“How do we repay a man who has done the impossible?”

Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson’s first half of “Dune 7” (Hunters of Dune) exhibited a severe drop off in quality from the books of Brian’s father, Frank Herbert. It featured an entirely different, less mature writing style, a more hectic and “sci-fi-lite” storytelling method, and the author’s seemed to entirely misunderstand what the late author was going for with his series. Instead of sociological, ecological, and philosophical depth, we were presented with endless clones of old characters, gruesome fight scenes, and one dimensional characters that didn’t add up to anything. Still, it had some of the shimmer of the original novels, and I was interested to learn what Frank Herbert had planned for this final volume. After reading Sandworms, I have come to doubt whether an outline by Frank Herbert was ever found or not; at the very least, it must have been much less substantial than the authors of Sandworms would have you believe. The book is such an underwhelming finale to the Dune universe that I simply cannot believe that even the basic plot was suggested by Frank Herbert.

If KJA was writing some extended universe Star Wars novel or something like that, maybe this is passable. But trying to cap off one of the most influential science fiction series of all time with such a weak effort is inexcusable. Stacked up against the depth and nuance of Dune and God Emperor, the Terminator-esque machines of this book, hellbent on humanity’s destruction for no discernable reason, is like comparing The Beatles to a flavor-of-the-month boy band. Sure, it’s not a fair comparison, but the boy band isn’t releasing music as The Beatles.

The most glaring issues are the resurrection of ghola characters simply for the “wow” factor, the reliance on backstory from KJA’s own prequels, and the tendency to make everything “ultra” in opposition to Frank Herbert’s portrayal of humanity’s complexity. It seems like half of the cast of the original novels is resurrected as gholas.¹ Setting aside the silliness of bringing back the whole gang for old time’s sake (or however you want to spin it), this development is simply not utilized for anything worth mentioning. The ghola characters mostly refrain from doing anything that their original selves could do that any old character in the present couldn’t have done instead. On top of this, partway through the novel, a saboteur destroys four additional gholas, all of whom were important historical figures. But crucially, each ghola that survives has a specific purpose—indicating some incredible foresight by the Bene Gesserit in choosing who to resurrect—while those that perished in utero are not missed at all (except by ghola-Jessica, who gets to be mad at ghola-Dr. Yeuh, who seems to have been resurrected only to kill Duke Leto a second time). But, like I said, the “purpose” of the gholas is just that they play a role, any role at all. For instance, Alia is still a child so she is able to crawl through a small vent. Neat.

Bad writing is one thing, but the insertion of KJA’s own prequel series into the final Dune novel is borderline offensive. Serena Butler and the Oracle of Time become prominent characters, and their histories are repeated ad nauseam. Omnius and Erasmus, featured heavily in the prequel series, take the place of Frank Herbert’s mysterious “Enemy” that had plagued the Sisterhood through his last two novels (Heretics and Chapterhouse). There is also reference to Paul almost being assassinated by Count Fenring that I believe they just made up.

I think these issues are magnified by the fundamental misunderstanding of Frank Herbert’s aim. Not to say that I totally understand the complexity of the universe he created, but certainly the Butlerian Jihad is not meant to pit humans against machines, but rather to show humanity’s conscious choice to develop their own faculties rather than rely on created machines to do their thinking and building and creating for them. Hence the Bene Gesserit powers, the Guild Navigators, mentats, and the Kwisatz Haderach pushing the boundaries of human potential. It was never as simple as “machines are evil,” which is the direction KJA takes the series, purporting that his own characters were scheming in the background for 15,000 years before surfacing for a brief minute to get owned by the good guys without putting up much of a fight. It could have possibly worked for a stray mastermind to have developed an intelligent machine during the Scattering that spiraled out of control, but no, we are facing off with the same villain that was created for the prequel series.

After four novels spent retreating from the gradually encroaching and mysterious Enemy, all it takes is a gentleman’s handshake and an agreement to play nice in order to have the universe returned to hippie-dippie harmony. Just like that; no arguments on the merits of artificial intelligence, and no discussion on how the entire arc of the series (seeking the Golden Path—encapsulated most succinctly in Leto II’s plan to suppress technological development and scatter humanity out among the stars over the course of 3500 years) can remain intact with the acceptance of a machine intelligence whose sole goal is to exterminate humanity.

That Duncan Idaho turns out to be the “ultimate” Kwisatz Haderach (rather than either of the two Paul Atreides gholas) was telegraphed from the beginning, as neither of them existed when the Enemy began searching for Duncan’s no-ship, which they “knew” contained a Kwisatz Haderach. Additionally, the DNA of the sandworms—ya know, the worms that can only survive on the desert planet of Arrakis; like even the thousands of years old worm-human-genius Leto II still died from falling into a river—is altered in hand-wavy fashion such that they can not only survive, but thrive by living in the ocean! And they now create “ultra spice.” Give me a break.

Credit where it is due (or maybe not, maybe literally every shred of genuinely good material here is what was on Frank’s outline), there are several intriguing portions of the book. For instance, Waff, a Tleilaxu master (resurrected as a ghola, of course), tries to reintroduce sandworms to Arrakis, believing that the pearl of awareness in each of them still belongs to the thinly spread consciousness of Leto II. When the no-ship stops on Qelso to resupply, they encounter a hostile people group fighting to keep sandworms from turning their planet into a desert. Liet-Kynes and Stilgar (both gholas, obviously), question whether their ultimate purpose must be what the Bene Gesserit intended for them, and choose to stay behind and teach these people to live on the planet as it is gradually overtaken by the worms. But moments like these are few and far between, and the cardboard characters and deus ex machina plot is tiresome and ultimately underwhelms.

For those of you perhaps interested in reading a poorly written book that wraps up Frank Herbert’s series, I regret to inform you that this ain’t it. There is not a snowball’s chance in the fiery depths of hell that this is what Frank Herbert intended for his series, even just considering the broadest plot outline. It’s cheap fan-fiction regrettably blessed by the Herbert estate. Frank Herbert’s work (on the Dune series, at least) was literature. This is cynical money-grubbing. On principle I am opposed to the burning of books, but I’m also opposed to throwing up, gouging out my own eyes, and holding a grudge against someone I’ve never met. This book makes me want to do all of those things.

1. Remember, Frank already covered this from both angles. In Dune Messiah Paul has the choice to bring back Chani as a ghola, and chooses not to. And throughout the series (and prominently in God Emperor) Duncan Idaho has appeared as a series of gholas. We understand the arguments for and against, and we are not even close to exploring the morals of ghola resurrection here. KJA is merely fixated on who is being resurrected (not even why).