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Dune: The Butlerian Jihad: Book One of the Legends of Dune Trilogy (Dune, 1) Mass Market Paperback – September 15, 2003
| Brian Herbert (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
| Kevin J. Anderson (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
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Frank Herbert's Dune series is one of the great creations of imaginative literature, science fiction's answer to The Lord of the Rings.
Decades after Herbert's original novels, the Dune saga was continued by Frank Herbert's son, Brian Herbert, in collaboration with Kevin J. Anderson. Working from Frank Herbert's own notes, the acclaimed authors reveal the chapter of the Dune saga most eagerly anticipated by readers: the Butlerian Jihad.
Throughout the Dune novels, Frank Herbert frequently referred to the war in which humans wrested their freedom from "thinking machines." In Dune: The Butlerian Jihad, Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson bring to life the story of that war, a tale previously seen only in tantalizing hints and clues. Finally, we see how Serena Butler's passionate grief ignites the struggle that will liberate humans from their machine masters; here is the amazing tale of the Zensunni Wanderers, who escape bondage to flee to the desert world where they will declare themselves the Free Men of Dune. And here is the backward, nearly forgotten planet of Arrakis, where traders have discovered the remarkable properties of the spice melange....
- Print length704 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherTor Books
- Publication dateSeptember 15, 2003
- Dimensions4.13 x 1.55 x 6.94 inches
- ISBN-100765340771
- ISBN-13978-0765340771
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About the Author
KEVIN J. ANDERSON has written dozens of national bestsellers and has been nominated for the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and the SFX Readers' Choice Award. His critically acclaimed original novels include the ambitious space opera series The Saga of Seven Suns, including The Dark Between the Stars, as well as the Terra Incognita fantasy epic with its two accompanying rock CDs. He also set the Guinness-certified world record for the largest single-author book signing.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Princess Irulan writes:
Any true student must realize that History has no beginning. Regardless of where a story starts, there are always earlier heroes and earlier tragedies.
Before one can understand Muad’Dib or the current jihad that followed the overthrow of my father, Emperor Shaddam IV, one must understand what we fight against. Therefore, look more than ten thousand years into our past, ten millennia before the birth of Paul Atreides.
It is there that we see the founding of the Imperium, how an emperor rose from the ashes of the Battle of Corrin to unify the bruised remnants of humanity. We will delve into the most ancient records, into the very myths of Dune, into the time of the Great Revolt, more commonly known as the Butlerian Jihad.
The terrible war against thinking machines was the genesis of our political-commercial universe. Hear now, as I tell the story of free humans rebelling against the domination of robots, computers, and cymeks. Observe the basis of the great betrayal that made mortal enemies of House Atreides and House Harkonnen, a violent feud that continues to this day. Learn the roots of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood, the Spacing Guild and their Navigators, the Swordmasters of Ginaz, the Suk Medical School, the Mentats. Witness the lives of oppressed Zensunni Wanderers who fled to the desert world of Arrakis, where they became our greatest soldiers, the Fremen.
Such events led to the birth and life of Muad’Dib.
* * *
LONG BEFORE MUAD’DIB, in the last days of the Old Empire, humanity lost its drive. Terran civilization had spread across the stars, but grew stagnant. With few ambitions, most people allowed efficient machines to perform everyday tasks for them. Gradually, humans ceased to think, or dream…or truly live.
Then came a man from the distant Thalim system, a visionary who took the name of Tlaloc after an ancient god of rain. He spoke to languid crowds, attempting to revive their human spirit, to no apparent effect. But a few misfits heard Tlaloc’s message.
These new thinkers met in secret and discussed how they would change the Empire, if only they could overthrow the foolish rulers. Discarding their birth names, they assumed appellations associated with great gods and heroes. Foremost among them were General Agamemnon and his lover Juno, a tactical genius. These two recruited the programming expert Barbarossa, who devised a scheme to convert the Empire’s ubiquitous servile machines into fearless aggressors by giving their AI brains certain human characteristics, including the ambition to conquer. Then several more humans joined the ambitious rebels. In all, twenty masterminds formed the core of a revolutionary movement that took over the Old Empire.
Victorious, they called themselves Titans, after the most ancient of Greek gods. Led by the visionary Tlaloc, the twenty allocated the administration of planets and peoples among themselves, enforcing their edicts through Barbarossa’s aggressive thinking machines. They conquered most of the known galaxy.
Some resistance groups rallied their defenses on the fringes of the Old Empire. Forming their own confederation—the League of Nobles—they fought the Twenty Titans and, after many bloody battles, retained their freedom. They stopped the tide of the Titans and drove them back.
Tlaloc vowed to dominate these outsiders one day, but after less than a decade in power, the visionary leader was killed in a tragic accident. General Agamemnon took Tlaloc’s place as leader, but the death of his friend and mentor was a grim reminder of the Titans’ own mortality.
Wishing to rule for centuries, Agamemnon and his lover Juno undertook a risky course of action. They had their brains surgically removed and implanted in preservation canisters that could be installed into a variety of mechanical bodies. One by one—as the remaining Titans felt the specter of age and vulnerability—all of the others also converted themselves into “cymeks,” machines with human minds.
The Time of Titans lasted for a century. The cymek usurpers ruled their various planets, using increasingly sophisticated computers and robots to maintain order. But one fateful day the hedonistic Titan Xerxes, anxious to have more time for his pleasures, surrendered too much access to his pervasive AI network.
The sentient computer network seized control of an entire planet, followed quickly by others. The breakdown spread like a virulent infestation from world to world, and the computer “evermind” grew in power and scope. Naming itself Omnius, the intelligent and adaptible network conquered all the Titan-controlled planets before the cymeks had time to warn each other of the danger.
Omnius then set out to establish and maintain order in its own highly structured fashion, keeping the humiliated cymeks under its thumb. Once masters of an empire, Agamemnon and his companions became reluctant servants to the widespread evermind.
At the time of the Butlerian Jihad, Omnius and his thinking machines had held all of the “Synchronized Worlds” in an iron grip for a thousand years.
Even so, clusters of free humans remained on the outskirts, bound together for mutual protection, thorns in the sides of the thinking machines. Whenever attacks came, the League of Nobles defended themselves effectively.
But new machine plans were always being developed.
Copyright © 2002 by Herbert Properties LLC
Product details
- Publisher : Tor Books; Reprint edition (September 15, 2003)
- Language : English
- Mass Market Paperback : 704 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0765340771
- ISBN-13 : 978-0765340771
- Item Weight : 11.5 ounces
- Dimensions : 4.13 x 1.55 x 6.94 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,319,598 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3,269 in Galactic Empire Science Fiction
- #15,502 in Space Operas
- #23,603 in Science Fiction Adventures
- Customer Reviews:
About the authors

Yes, I have a lot of books, and if this is your first visit to my amazon author page, it can be a little overwhelming. If you are new to my work, let me recommend a few titles as good places to start. My major new fantasy trilogy starts with SPINE OF THE DRAGON, followed by VENGEWAR and GODS AND DRAGONS (editing now). My newest Dune novel with Brian Herbert is THE DUKE OF CALADAN. I also love my Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I. series, humorous horror/mysteries, which begin with DEATH WARMED OVER. My steampunk fantasy adventures, CLOCKWORK ANGELS and CLOCKWORK LIVES, written with Neil Peart, legendary drummer from Rush, are two of my very favorite novels ever. And my magnum opus, the science fiction epic The Saga of Seven Suns, begins with HIDDEN EMPIRE. After you've tried those, I hope you'll check out some of my other series.
I have written more than 165 books, including 56 national or international bestsellers. I have over 23 million books in print worldwide in thirty languages. I've been nominated for the Nebula Award, Hugo Award, Bram Stoker Award, Shamus Award, and Silver Falchion Award, and I've won the SFX Readers' Choice Award, Golden Duck Award, Scribe Award, and New York Times Notable Book; in 2012 at San Diego Comic Con I received the Faust Grand Master Award for Lifetime Achievement.
I have written numerous bestselling and critically acclaimed novels in the Dune universe with Brian Herbert, as well as Star Wars and X-Files novels. In my original work, I am best known for my Saga of Seven Suns series, the Terra Incognita trilogy, the Dan Shamble, Zombie PI series, and Clockwork Angels and Clockwork Lives with Neil Peart. Along with my wife Rebecca Moesta, I am also the publisher of WordFire Press. Find out more about me at wordfire.com, where you can sign up for my newsletter and get some free fiction.
FOR RIGHTS INQUIRIES (Film/TV/Gaming/Foreign/Literary) please contact me directly at info (at) wordfire (dot) com, and I will put you in touch with my appropriate representative.

Brian Herbert is the author of multiple New York Times bestsellers. He has won several literary honors including the New York Times Notable Book Award, and has been nominated for the highest awards in science fiction. In 2003, he published DREAMER OF DUNE, a moving biography of his father Frank Herbert that was a Hugo Award finalist. His acclaimed novels include SIDNEY'S COMET; SUDANNA, SUDANNA; THE RACE FOR GOD; TIMEWEB; THE STOLEN GOSPELS; and MAN OF TWO WORLDS (written with Frank Herbert), in addition to the HELLHOLE Trilogy and DUNE-series novels co-authored with Kevin J. Anderson. Brian published OCEAN, an epic fantasy novel about environmental issues (co-authored with his wife, Jan). Brian's highly original SF novel, THE LITTLE GREEN BOOK OF CHAIRMAN RAHMA released in 2014. See his website: brianherbertnovels.com for book touring information.
SCIENCE FICTION/FANTASY NOVELS
Ocean (with Jan Herbert)
The Little Green Book of Chairman Rahma
Sidney's Comet
The Garbage Chronicles
Sudanna, Sudanna
Man of Two Worlds (with Frank Herbert)
Prisoners of Arionn
The Race For God
Memorymakers (with Marie Landis)
Blood on the Sun (with Marie Landis)
Stormworld (novella, with Bruce Taylor)
The Unborn
The Assassination of Billy Jeeling
THE TIMEWEB SERIES
Timeweb
The Web and the Stars
Webdancers
THE STOLEN GOSPELS SERIES
The Stolen Gospels
The Lost Apostles
THE DUNE SERIES (with Kevin J. Anderson)
Dune: House Atreides
Dune: House Harkonnen
Dune: House Corrino
Dune: The Butlerian Jihad
Dune: The Machine Crusade
Dune: The Battle of Corrin
The Road To Dune
Hunters of Dune
Sandworms of Dune
Paul of Dune
The Winds of Dune
Sisterhood of Dune
Mentats of Dune
Navigators of Dune
Dune: The Duke of Caladan
Dune: The Lady of Caladan
Dune: The Heir of Caladan (forthcoming)
Tales of Dune
Sands of Dune
THE HELLHOLE SERIES (with Kevin J. Anderson)
Hellhole
Hellhole Awakening
Hellhole Inferno
NON-FICTION BOOKS
Dreamer of Dune (biography of Frank Herbert)
The Forgotten Heroes (story of the U.S. Merchant Marine)
HUMOR BOOKS
Classic Comebacks
Incredible Insurance Claims
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By reading The Butlerian Jihad, I finally got to experience the distant past, which was constantly but vaguely alluded to in the original Dune novels.
We get to meet the beautiful, compassionate Serena Butler, who's year old son, the murder of which, set off the rebellion, which eventually brought down the heartless thinking machines. We also meet distant relatives of Baron Harkonnen - Xavier (who is a good and honorable person) and Paul Atriedes - Vorian (the son of the wicked Titan, Agamemnon {a thousand year old human brain in a mechanical body})and Tio Holtzman (the revered inventor of the Holtzman Effect and other inventions). We experience the last stronghold of free humanity, with The League of Nobles, the fledgling exportation of the spice Melange from Arrakis and the precursor of the Bene Gesserit, in the Sorceress's of Rossak.
Background
The Old Empire was stagnant if not decadent and humanity had lost it's drive allowing machines to perform all major work and tasks. This malaise permitted a small but vicious group of twenty revolutionaries to stage a coup and take over the Empire. This group called themselves Titans and their bloody rule was short lived (fifty years) as the Titans being short in number, mistakenly allowed the Thinking Machines too much responsibility, whereupon they usurped the power.
Prior to the Machines "putsch" the Titans, striving for immortality, became Cymeks - Human brains housed in a cannister within a mechanical body. After the Machine revolution, the Titan/Cymeks became reluctant servants of the Evermind - Omnius, the head Thinking Machine. Humans existed within Omnius's empire but were mostly slaves with a few Trustees.
The Butlerian Jihad begins the epic struggle encompassing humanities rebellion against the thinking machines, which sets the tone of a future in which the total rejection of any sort of thinking machines is a reality. Our Story begins a thousand years after Omnius's victory over the Titans
The Plot
Although The Thinking Machines Empire (called Synchronized Planets) consisted of thousands of inhabited planets, there were many inhabited worlds still outside the Empire's boundaries, some of which had formed a federation called the League of Nobles (primarily as a defense mechanism). Though Omnius considered the battle with humans to be inefficient, with prompting from the remaining Titans (after a thousand years, there were five) and especially Agamemnon, the defacto Titan leader/spokesman, Omnius undertook the conquest of the remaining free worlds.
The Story
This first installment covers a period of some three or fours years of the epic conflict. During this time the main three characters go through many tribulations. Dune's incarnation of evil, Baron Harkonnen's distant ancestor Xavier Harkonnen is a Primero (General) in the League's army. He and the lovely Serena are engaged but while on a mission, Serena takes on a mission of her her own, a radical plan to save the besieged Planet Gedi Prime. The Plan is successful but Serena is captured by the machines and taken to the their primary world Earth.
On Earth Serena, who is pregnant with Xavier's child is given to the ever curious independent robot, Erasmus as one of his house servants. Erasmus who likes to think of himself an expert on human beings, has been studying specimens for hundreds of years and being a robot is indifferent to the plight and pain of his victims. He is intrigued however by the imperious but humane and unflappable Serena. Also intrigued is Vorian Atriedes, a trustee and the son of the bloodthirsty Titan, Agamemnon. Vorian who believes his father to be a hero and a great warrior is informed otherwise by Serena. Not believing her at first he is shocked when learning the truth after researching his fathers brutal past.
Meanwhile Serena gives birth to Manion a bubbly toe head. Unfortunately being an infant, Manion requires much attention, taking time away from Erasmus's constant inquisitions. Serena is constantly trying to help the other household slaves and Erasmus sees this is a way to remove the troublesome toddler and punish Serena by getting rid of Manion. Erasmus has totally misjudged the situation and instead of finding Serena properly cowled he finds rage and his action was the catalyst that provided the spark which started a world wide rebellion.
With the entire planet in turmoil Vorian being a Trustee and using subterfuge gains possession of a ship which allows Serena, another Trustee named Iglis Ginjo, and himself to escape to Serena's home planet, Salsua Secundus.
It is a this point that Serena enjoins the entire free human race to rededicate themselves to a rejuvenated holy war - A Jihad against the Thinking Machines. From this point forward Serena Butler is known as the Priestess of the Jihad.
This prequel, supposedly based on the late Frank Herbert's notes, tells the story of the Butlerian Jihad, the ancient war against the thinking machines. Where Dune described this uprising as more of a philosophical movement, more about people rejecting automation and taking on their own burdens to achieve true freedom. This prequel depicts the jihad as a simple war between free humans and the evil machine empire ala Skynet. Kevin J Anderson is largely known for writing Star Wars books, so it's no wonder this story got boiled down to such a simple conflict.
This reflects an overall lack of depth in the book. This is not the philosophical and thematic work that Dune is, and is instead a work of simple "genre fiction." Not a fan of the term personally, but it brings to mind all the right associations to describe this book. But even if we can accept that The Butlerian Jihad is simply an escapist dime-novel, I would argue it is subpar on those merits as well.
The plot is glacially slow, even for such a light read, and disjointed. Unlike Dune, which focused on Paul Atreides and only occasionally jumped to other perspectives, Jihad is a sprawling narrative. We follow Xavier, Vorian, Erasmus, Serena, Selim, Nora, and more, and we're already at six POV characters! These characters are often separated by literal cosmic distances and you never see the neat interweaving of narratives that sort of format promises. Some of these characters never meet, and only two are present for the events at the climax. Which is less a climax, and more of a sequel bait. "We won the battle, now the war begins" type of ending. Just like Dune, chapters are short, so we barely spend time with them before moving elsewhere for long stretches. It makes it hard to connect.
Also, this book pulls the mistake many prequels do, which is over explaining how things from the original came to be. Holtzman shields, FTL, the beginnings of Spice trade, the origins of Wormriding, the Bene Gesserit, the Mentats. It's silly, and feels like box ticking. Instead of writing an interesting story, the book obsessively keeps saying "look! It's that thing from Dune!" Over and over.
The prose is simplistic and even on occasion clumsy and awkward but mostly functional. Honestly, a couple lines were straight up baffling and even unintentionally funny. The worst thing is easily the cymeks. These are immortal human brains in jars that pilot robot bodies to fight the humans. It's as silly as it sounds, and yes, they are literally brains in jars, canisters, whatever. Their dialogue is constantly talking about their superiority, and how they must crush the rebellious and puny humans. Far from the intelligent, scheming villains of Dune. Characters in general are one note and never do anything surprising or have interesting facets that are discovered. If you've read their first appearance, you already have a full understanding of them, there is no depth.
The book is a buildup to a battle which covers mere pages, only to end with a promise for the Butlerian Jihad in the next book. It's full of characters we don't care about going through the motions to set up the pieces for the story we actually care about. If you're looking for a fun sci-fi adventure, avoid this pondering, workmanlike product. I can only recommend this to absolutely hardcore Dune fans who must see everything in the franchise out of a kind of morbid curiosity like me. There are occasional moments of cool worldbuilding or sci-fi concepts, but these exist only due to the genius of Frank Herbert. This book has no soul.
Top reviews from other countries
• As a story in its own right I thought it was very good, it moved along at a good pace and whilst it is very definitely science fiction it does not overdo the science to point where you struggle to understand it. I liked the main characters (even some of the Titans who were obviously the bad guys) and even the interaction between humans and the thinking machines was plausible and felt sufficiently real.
• It was also fascinating, having read Dune, to try and fast forward in one’s own mind to see how a particular storyline culminates in the original Dune novel. For example riding of the sand worms
• I found the political tension that the apparent hypocrisy of the humans intriguing. On the one hand you had the free humans of the League of Nobles and the un-aligned planets hating the thinking machines for their takeover of vast amounts of the universe and terrible conditions that humans lived in on these Synchronised worlds. At the same time these free humans see nothing wrong in enslaving a subset of humans belonging to religious groups who worship the Budallah. The justification for this apparent hypocrisy is that these religious groups did not join the original fight against the machines and therefore slavery is a just punishment to enable them to ‘pay off’ the debt they owe the other humans for keeping them free. These two storylines move along similar lines and both end up with rebellions. It will be interesting to see how these two themes resolve themselves in the later novels.
Like most books one reads there are downsides and from my point of view the biggest downsides of the book are:
• I felt the chapters were too short, sometimes you would read a 4 or 5 page chapter only to move onto another strand of the story in the next chapter. I would have preferred less jumping around which could have been achieved by merging some of the chapters together
• Linked to the point above are the ‘sayings’ at the start of each chapter, given the number of chapters the novelty of these saying had worn away by the end.
• I found it difficult at times to keep track of the timeline. The book covers a period of 3 or 4 years (I think), but it wasn’t always easy to keep track as there would some considerable jumps and in places it was only Serena’s pregnancy that enabled me to keep up. It would have been helpful if some of the sayings at the start of a chapter had been replaced by a date so that the passage of time could be more easily tracked
Whilst it did have downsides, these were no big enough to detract from the overall enjoyment I got from reading the book.
Would have loved this to be able to fill in back stories and wanted to like th book, but the writing was simply un-engaging in my opinion, so will not by trying any more.
I must say I love the ideas and story, but find Anderson's writing style annoying in over-filling the story with too many characters and then changing characters and story-lines EVERY CHAPTER. I find it less annoying in this dune series than in his saga of the seven suns, however.
I liked the role reversals - having a Harkonen as the Saviour of Humanity and the original Atreides as a Trustee of the Computer Evermind.
If you are looking for a book in the same magnitude as Dune then you will be disappointed but if it’s simply a yarn in the same universe then it will entertain you. Give it a try.
The book does have the lines of continuity that clearly link it to the original series, but these are loose enough that you do not feel that you know what will happen next. This is in part due to the authors having the freedom of knowing their readers do have the patience for a saga over several books.










