructions as to population control and breeding lost the male Bene Gesserat powers of ancestral awareness, while the Guild developed because spaceships 'autopilot' functions would not travel unless the central computer accepted the risk).

I think the main problem with this story is that the robots are more super-villain than creation. B. Herbert should have showed why a religious term ('jihad') was used to describe the uprising rather than treating it as typical sci-fi fare a la The Phantom Menace/Attack of the Clones.

While many readers poo-pooed the Dune prequel trilogy, I really enjoyed it. The stories and characterisations were interesting and they opened up the background to me as well. With this experience in mind, I was happy to treat myself to The Butlerian Jihad. This event, dropped into the original Dune story in dribs and drabs, has always spoken to me because of it's epochal effect on the Dune universe. Dune's characters all suffered from the same interesting prejudice in that they hated machines due to the Butlerian Jihad. Their very piousness was rooted in blind prejudice and this made them extremely interesting because they were so obviously flawed. A sci-fi universe with no thinking machines was ground breaking stuff and I'd been looking forward to reading about it and the great figures of the time (Tio Holtzman etc) for many years.

I've nearly finished the book and have to say so far I'm disappointed because it's just too one dimensional. The book for starters begins at the beginning of the end. The old empire has already fallen and Human planets face off against the robot ones (the Synchronised Worlds). The humans are clearly goodies and the robots (and their lackeys) are obvious baddies with very few shades of grey inbetween the characters at all.

Likewise, the storyline offers very few genuine surprises. Many plot threads and facts are explained in depth by the authors as they happen. This happens enough times that the reader recognises a pattern and can easily notice the instances where a plot thread is introduced and the authors then fail to immediately explain it (eg the 2nd transmission towers on Giedi Prime). You just know why it will come up later on and this precognition effect destroys the suspense.

The hardest task for the authors has been to create robot characters (would robots be individuals?) who are alien - the human brained cymeks making a good exception. An easy quandry to understand becasue if the robots are too alien, they will be too hard for a reader to understand and connect with. This seems to be the reason why the authors create characters like Erasmus, an independantly minded robot who aims to study human-ness. However Erasmus is inconsistantly portrayed and the authors slip up at times. For example Erasmus tries to create art but cannot comprehend the creative process and **in frustration** tears the canvas apart.

The robots act inexplicably human despite all the assertions to their machine intellect. Instead of a machine mind (such as the Borg or in the Matrix) they act surprisingly dumb and fail to utilise their machine advantages that we so often read about (longevity, lack of emotion, productivity etc). Instead, they keep human slaves for menial tasks when machines would be far more efficient and much logistically cheaper, they allow human slaves to work in extremely critical areas, they limit themselves to worlds that support human life, they do not outstrip the humans in productivity, the machine overmind (Omnius) often communicates verbally rather than via any machine link, the machine minds to not actively seek to gain information other than a paltry few spy drones and the machines make tactical decisions that are worse than unimaginative because they aren't even based on cold logic. For example on Giedi Prime they open their assault with a "brilliant tactic" by using a sacrifical kamikaze cruiser to destroy a ground target. Asteroids (as used in Niven and Pournelle's "Footfall") would be far more effective (and efficient).

I really wanted to enjoy this book. So far I'm singularly unimpressed with the threat of the robots because they aren't much worse than the one dimensional mechanical badguys found in the Transformers cartoons.

Having read Frank Herbert's original Dune series, I was interested to see what the authors of Dune: The Butlerian Jihad would have to contribute to this sprawling saga. The plot is engaging enough, providing detailed accounts of things only hinted at in FH's books (such as why Earth is spoken of in the past tense in those works), and there is much scope for wrestling with any number of issues in such a story.
Unfortunately, this is where the good news ends. The prose style is banal and irritating, riddled with gloss* and laced with far too many adjectives; worse yet, Messrs. Herbert and Anderson seem to be overly fond of abstract adjectives, such as "ethereal" and "great", as if they believe that merely tossing such terms out can evoke what the words denote. The result is that it reads more like a Batman comic than like the kind of work the authors presumably intended it to be.
Also, with the ironic exception of the evil robot Erasmus, almost none of the characters really came alive for me, despite all the adjectives the authors toss at them; I got frustrated at how little we are really allowed to understand the main characters' motivations and emotions as individuals.
Moreover, the book has lots of the kind of beginning-of-chapter epigraphs that were a hallmark of the original Dune. This is a treacherous thing to attempt, and if a writer is going to attempt it, he or she had better really have something important and relevant to say. The elder Herbert did in fact have something of a knack for this, whereas the epigraphs in DTBJ strike me, for the most part, as fatuous and sophomoric, and would best have been omitted.
In summary, what could have been a three- or four-star effort ended up as mere two-star pulp entertainment.If you are a hard-core Dune fan, and are interested in the plot for its own sake, then you might be interested in reading DTBJ; otherwise, you won't miss a great deal by giving it a pass.

*Gloss: a hack literary device wherein the author either breaks out of narrative to deliver the reader a synopsis-like block of information, or else transparently and artifically manipulates dialogue to a similar end.

This book is somewhat better than the authors' House trilogy. I think having freed themselves of the restraints of the original Dune universe, they were able to give free rein to their imaginations and put out a better product. However, the bad writing that characterized the House trilogy remains. It seems like the authors at some point in their lives took a really bad creative writing class where they were told to use lots of flowery prose with tons of unnecessary adjectives. For example, Norma never runs, she is carried by her legs. And they are never just legs, they are short legs. And it's diminutive Norma (because the reuse the same adjectives over and over and over again ad nauseaum). So "Norma ran" becomes "Norma's short legs carried her diminutive body." Rinse, rather, repeat for 675 pages. Just one more example. On page 593, a ship doesn't enter Jupiter's gravity well. Instead we are treated to the following monument to absurd prose: "The gas giant reached out to them, beckoning with a siren song of physics."

Even though the writing is no better, the story is. They did a relatively good job crafting the plot, and depicting the psychology of the struggle. Iblis Ginjo, Vorian Atreides, Serena Butler and Xavier Harkonnen are depicted realistically - if somewhat one-dimensionally. Other characters, e.g. Agamemnon, are less believable. Could he truly believe that "the barbarians didn't understand freedom or free will" even as they were revolting against the machines' rule? It is unlikely that he could be that oblivious to reality. (The whole "brain in a jar" concept is pretty 1930s.) On the other hand, the parallels between the cymeks and the human rulers of Poritrin (whose motivations do seem more plausible than the cymeks) is quite enlightening. It goes along the lines of the "good guys vs. bad guys" theme which I explored in my review of House Corrino. In that review I pointed out that the authors took a simplistic view of good vs. evil and did not consider valuable avenues of exploration in their writing. The fact that they do so here shows considerable growth in their writing.

The authors' complete ignorance of science is blatantly obvious in almost every chapter. The absence of even a hint of the science and mathematics behind the "inventions" of Tio Holtzman and Norma Cenva, despite "discussing" them at great length, is quite odd. The authors mention "arithmetic"; what meaningful science involves only arithmetic? What calculations could their solvers work on after only the most basic training? At one point, one of the solvers sabotages a result by "moving a decimal point" and claiming nobody would notice. If the authors knew ANYTHING about mathematics, they would understand that moving a decimal point is the mistake MOST LIKELY to be noticed. If I'm expecting an answer of 10, and you give me 5 or 20 I might not notice. But if you give me 1 or 100 I will definitely notice. Duh! The science-related quotes that start many chapters are meaningless as well.

Despite the derivativeness of the robot Erasmus, they nevertheless managed to make him fascinating in a macabre sort of way. What is unrealistic is that he would be so completely clueless about human behavior. Think Dr. Mengele meets the Terminator. If intelligence means the ability to learn, then Erasmus must not be particularly intelligent. The relationship between machines and humans at large is somehow odd. Things like robots serving as drivers of a horse-drawn carriage for a human are not realistic in light of the master-slave relationship. The resources dedicated to keeping the humans alive for slave labor are inconsistent with Omnius's oft-mentioned desire for efficiency. What do humans provide for the machines that they could not more quickly provide for themselves while consuming fewer resources. Surely a machine of some sort could do any required work faster than slave labor (which has long been known to lead low-quality results). The final chapters of the revolt and the surprise experienced by Erasmus and Omnius on the other hand could form a fascinating study of "AI psychology" if such a thing existed.

There are several gaps in the plot, a fact which I would be remiss in not mentioning. Without providing any spoilers, I can provide one example. The flaw in the defensive measures the humans used at Salusa Secundus and Giedi Prime was glaringly obvious. That the machines did not take advantage of it in their raid on Salusa Secundus AND that no human noticed the flaw either in the original design or when Xavier Harkonnen visited Giedi Prime for the specific purpose of evaluating their defenses simply defies belief.

One last disappointment in the book is that the authors clumsy attempts at foreshadowing gave me what I believe is conclusive proof of where they are headed in "Dune 7." On page 224 it says, "By the time humans expanded into those distant star systems, Omnius would already be there. Waiting." And in House Corrino, we were already treated to "ancient enemy ... future enemy" (when Navigator D'murr Pilru goes off course because of the amal). Other brief comments in House Corrino (regarding the unnamed planet that Tleilaxu Master Ajidica was setting up to take his BG axlotl tank) made me hopeful that they might head off in another direction. But now I have no doubt, the Honored Maitres and others returning from the scattering are fleeing thinking machines. This bothers me, as I am fairly certain that is NOT the path that Frank Herbert would have taken had he been alive to write Dune 7 himself.

My last thought, which really encompasses everything mentioned above, is that the story is not bad (you really want to keep reading to see what happens next), but the writing is bad, bad, bad. These guys need a good editor like nobody's business.

Frank Herbert is dead and the recent House Series and the first offering of Butlerian Jihad will not resurrect him or his Dune Chronicles. You've heard it before and it's true, the books by Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson are not like the original Dune books at all. I guess the New Dune books stand on their own as works of Science Fiction since they are entertaining. The operative word here is "Entertaining". The Butlerian Jihad which attempts to delve into the origins of the Dune Universe, describes the battle between free humans, cymeks (disembodied humans with robotic bodies), and the Evermind (ubiquitous, all-controlling AI). At stake is the survival of the human race and the quest is assumed by characters whose descendants are all too familiar: Harkonnen, Atreides, Butler. It also tries to explain the origins of the Bene Gesserit, foldspace, and the Fremen. Nothing is discussed about the Spacing Guild which is disappointing.

The first thing that any reader will notice is that compared to the Dune Chronicles, this is a quick read. There is no complexity, no philosophy, no depth. It's like watching a made for TV movie created for teenagers. Perhaps I can say, with all due respect to the authors, that this is the dumbing-down of Dune that started with the House novels and has continued into this offering as well. These books are written for a young audience plain and simple. That much is obvious when you consider the kind of SciFi that Kevin Anderson wrote. The cymeks reminded me of Japanese Anime like Gundam.

Was it entertaining? Yes. Will I read the next installment? Yes.
Am I looking forward to reading it? So So. Can we expect it to be a more complex read? No. Is that disappointing? Yes. All I can say to the authors is, do what you have to do to make a living by appealing to the younger masses but don't expect any praises from seasoned Dune fans or more mature readers.

I was waiting patiently for this book to come out after having read the House trilogy. When I got it, I finished it pretty quick because there is a lot of action and some interesting ideas. It was extremely easy to read and follow. However, I cannot help feeling that they did not hit the mark with this book. They were supposed to be taking us back in time in the Dune Universe to that pivotal time 10 000 years prior to the events of Dune. Somehow, they did not capture the mysticism of this legendary time. Truthfully, this book could have been written to stand on its own just by changing the characters' names and getting rid of the sandworms. It almost seems like they wrote it so that they could fill in the important preceding events with another series. Despite its grandiose title, The Butlerian Jihad, which was alluded to tantalizingly in Frank Herbert's novels, this book did not live up to my expectations in terms of developing the mythology and legends of Dune. But, being a die hard Dune fan, I did not regret buying it and will buy the upcoming novels in the series.

When I first read the original Dune novels, I was amazed by the intracacies of the plot lines as well as the deep, almost mythical portent of Frank Herbert's words. The newer Dune novels do not recreate this. The plots seem fractured, as every short chapter changes plot lines like a movie cutting between scenes. The political intrigue present in even the "House" prequels is not manifest.

Having said that, they are rather entertaining to read. The introduction of thinking machines and cymeks (machines with human brains) is a new and exciting direction for Dune. Humans and machines are fighting a great war for survival. A robot philosopher tries to understand the very essence of humanity itself. Xavier Harkonnen and Vorian Atreides meet for the first time. Both share a love for the same woman, hinting at the blood feud that will last for 10,000 years. Young Selim is cast into the deserts of Arrakis, where he learns to utilize and revere the great sandworm. Serena Butler is imprisoned on the conquered planet Earth, where she will spark the bloody revolt that changes the universe forever. There are several more plot lines in the novel (around 10 total, I think), and the dust jacket hints at more to come in the next novel.

The Jihad has begun, but a war remains to be fought. The Butlerian Jihad is just a beginning, introducing plots and characters for the rest of the trilogy, but it is a worthwhile beginning to any reader curious about the origins of the Dune universe seen in later books.