House Atreides (Dune: House Trilogy Book 1) (Paperback)

~ (Author), Kevin Anderson (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Acclaimed SF novelist Brian Herbert is the son of Dune author Frank Herbert. With his father, Brian wrote Man of Two Worlds and later edited The Notebooks of Frank Herbert's Dune. Kevin J. Anderson has written many bestsellers, alternating original SF with novels set in the X-Files and Star Wars universes. Together they bring personal commitment and a lifelong knowledge of the Dune Chronicles to this ambitious expansion of a series that transformed SF itself. Dune: House Atreides chronicles the early life of Leto Atreides, prince of a minor House in the galactic Imperium. Leto comes to confront the realities of power when House Vernius is betrayed in an imperial plot involving a quest for an artificial substitute to melange, a substance vital to interstellar trade that is found only on the planet Dune. Meanwhile, House Harkonnen schemes to bring Leto into conflict with the Tleilax, and the Bene Gesserit manipulate Baron Harkonnen as part of a plan stretching back 100 generations. In the Imperial palace, treason is afoot, and on Dune itself, planetologist Pardot Kynes embarks on a secret project to transform the desert world into a paradise.

Dune remains the bestselling SF novel ever, such that three decades later no prequel can possibly have the same impact. Yet in House Atreides the authors have written a compelling, labyrinthine, skillfully imagined extension of the world Frank Herbert created, which ably commands attention for almost 600 pages. It is powerful SF that continues a great tradition, and in itself is a very considerable achievement. --Gary S. Dalkin, Amazon.co.uk

From Publishers Weekly

It was a daunting task to describe the origins and intricacies of the many feuds, alliances, schemes and prophesies of one of the most beloved SF novels ever written. Herbert, the son of Frank Herbert, who wrote the original Dune, and Anderson (coauthor, Ai Pedrito!, etc.) have met the challenge admirably. Within a web of relationships in which no act has simple or predictable consequences, they lay the foundations of the Dune saga. Duke Atreides and his son Leto are faced with an attack by their ancient rival, House Harkonnen. Eight-year-old Duncan Idaho strikes a small blow against the cruel Harkonnens by escaping their territory and defecting into the service of the duke. Emperor Elrood, Ruler of the Known Universe, takes vengeance on the machine planet Ix in retribution for a personal affront. Elrood, in turn, is maneuvered off the throne by his son Shaddam. The Bene Gesserits' 1000-year-old plan for breeding a perfect beingAthe Kwisatz HaderachAnears completion. And behind it all lies the harsh, desert world of Dune, the only planet in the known worlds to harbor the mysterious and powerful Spice, which everyone wants to control and one man, paleontologist Kynes, seeks to understand in his quest to make Dune flower again. Though the plot here is intricate, even readers new to the saga will be able to follow it easily (minute repetitions of important points help immensely), as the narrative weaves among the many interconnected tales. The attendant excitement and myriad revelations not only make this novel a terrific read in its own right but will inspire readers to turn, or return, to its great predecessor. (Oct.) FYI: Dune: House Atreides launches a proposed trilogy.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 624 pages
• Publisher: Bantam Spectra; 1st First Edition edition (October 5, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553110616
• ISBN-13: 978-0553110616
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (419 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #792,144 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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• This is item 1 in The Dune: House Trilogy Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

78 of 98 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A Major Error Per Chapter, January 6, 2004

By	M. Elizabeth Pietrzak "driftingcloud" (Claremont, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: House Atreides (Dune: House Trilogy, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)

Dune: House Atreides is the first in the expansions to the Dune legacy created by Frank Herbert, this novel is set approximately 45 years prior to the first Dune novel written in 1963. Written by Brian Herbert, the son of the author of Dune, with co-writer Kevin J. Anderson, the duo has huge footsteps in which to follow. The novel takes us through the lives of the young Leto Atreides the man who would soon be Duke Leto and father to Muad'Dib, Duncan Idaho and his escape from the Harkonnen slave pits, Baron Harkonnen's early dealings with the planet Arrakis and his subsequent siring of Lady Jessica, Shaddam Corrino and his ascendancy to the emperor's throne with the help of childhood friend Hasmir Fenring, Thufir Hawat, and the original planetologist assigned to Arrakis by the Emperor Elrood, Pardo Kynes.

Now if that looks like a mouthful, even to a seasoned Dune fanatic, wait till you try to chew on all of the additional characters that these key players meet and interact with. It's enough to make your head spin. When you mash all of these plotlines together into one novel like this (and the first in a trilogy, so you know that the next two will be more of the same characters and certainly an equal number of new characters) you are left with a meal consisting of delicately sipping a vintage wine in between bites of chili-cheese fries. The chapters get shorter and shorter as the book progresses and end up more akin to a few frames of an after-school cartoon rather than something worth reading, pondering, digesting, and perhaps re-reading again someday. Nope. One read through on this book and you will probably need to brush your teeth just to get the bad taste out of your mouth.

The entire Pardo Kynes story simply does not belong in this novel. It is little more than a fleshed out version of Appendix One from Dune, and Frank Herbert wrote a more compelling version in 6 or 7 pages than son Herbert and co-writer Anderson do with a dozen chapters. Pluck this plotline out of this book altogether and make it a smaller, separate book of its own. It's presence here shows us how little these two really know about storytelling.

For those of us who have been Dune fanatics for any portion of the past 3-1/2 decades, we get to look forward do at least one major Duniverse error in each of these chapters, whether from the Baron's lean, muscular physique, to Duncan Idaho's curiously missing sister and absence of slave pits, to just about everyone and his brother being acquainted with the Bene Gesserit's breeding programs. Gone is the mystery of the Bene Gesserit, the origins of spice, and the inner workings of Ix. We even have Vladimir Harkonnen's suggested inclination toward boy sex toys (from Dune and Children of Dune) clearly laid out as no-holds-barred homosexuality. Makes you wonder how he is going to become the father of the future Jessica Atreides, hmmm? Well, never fear, but our wonderful Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohaim will find herself the future mother of Jessica through a surprising tryst with the Baron. OMG! Where did these boys miss the repeated references in the Dune chronicles to the multiple bastard children the Baron had by his reckless youthful adventures? The son Herbert insists that upon reading his father's notes, though, that the Baron is gay (not maybe even a little bi) and is forced to father this child (and another!) through a few weak plot points and manipulations. Wow! The imaginations of a pair of writers is limited by their extreme belief in polarities and simplicities. Every nuance is good/bad, straight/gay, obviously planned out and panned out.

Every attempt at complexity can't escape the suffocating breath of complicated and contrived. If the reader wanted to scrutinize the text piece by piece, consider such timeless phrases as "by the saints and sinners" or "the work of Satan" or how about "stronger than adamantium." What, is this suddenly an X-Men novel?

The inherent problem with any prequel, as clearly visible in the Star Wars prequels, is how to make use of the information that already exists in the later novels, and enhance it in the prequels, while not spelling out the details of what were surprises in the original series. If we know that Jessica is Baron Harkonnen's child, then where is the surprise upon reading Frank Herbert's Dune that the Baron is Paul's grandfather?

Another problem with prequels, especially with decades between the actual writing of them, is to be careful not to introduce technology or advancements that would be inexplicably absent in the later novels or would give people an undue advantage if they were so readily available. Let's call into question these strange earplugs that Baron Harkonnen uses to make himself impervious to the Voice? You would think by the time of Dune, in relation to this book, that everyone in court would have such earplugs to avoid manipulation by the Bene Gesserit. Of course what follows is sure to upset the Bene Gesserit fans: A Reverend Mother is stunned by the future equivalent of a tazer and then she is raped! Let's not even consider that some strange disappearing no-ship technology wanders into the Baron's hands. This would become real useful to wipe out a pesky Duke who took over Arrakis. Come on! Reality check!

This book feels more like a color by numbers painting that a child could easily do, rather than a complex and intriguing work of art. The authors are trying to connect too many dots into one story, and they are winking at the readers repeatedly as they try to be clever with tying in as many Dune themes as possible, even themes that will not resurface for 4500 years in Heretics of Dune or Chapterhouse Dune, or more frighteningly, in the ever-present Dune 7 and 8 looming on the horizon...This reader is afraid to continue on to the next book, House Harkonnen...

22 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars It's Good But Not Quite Like The Original, January 31, 2000

By	Kevin Wagner ([e-mail]) (Scifiguys.com) - See all my reviews

I've had Dune: House Atreides, the first prequel Dune novel, sitting on my night stand for a couple of weeks. Its not that I dislike the Dune books, but Dune is not a novel. It's more like a research project. Frank Herbert's Dune series is arguably the most detailed, complex, and multilayered science fiction opus of all time. Never have I read such enormous books and finished with the feeling that the author needed to explain more. Very few books have forced me to pause, close the book and think carefully about the plot just to keep up. And there on my night stand sat Dune: House Atreides, with a menacing challenge gleaming from the cover. En garde!

I suppose I should start with what House Atreides is not. It's not written by the legendary Frank Herbert, who is deceased. The novel is a joint effort from Herbert's son Brian Herbert, and popular science fiction author Kevin Anderson (Jedi Academy Trilogy). Additionally, it does not continue the Dune books, but rather is a prequel and starts a generation before the initial Dune novel.

It only takes a page to tell the old master is gone. It's not that the new writers are bad, but Frank Herbert's prose is unmistakable, and I doubt there are many writers who could even approach the detailed and complex style that Herbert seemed to spin with such ease. Brian Herbert and Anderson make a strong effort, but it's a pale shadow to one of the most acclaimed science fiction writers ever.

Yet House Atreides is a good book in its own right. While the novel is not as heavy, either in girth or prose, as previous Dune books, it is an entertaining look at young Leto Atreides as he learns the hard lessons of leading a major house in the galactic empire against the intrigues of the evil Harkonnens and even the Padasha Emperor himself. We get to meet familiar characters and learn how they developed in their good or evil ways, and we learn more about the competing schemes of the galaxy's great ruling houses. The new authors are painstaking in the effort to remain consistent with the other Dune books, and this attention to detail is remarkable considering the sheer number of detail in the original novels.

Dune: House Atreides is a relatively easy read and paced quick enough to keep the reader's attention. If I didn't keep comparing the book to the previous novels, I likely would have been impressed. But if you are going to write a Dune Book, then you must be prepared for the inevitable comparisons. House Atreides is good, but few can compare to Frank Herbert.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A nice filler, somewhat inacurate, much less complex., November 11, 1999

By	Jack Lambert ([e-mail]) (Canada) - See all my reviews

I loved "Dune: House Atreides". There were a couple of things that bothered me though.

One is that near the end A priest of Dur was mentioned, but Dur is the shortening of Guldur (Heritics of Dune)a Gammu name for the God Emperor who was born thousands of years after this.

Two is the seeming common Knowledge that the Tleilaxu are religeous Fanatics but that was kept a total secret by the Tleilaxu until Taraza interragated Waff (Heritics of Dune). They kept a facade of amorality (Neither moral nor immoral / without moral principles) until that point.

One thing that was not wrong but still something I wished for, I had hoped that Idaho would turn out to be an illegitamit son of Palus or Leto. thus a rationalzation of Idaho's rampant gholaing and special abilities. But that was quashed.

A good read, but Don't expect FH's Dune