Children of Dune - Novel

SPOILER ALERT

Dune, written by Frank Herbert and published in 1965, set the literary world ablaze with its intricate world-building, thoughtful writing, and engaging characters, introducing Arrakis as the Atreides family relocated to the planet and gathered forces from the native Fremen to help them fight the Harkonnens. However, when the sequel Dune Messiah came along four years later, it pushed the world-building into deeper, more engaging terrain, with uncertainty running rampant as Paul settled into his role as the next Padishah Emperor, political intrigue thrown into the mix, and a thrilling follow-up that did the first novel proud. So what would happen when the next generation took it upon themselves to uphold the past generations’ accomplishments, and in doing so, took more daring, unpredictable measures with their ambitious contributions to humanity?

That is exactly what the next follow-up, Children of Dune, would explore. Though this may have sustained some bumps in the road, what this third novel explored in the eyes of the next generation only amounted to its worth as a rightfully successful next chapter of the Dune series.

© Vincent Di Fate

Set eight years after Paul Muad’Dib’s disappearance into the deserts of Arrakis, House Atreides prepared to maintain their hold in the Empire, but they and their allies all had differing alternatives as to how to achieve it, while also overlooking what was about to flourish in front of them.

For instance, after having all mastered the ability to hone their Melange-influenced senses for further investigations, Paul and Chani’s twin children, Leto II and Ghanima, grew up to be considerably wiser than their ages would’ve suggested, in part due to the Water of Life that crept into their system when Chani was pregnant with them. Alia, Paul’s sister, who had taken over the Empire as regent, tried to groom them to take the throne, but mostly used them to secure her own position in the royal hierarchy.

Meanwhile, a mysterious visitor called the Preacher roamed the deserts of Arrakis and announced proclamations that were met with jeers from those who listened to his allegedly superstitious claims. His preachings all tied back to what Paul performed as Muad’Dib, and those resemblances caught Alia’s eye. Recognizing the Preacher’s likeness and bold statements, Alia began to wonder whether Paul was alive after all these years.

Unfortunately, after the revelation, and after using her Melange-induced powers to seek out answers about her rule and the Preacher’s identity, she ended up communicating with the last person she needed to consult with, least of all to be controlled by: the late Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. Due to this, Alia tried as hard as she could to resist her grandfather’s influence, despite the likelihood that his hold on her would amount to devastating results, starting with the alienation of Alia’s husband, Duncan Idaho, who left her upon thinking that she wasn’t herself anymore.

Meanwhile, Princess Irulan’s sister, Princess Wencicia, wanted to seize the throne so her family line would’ve reclaimed what she thought was rightfully theirs. And she plotted to do so through the negotiations of her son, Farad’n, who felt more comfortable getting set for the throne his own way. And, in a last-ditch effort, she sent off a pack of ravaging and dangerous Laza Tigers to kill off Leto II and Ghanima.

As for Leto II and Ghanima themselves, they discovered their potential to tap into the psyches of their ancestors, as they did when they successfully spoke to their father, Paul, and their mother, Chani. Upon this revelation, Leto II decided to venture away from the Siech Tabr and find a considerably mythical place called Jakurutu, where the most fertile of the universe’s powers were harvested. After evading the bloodthirsty pack of Laza Tigers, the twins both went their separate ways, with Leto II venturing far to find the supposedly mythological place. Meanwhile, Ghanima was prepped, much to her disgust, to be married off to Farad’n.

Which of the families would have been successful? The Atreides in maintaining the throne, or the Corrinos in retrieving it? And what would Leto II have discovered once he finally found the original location of Jakurutu? How would that have changed the course of his destiny afterwards?

© Matt Griffin

I guess, though, that’s the closest thing to a problem I have with the novel, and it is more of a nitpick. Let me explain.

No plot in this story was weak. Not once did I feel bored hopping between all the different scenarios throughout the story. I was intrigued enough to want to know what would happen to all of them: Lady Jessica, Duncan Idaho, Leto II, Ghanima, Irulan, Alia, the Preacher, Princess Wencicia, the whole shebang. However, I found this a nitpick because, unlike the first two novels, this felt a little busy. It was one of those situations where it sometimes struggled to juggle so many subplots at once. Since all the subplots were going at a pretty steady momentum at once, it was a little hard for me to keep track of them all as I went along, despite my ever-growing interest in where it would all go.

However, one part of the novel I found most fascinating was the long-term effects across Arrakis, brought about by Paul’s proposition to the Fremen to bring water to the planet. While large portions of the desert remained, there was also extensive talk of plant life beginning to sprout everywhere after water was reintroduced. Even though water and plant life used to be rampant around Arrakis, their constant reintroduction throughout Arrakis caused drastic alterations. Among other things, the sandworm, or the Shai-Hulud, one of the most well-known, prosperous, and feared inhabitants of Arrakis, started to die off as plants and water emerged where they formerly roamed in Arrakis, thus reducing them to a potentially endangered species.

Undeniably, Leto II and the others saw this as a huge red flag because the sandworms were also carriers of Melange. And without Melange, the Guild trade negotiations would have been thrown out of whack. On top of that, it would also have reduced Melange as a spice into an endangered herb. So, to see so many differing negotiations going on as to what the proper next step should be to take for the sake of Arrakis, if not also for the sake of House Atreides, House Corrino, or anyone else, helped keep up the momentum concerning the political intrigue that was introduced with such vigor in Dune Messiah.

In fact, reintroducing plants and water on Arrakis did more than make the sandworm an endangered species. It also potentially introduced so much carbon dioxide and oxygen into Arrakis that the Fremen began to wear stillsuits less and less until they revealed more and more of their bodies as they became more exposed. So, this also threw in a whole new array of disquiet, especially in the eyes of Stilgar, who was on Chani’s side from day one.

Speaking of which, the novel wouldn’t have been engaging if it weren’t for the characters, many of whom have grown in different ways than I anticipated. While it inevitably introduced new characters, some have even come back from the first novel, addressing the first novel’s consequential nature even into this new volume.

Leto II and Ghanima, Paul and Chani’s biological son and daughter, were both intriguing in their own right. Because they were both born with the Water of Life in their veins, they expressed a high level of intelligence, like Alia. So, when you get to the point where both of them had their own ideas as to what constituted the best decision-making for Arrakis’ sake or that of House Atreides, it did result in a very engaging saga of butting heads.

© Hilary Clarcq

And that’s another thing. The way they each tapped into their psychic abilities because of their Melange-heightened capabilities also piqued my interest. The first time Leto II and Ghanima took advantage of it, they both tried to project themselves into the void to communicate with the spirits of their deceased parents, Paul and Chani.

In fact, some of their likenesses to their parents were pretty apparent, too. Leto II seemingly carried many resemblances to their father, Paul, while Ghanima carried many resemblances to their mother, Chani. What I found interesting was that these two were brother and sister but loved each other almost the same way Paul and Chani loved each other. Which reminds me, yes, this novel did comment at one point about their ideas of incest. The only time it was touched upon was by Ghanima, and even she found it a little ewwy.

What I also found engaging about Leto’s quests in this novel was his search for Jakurutu, which had many names, was said to be a realm of legend, and possibly didn’t exist. However, when he made it there, it turned out to be another section of Dune after all, rather than a different planet like I thought it would be. There, he ran into Namri, uncle of the slain Master of Appointments Ziarenko Javid, and Gurney Halleck, the master of the Baliset from the first novel. He happened to have been as unscrupulous as Lady Jessica in plotting certain things for Leto’s sake, which, in this case, turned out to have been the injection of a spice essence into Leto II.

Shortly afterwards, while Leto II searched for answers under his heightened senses, he suddenly saw some sandtrout near a qanat in Shuloch before being slowly but surely engulfed by them as they began to crawl up his skin. And the more sandtrout gathered around him, the more they began to develop a borderline natural stillsuit that would give Leto unimaginable powers, such as leaping from one desert to another in a single bound.

But that was nowhere near as notorious as what he did with those powers, which subjected him to local infamy: smashing the qanats wherever he went. The visions Leto II received from the spice essence showed him that Paul’s methods of introducing water and plant life to Arrakis were not such a good idea after all, since it started to kill off the Shai-Hulud, the sandworm; water would have been poisonous to the Shai-Hulud. That’s why Leto II decided to smash the qanats in the hopes of creating more rampant deserts for the sandworms to roam about in.

Ghanima herself may have been decent, but she was more memorable because of how sensitive she was to the circumstances surrounding her and Leto II, and to his hopes of finding Jakurutu and the solution to the problems his visions foretold. Sometimes, for all her wisdom, she did have her childish antics, like when she refused to marry Farad’n. But, by the end of the novel, more would be revealed of her character that would put her on the same level of unpredictability as Leto II.

Now, the only other part of the novel that I found too jarringly vacant was what became of Ghanima after she and Leto II parted ways. After being struck by the Laza Tigers, Leto II quickly bandaged her up, and after they killed off the tigers with their poison-tipped crysknives, they left the cave and parted ways. After that, Ghanima limped her way across the desert and near the Siech Tabr without being detected by anyone looking for her. And just before Palimbasha noticed her, she killed him with a poisoned needle, ambushed his accomplice, Muriz, and held her at knifepoint. Then, the next time I saw her, she was complaining about her arranged marriage to Farad’n. Wouldn’t a little explanation as to how she went from being hunted down to being married off have helped? It felt like too much was left unexplored about Ghanima in this section of the story.

The newest character in the story, the Preacher, was generally known as a mysterious acolyte who roamed the deserts of Arrakis and made bold announcements concerning Paul Atreides, his teachings, and his reputation as Muad’Dib, and how distorted he found his followers’ practices to be. Inevitably, this resulted in huge outcries from whomever he preached his lessons to, despite expressing an energy to him that was reminiscent of Muad’Dib whenever anyone was in his presence. Alia sensed that, and because of that, she was confident in getting close enough to the Preacher to discover who he was beneath his robe.

But this brings us to Alia herself.

She was so desperate to bring glory back to House Atreides ever since the disappearance of her brother, Paul, that she plotted to exploit Leto II and Ghanima for her own gain, only to have a suspicion as to who this mysterious visitor, the Preacher, could be. Because of certain philosophical sayings he spouted, as well as the peculiarly familiar exercises he mastered, it only led Alia to wonder whether that was Paul in disguise all along.

However, things took a turn for the worse when Alia attempted to engage with her mind in the hopes of finding some answers and solutions as to what she could do to work her way further into figuring out the identity of the Preacher, as well as how to regain glory in the name of House Atreides. But in doing so, her idea of her inner voice turned out to have taken on the form of the deceased Baron Vladimir Harkonnen.

Because Alia killed Vladimir at the end of the first volume, she felt inner conflict, given who she had counted on as a reliable source of advice. Part of it was borne from her distrust of her mother, Lady Jessica, who still looked at Alia disfavorably as an abomination of the Bene Gesserit line. But it seemed that after Alia bickered and quarreled with the voice that took on Vladimir’s form, she started to act more out of line than Alia normally did, which in turn drove Duncan Idaho away. That was especially tragic, considering they had both been married between Dune Messiah and Children of Dune.

At first, I thought of that as just Alia searching her inner mind for a voice that she would have relied upon. But it occurred to me how likely it was that Alia tapped into the void and projected herself outward the same way Leto II and Ghanima did in their search for Paul and Chani. In doing so, she tapped into the soul and likeness of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen by mistake. And again, knowing that Alia was the one who had slain Harkonnen at the end of the first novel, it introduced a whole slew of conflicts and dilemmas with Alia that tested her more than ever before, especially when it concerned how others would react to her under that influence. Even Leto II, her own nephew, knew that she had fallen because of what she decided to succumb to without her even knowing it. So, that increased the likelihood that she projected herself and psychologically led herself to the last person she wanted to speak with.

Laza Tigers - © Matt Griffin

The most surprising element of this novel, however, was the introduction of Irulan’s sister, Wencicia, who was decidedly more devious than Irulan, who, at worst, was just a conspirator.

Among other things, outside of prepping her son Farad’n to become the next Padishah Emperor and take his grandfather’s place, she had also plotted some nefarious ways in which to guarantee Farad’n a spot on the Lion Throne. She likely played a role in letting loose the Laza Tigers to track down Leto II and Ghanima. We’ve seen just how vicious they were when they attacked two unsuspecting children at the beginning of the novel. When I saw them in action, I was honestly terrified. They felt like they would have been the kind of wild cats that would put even lions to shame, because they were that fierce. Of course, it was a good thing that Leto II and Ghanima, partially due to their heightened awareness from the Water of Life, gave them a tremendous amount of stealth, especially with their poison-tipped crysknives.

Come to think of it, however, I found Wencicia a little flimsily developed in the novel, since she basically unleashed the tigers to eat up Leto II and Ghanima. And when she was complaining about where the union was going, Farad’n basically dismissed her, and she was not seen again for the rest of the novel.

And I will be frank: despite him not being interesting as a character, there’s something about Farad’n that I found pretty fascinating. Whenever I thought of Shaddam IV, I always thought of him as just a regular, if also scheming, Padishah Emperor who ruled over all of the galaxy. But with Farad’n, despite his youth, his personality hit a level of decency that made him more intriguing than he could have been otherwise. At first, I was fearful he would be one of those scumbags of a prince, but what he established wowed me over. I personally felt relieved that he was no Joffrey Baratheon.

For one thing, even though Farad’n was groomed to be the next Padishah Emperor, not only was he not willing to embrace the title right away, since he wanted to do it his own way, but he also was disgusted by his mother’s ideas of sicking the Laza Tigers on innocent people, and not just Leto II and Ghanima. So, you can tell that there’s a bit of friction even among House Corrino as to how to ascend to the throne the right way, as did House Atreides. On top of that, the fact that he trusted Lady Jessica enough to want to learn more from her about mastering the Bene Gesserit ways highlighted just how much he wanted to uphold the alliance between House Atreides and House Corrino. And I see that as political negotiations done right in fiction.

There’s so much intrigue concerning both Houses that it brought out the strongest parts of what Dune Messiah introduced.

Regarding Princess Irulan, if Wencicia didn’t have enough development to amount to something, what Irulan went through gave her exactly what I believed she needed as a character. There’s something about her participation in this novel that made me reevaluate her a little bit. I’ve been so focused on how underdeveloped I thought she was that I kept forgetting how advantageous it was for her not to be too overexposed, either.

In this case, we did see Irulan negotiate more with Alia to help them gain advantages for House Atreides, and in a subtle way, for House Corrino, too, since she was the former Emperor Shaddam IV’s daughter. And to see her attempt to strategize with Alia and her de facto daughter, Ghanima, while admitting to her how she truly felt about her despite not being related to her by blood – she was only Paul’s political wife rather than a wholesome wife – did make me appreciate her for who she was.

It also occurred to me just how much I appreciated her capabilities as a subtle conspirator. Yes, there were times when she plotted against Paul in the last novel because of what type of union Paul meant to establish between them. But as even Irulan admitted to Ghanima, she truly loved Paul. She just didn’t realize how much she truly loved him until he was gone.

That made me look at Irulan a little more closely than I ever expected to, even compared to the first two novels, and I found that a pretty big breakthrough for her character.

After being primarily absent from the last novel, Lady Jessica returned from the first novel, and what kept her so engaging was what she was confronted by, which was either of her own making or came about differently than she anticipated it to.

It was obvious that she was fond of Ghanima, her granddaughter, but she harbored distrust of her grandson Leto II, whom she considered a potential abomination, just as she viewed Alia.

© Matt Griffin

Now, this was interesting because I know that both Paul and Lady Jessica indulged in the Water of Life in the first novel and felt better off for it. Compare that to how fearful Leto II was of being subjected to the spice essence, only to ultimately embrace what the dosage gave him. Throughout the novel, like Ghanima, Lady Jessica also distrusted Leto II for the same reasons she distrusted Alia and considered him an abomination compared to Ghanima, which was interesting given how many likenesses Leto shared with Paul. It made me wonder if maybe Jessica shared some of the Bene Gesserit’s thoughts on Paul being separate from the female Kwisatz Haderach they had desired.

I was also very interested to see what Lady Jessica would have thought about all of this, knowing she was trained in Bene Gesserit ways and would have set high expectations for where she anticipated her subjects to go and how they would carry her and her group’s ideals. But whereas they raised Paul to be the next Kwisatz Haderach before he unleashed himself as Muad’Dib and the Messiah, here it seemed like history repeated itself when Lady Jessica saw Leto as a potential abomination and trusted Ghanima more.

As for her disdain for Alia? One of the most memorable scenes in the novel centered on this as Jessica and Alia assembled in the Great Hall and several people stood court before them as they presented their cases, all centered on a variety of Arrakeen issues. This was where I believed Alia and Jessica’s relationship was tested the most, especially since Alia plotted to make this the spot and time to assassinate Jessica. Because this occurred after Alia got in touch with Vladimir Harkonnen’s spirit, this was met with consternation from those who wondered whether Alia even meant what she plotted to do, especially Jessica. While it was not on the same level as the introduction of the Deathstill in the first novel or Alia’s preaching of the future for show in the last one, this sequence reverberated within me because of how much their friction came to a boil.

After water and plant life were brought back to Arrakis, it began to test Stilgar’s willingness to trust Leto II and Ghanima. Even though he was the closest thing to a babysitter they had, there were times when he contemplated slaying them because of who they were, what they were capable of, and what alterations they and their father Paul had brought upon Arrakis. So, in the little time that I recall him having in the novel, he was also very engaging because of how he wrapped his head around all that had gone on throughout Arrakis ever since Paul upheld what he passed off as a promise to him and his fellow Fremen.

Duncan Idaho may not have had an important role, either. Still, after being dejected by Alia’s progressively destructive behavior, he decided to leave her and go along with Lady Jessica’s plans, while also being a little wary of her ideas of marrying Ghanima off to Farad’n. Later on, as soon as it boiled down to Duncan Idaho and Stilgar, who otherwise didn’t partake very much in the novel when not worrying about Leto II or Ghanima, their arguments began to quickly escalate to the point where Duncan Idaho, hearing some footsteps behind him and thinking that he was about to be executed, lunged ahead and executed Javed. In response to this and a series of insults that Duncan Idaho threw out at Stilgar, Stilgar used his crysknife to impale and kill Duncan Idaho. This time, it was the second time. I did not see that coming because last time, Duncan Idaho was killed protecting Lady Jessica and Paul from the Sardaukar. Here, he was slain by Stilgar, one of his potentially closest allies as the Atreides and Fremen bonds began to cement.

© Janos Jantner

Besides throwing in unanticipated swerves borne from the testy nature of the characters’ alliances, that’s a reflection of what I’m beginning to appreciate about Children of Dune. The last novel was already exceptional in establishing the moral grayness that began to bubble up in Paul Atreides’ character. Even his conversation about how he slaughtered countless people and compared his massacre rates to Genghis Khan and Adolf Hitler would seal the deal. But in this case, we’re beginning to see some moral grayness becoming more apparent in many other characters. We began to see it apparent in Alia, especially after she began to communicate more with Vladimir Harkonnen’s spirit. We also began to see moral grayness in Lady Jessica, as well as in Stilgar and Princess Irulan. We even began to see some of that sprouting in Leto II and Ghanima once they honed their gifts. Even with Baron Vladimir Harkonnen coming into this role, albeit indirectly as an inner voice inside Alia’s head, this whole play of dynamics made the moral dilemmas of the first Dune look simplistic.

However, the moral dubiousness in Leto II compared to what Alia went through was what I found most alarming because, even though what he meant to do was seemingly for the right reasons, the extents to which he would have executed them began to feel more out of range when it came to what was deemed acceptable, thus potentially repeating, if not making worse, what Muad’Dib had established when he was alive.

That’s why I found so much to like about Children of Dune when I thought it was gonna fall short of the first two.

I don’t want to give away exactly how this volume wrapped up. Still, I will say that Leto II’s accumulation of his powers all led up to this, and potentially suggested a far deadlier turn of events in the universe that would potentially eclipse all the injustices Paul Atreides himself committed when he was the Padishah Emperor. It tied back to what Frank Herbert warned us about: the most charismatic leaders are often the most dangerous, and they can sway people into doing their bidding, whether for moral reasons or for their own gain. Given that this novel was published in 1976, after America dealt with the fallout from Richard Nixon’s Watergate scandal and his ensuing impeachment, I guess it highlighted the moral dubiousness rampant here more than in the first novel.

As for the identity of the Preacher, I feel like that’s too important of a discovery for me to elaborate on here. Yet, if what Leto’s journey ended on hinted at a major discourse for the course of the narrative of Dune, the Preacher’s ultimate landing in the story reaffirmed the consequential nature of what transpired across the first two novels, and how much harm or prosperity it led to throughout Arrakis.

I don’t know, there’s just something about the political intrigue that this novel maintained from the last novel that helped it continue as a strong, sprawling epic as it seamlessly segued into the characters’ dilemmas and the storytelling choices made here.

One other aspect of the book, or for that matter, the rest of the novel series, that I keep forgetting to mention is the sophistication of Frank Herbert’s writing.

There’s a sheer sense of elegance and sophistication to Herbert’s writing that made me appreciate the style and grace in his conveyance, world-building, exposition, and dialogue. I always recalled a sense of refinement that helped me appreciate how he approached world-building in the Dune series, especially Children of Dune. Part of it was because he made even the most sophisticated and unlikely circumstances feel natural, as if they hinted at a level of humanistic evolution apparent in the characters and their general philosophy, religious upbringings, points of view, and ways of looking at things. There may be a reason why many people look to the Dune series as a source of philosophical evaluation.

All in all, despite there being a couple of bumps in the road and the majority of it feeling much busier than the first two, I still found Children of Dune very intriguing, amounting to what I consider a truly excellent, rousing third novel fit for Dune. The characters became arguably more intriguing than ever. It revisited what was surprisingly unresolved in the first novel. It kept the political momentum from the last novel going at a satisfactorily engaging pace. And its ending guaranteed a deep-seated change that would signal a whole different trajectory for Dune as a series.

Much like the first two novels, this is a sci-fi epic for the ages, no matter which generation gets into it.

My Rating

A strong A-