Customer Reviews

Dune: House Corrino

5 star:		(21)
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3 star:		(26)
2 star:		(22)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson come close to wrapping up the Dune prequel series with a climactic edition in "Dune: House Corrino". This story takes place in less than a year's time, beginning after the conception of Paul Atreides, and finishing just after his birth. The book starts off a little slow; it takes the authors a while to build up the suspense, but the last 150 pages of this work are well worth the wait. The details regarding the Corrino famliy are also enjoyable.

The authors set the stage in the two previous prequel stories ("House Atreides" and "House Harkonnen") and really didn't need to build up interest over such a long novel. FYI, both previous works are musts for devoted Dune fans. However, this is the best book out of the three editions. New readers will find the style smoother and more modern than the original Frank Herbert series, but not quite as creative. These stories fill in the many gaps in Frank Herbert's background, almost as if reading historical fiction.

The final third of the book is excellent, even difficult to put down as the action reaches a crescendo. Though every fan knows what is going to happen, we have been shielded from the truth all this time. You almost feel as if the story were new. However, there is one last story to tell here. Prepare to see "Dune: Bene Gesserit" bridging the birth of Paul Atreides to the relocation of his family to Planet Arrakis.

I have read every book in both Dune series and rate this book 3.80 out of 5.00 stars, rounded up to 4.00 stars, with points for writing style and for nicely wrapping up a lot of pre-history. Still want to read about more workings behind the scenes of the Sisterhood though.

Dune: House Corrino, the last novel of the Prelude to Dune prequel trilogy by Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson, is the final chance these two writers have to wrap up the storylines that immediately precede Dune. In this respect, the results are mixed. We are treated to some great moments in House Corrino, including an entertaining final battle on Ix and the important birth of Paul Atreides. I will let readers realize the endings for themselves. The book's greatest failing is its inability to properly capture the depth of the brilliant scheming of Emperor Shaddam IV. His dimwittedness is unintentionally comical and is reminiscent of a futuristic version of the 1970's The Bad News Bears baseball comedies. We see our Bad News Corrinos blunder around the galaxy in ridiculous ways that are hardly consistent with the House that out-schemed and destroyed Duke Leto Atreides and his legendary mentat, Thufir Hawat. It is surprising that Emperor Shaddam IV is allowed to stay Emperor at the end of this book. It is even more comical that Count Fenring voices similar comments to Shaddam IV. With respect to the Emperor, the authors seem to confuse ruthlessness with brilliant planning. It is difficult to imagine anyone who attempts what Shaddam endeavors and still remain Emperor! Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson's blunder with respect to the Emperor is not surprising considering the ridiculousness of parts of the previous book, House Harkonnen, as Baron Harkonnen storms Wallach IX without his anti-Voice ear plugs introduced in the first book, House Atreides, that magically makes one immune to the controlling Voice employed by the Bene Gesserit.

Another failing of the book is the ridiculous yet surprising climax that revolves around Harkonnen mentat, Piter. It not only seems foolish, but it makes this reader wonder about the poor security of the Emperor's homeplanet, Kaitan. The ending is indeed surprising and may affect the way Dune fans think of twisted mentats.

There is hardly any mention though of Yueh's wife, and there is certainly no hint of Piter's plan for her in Leto's downfall. This may disappoint some fans of Dune. It disappointed me.

A strength of House Corrino is the introduction of a new character associated with Emperor Shaddam IV. There is an exciting scene involving a play reminiscent of Hamlet's Mouse Trap. The problem though is that the characters seem to be very much aware of Shakespeare's Hamlet and the use of a play within a play. I had always assumed that ancient earth was only known or remembered by those with Other Memories. Apparently every poor surf on every backwater planet of the known universe is aware of William Shakespeare! In addition this part of the storyline is rushed to an early conclusion as is many of the better storylines of the Prelude trilogy.

Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson's Prelude to Dune trilogy is a mixed bag of excitement, inconsistencies, and at times poor preparation. It seems they were not altogether familiar with many of the plots or main characters of Dune; smaller characters such as Count Hasimir Fenring were fleshed out wonderfully at times and add much to the Dune legacy, but they also confound the reader by having the Count utter the exact letter for letter eccentric spoken mannerism without any variation, which is highly annoying; more care should have been taken with his dialogue. The next book by Herbert and Anderson is due in October of 2002 as the first of a Butlerian Jihad Trilogy. It is almost guaranteed that the authors will have less trouble by tackling a time period several millennia prior to Frank Herbert's Dune, the first book of the series. In their Prelude trilogy they seemed to be bogged down in details, which leaves the reader with the impression of reading a rushed outline of a novel. It is a shame that they did not make their outline public for Dune fans to critique so that obvious inconsistencies could be corrected and their better ideas fleshed out and fully realized. Although it is impossibly difficult to fully satisfy any long time fan of the Dune chronicles with respect to characters they feel they know, the glaring inconsistencies of the Prelude trilogy leaves this humble fan of Dune sad that he is refering the writers of the new Dune novels as The Bad News Authors.

I am a "Dunetic". There is no escaping that fact. I have read everything I can get a hold of, including Herbert Jr.'s prequals. I've made my own observations of these books. Let me share them with you.

Let's look at the negative...

1. No, these books were not written by Frank Herbert. We all know that. No one should walk into them believing that they were. They lack Frank Herbert's grace and his beautifully written prose and poetry. Period.

2. These books conflict with many of the facts layed out in the Dune series WRITTEN by Frank Herbert. (I do not mention the Dune Encyclopedia as it is a well known fact that the author contrived a great deal of the information without clearing it with Herbert Sr.) It is my belief that when an author has died, "discovered" notes or not, the written and published works are to be the ONLY source. They should be the only "bible" of any fan writer or relative completing unfinished works. Discovered notes or outlines can be used so long as they correspond with the published works. Frank Herbert MAY have written the scene where Jessica and Leto meet (as written in House Harkonnen) however, for whatever reasons he had, he chose NOT to use that version in the original Dune. Brian Herbert should have respected that. He needs to take notes from Christopher Tolkien.

OK. Now the positive...

1. Are they fun to read? Yes. For someone craving more Dune stories, they were entertaining. They weren't the philosophical pieces of mastery his father left, but they were FUN.

2. Take with them what you want and leave the rest behind. I enjoyed the little storylines that DID fit into the Duniverse as depicted by Frank Herbert.

3. If you must, believe that the official Imperial records were tainted and changed by whichever organization you wish for whatever political reasons that they believed necessary to hide whatever secrets they were hording. Be it Guild, CHOAM, House Corrino, the Fremen, or the Bene Gesserit.

4. Just enjoy them for what they are. If you can seperate the different mediums, you might have fun reading them.

Frank Herbert managed to write a series so good that I read even "House Corrino" (and the other two, for that matter)to the end.

I mean, the discrepancies with the Dune Series (such as when Anirul's Other Memory invite her to join them, like they were some kind of spirits from beyond) and the simplistic and, sometimes, devastating depicting of some characters (the Bene Gesserit reduced to a bunch of petty and conspiring "multi-powers" women) made me stop and sigh every three pages...

Still, Frank Herbert's universe is so incredibly seducing and encompassing that somehow it made up for every time I thought about quiting. Dune fans, if you want to spend some more time in the Dune universe - or something like it -, get ready to "ignore" the screw-ups.

As a better alternative, however, make up your own stories and write them down. You'll probably do better than House Corrino...

Reading this book made me want to get out a red pen and mark it up. Everything you learned not to do in high school writing classes, they do in this book. Chapters are short and choppy, on average 3 pages long. Very little descriptive prose is used -- you feel like you are reading the Cliff notes, not the actual book. Not a single character evolves from beginning to end. Almost every chapter has at least one ellipse... some as many as three or four. Ellipses which to me meant - the author ran out of words to describe the situation so reader, fill in your own blanks. I don't mind using my imagination every once in awhile, but the whole book? Especially when there are hardly any words to describe the scenery, the setting or the characters' true inner most thoughts. And telegraphing - the practice of giving away the plot or actions before they occur - there's lots of it. You know what people are going to say or do before they do it. In many cases the story does not unfold naturally, because they try to tell each scene in ten paragraphs or less. And so many people get killed in this book -- main characters, not so main characters -- I felt like I was watching back-to-back reruns of Miami Vice.

You can read other comments on the plot inconsistencies between the prequel and the original, which I find shameful given that there were 4 editors (Mike, Carolyn, Pat and Anne Lesley should share in the responsibility).

If you have not read the original Dune Series, please do so (all six) before you read any of the prequels. The prequels give away a lot of secrets that take away from the mystery of the original books. Then wait at least 12 months before you attempt the prequels -- the writing styles are so different it will be difficult to digest. I enjoyed reading House Atreides and House Harkonnen, but after re-reading the originals immediately prior to picking up Corrino, I realized the vast difference between the vision in the books of Frank Herbert vs. the plain story-telling of the prequels. The original Dune series is a difficult read. Every book, especially the last three, has lessons and morals that are sometimes difficult to discern, even after you re-read them a few times. After reading each original Dune book I feel like I grow as a person. I just finished reading House Corrino and I feel like taking a bath.

It's not perfect. But what is? Herbert and Anderson are obviously adrenalin junkies, tempered by our modern age of impatience and information overkill. Brian's father, Frank was of a different generation. A generation where it was more common for artists to lock themselves away from the world in order to study it better. Brian and Kevin come from a world of speed and excess, video games and nano-technology in the palm of their hands. Their world - our world - was only conceivable in the imaginations of past generations; Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clark, Frank Herbert, etc.

What am I getting at?

I didn't read the Prelude to Dune novels hoping for Frank's insights and inventiveness. I read them not only hoping to see what Brian and Kevin had salvaged of his unwritten work, but also to escape into one of the grandest space opera's ever conceived.

Yes, there are problems as other reviewers have pointed out. Personally, I think collaborative work on this scale is seldom as successful as it could have been if left for one author to anguish over. The best books, and Frank Herbert was well-known for this, offer insights; other ways of seeing the world so that we may be able to see our own world more clearly.

But I couldn't put it down. The short chapters were like so many tasty morsels of finger-food. 600 pages in five days. I amazed myself. When I got to the last 20 or 30 pages, my head spun with all that was about to happen. House Corrino is like a spider web covered in tiny spiders all vying for their place in the scheme of things.

My conclusion is that if you paid to watch any of the Star Wars movies, then happily pay the man and read yourself this book.

I really wanted to like this book (and the whole trilogy) a lot more than I did. There were even a few times where I found myself caught up in the action and unable to put them down. But in the end, certain inaccuracies and contradictions between the prequels and the original text caused me to become a bit distanced from these otherwise interesting books. Granted, most of the problems with the prequels are a bit nit-picky, but considering the classic status of the originals, it is a bit grating and frustrating to find out how little effort apparently went into researching certain aspects of the books. I've also read many reviews (both online and in print) praising Brian Herbert's writing style as "on par" with his father's...I personally found it more imitative than equal to. I recently began reading Dune again and I'm noticing even more errors with the prequels than I originally thought. I think for hard-core Dune fans, the prequels should be taken with a grain of salt and possibly even looked at as something wholly separate from the original Dune storyline...there are just too many contradictions for me to take the prequels as "factual" presentations of Dune history.

House Corrino was an entertaining book that very neatly sewed up the trilogy. The writing style is easily read compared to Frank Herbert's Dune. Even though Dune is my all time favorite novel, I enjoyed the hisory of the Dune characters and found the story a little trite perhaps, but very satisfying. All of the prequels are written with scientific and observational flair compared to Dune which purposely left difficult to explain details somewhat vague to inspire mystique.

Brian Herbert tells the prehistory of Dune from a different viewpoint than his father. Even though the style is distinctly different the story has definite merits of it's own. I enjoyed learning about the Baron Harkonen and how he became so large. I also enjoyed learning more about the navigators and how they accomplished space travel. Brian Herbert does an excellent job of explaining these mysteries.

There were some negative points in this novel, however. Brian Herbert spent too much time with several characters receiving various forms of punishment. He missed the point, if he thought by over-emphasizing the continual harsh treatment of the stories heros' were either entertaining or inspired fierce sympathy for these characters. The treament of Gurney Halleck for instance, became monotonous and a little embarassing.

I found it difficult to put this book down because it was light reading, very entertaining and fast paced, compared to Dune which I was forced to put down to absorb what I had read.

If you are the type of reader that loves Dune and only enjoys reading fine literature, or you are a Frank Herbert purist you would be better off re-reading Dune. If you enjoy thoughtful, light sci-fi and can deal with the fact that the author is not Frank Herbert you will very much enjoy this book.

As I mentioned in my review of House Atreides, it took me a while to muster-up the courage to attempt this 'prelude' series as I was concerned that it would harm the Dune franchise. I decided to read the series straight through (all nine books). I can safely say that the prelude series ADDS something that was missing from the original series.

"Dune" is, unequivocally, the greatest science fiction novel of all time. And now that we have a thorough backstory, it has only become greater. "Dune" begins with a 15 year old Paul Atreides who quickly becomes Duke Paul Atreides (amongst other titles). In the beginning of Herbert's six novel series Paul's father Leto is portrayed as a great man, but we don't know why. We also know that there are flaws in the ruling house - Corrino, ie Emperor Shaddam IV, but we are not given any details.

This is the reason why the prelude series is worthwhile. We find out the recent history that shapes the events in the novel "Dune". That is, we get first-hand knowledge of the relationship between Fenring and Shaddam and a greater feeling for their characters and motives. We understand now the threat that Leto posed for the throne which led to the Atreides move to Arrakis. We also get a greater appreciation of Ix and revilement of the Tleilaxu. The inclusion of these events into the saga gives the reader a greater understanding of the Dune universe.

I definitely recommend the prelude series to any 'Dune' fan who is prepared to take it for what it is - a well written backstory.

There is never engough written about the Dune universe to satiate my hungry mind. I was going to wait for the paperback edition of Dune: House Corrino to come out before I read it, but after reading House Harkonnen, I knew I couldn't sleep well until I had finished the series of prequels.

House Corrino nearly finishes off the time from House Atreides to the first original Dune book, leaving only about a decade and a half interim. This gap is disappointing, but all of the plot lines closed up nicely once the end was reached, at least.

There were a few things that could be viewed as weaknesses in this book. For instance, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen is one-dimensionally cruel, violent, ruthless, and single-minded. Emperor Shaddam IV reeks of incompetance, stubbornness, and rebellion. The Bene Gesserit are, as always, cool, cruel, and uncaring of many winds in the universe. Despite all this, though, one has to realize that in real life, there are two-dimensional people. People just as predictably vile, ruthless, stubborn, and cruel. In addition, the development of the characters of Duke Leto Atreides, Prince Rhombur Vernius, Jessica, and even Count Glossu Rabban is evident. Leto shows his soft side and his hard side through his time with Jessica, and his ruthless attacks on offending people. Rhombur, after facing some rather strong physical setbacks, emerges more mentally strong than ever. Jessica, ever the Bene Gesserit loyalist, defies the Sisterhood, bearing Leto a son. Rabban shows actual restraint in a near-attack on the Atreides. The wife of the Emperor, Kwisatz Mother Anirul, faces a flurry of Other Memory voices which nearly drive her mad. The character development really isn't lacking in this book.

The plot flows rather well, each chapter occuring at the right time, and finally coming together to some extent near the end. The sheer number of plotlines is enough to drive one batty, though. Reminiscent of Lord of the Rings, as soon as something interesting is happening in one plotline, the authors whisk you away to another. Temporarily frustrating, but as it does all come together eventually, we can cope.

So all in all, a great read for me, and hopefully for all Dune enthusiasts. I suggest reading the other two House books before picking up this one, as it would be supremely confusing if one didn't. And though I'm disappointed in the lack of another prequel following this, it ends up working out anyway.