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Klasik Dune serisi sonunda bitti. Bilinenin dışında bilinen bir bilim kurgu olmadığını, Frank Herbert tarzı bir bilim kurgu olduğunu söylemeden geçemeyeceğim. Seri hem edebî hem de üstünde düşünülmesi gereken pasajlar ile taçlanmış vaziyette. Özellikle son kitap bunu göz önüne seriyor. Yarattığı evren, oluşturulan karakterler, aktarılan zaman okuyucu için bulunmaz bir nimet. Benim nazarımda Dune ve diğerleri şeklinde bir sınıflandırma yapmak hiç de abartılacak bir durum değil. Tavsiyedir efenim.

That ending... sucked the life out of me. I hated it. It's brilliant, but I hated it.

For me, this last book from Frank Herbert about Dune was one of the better ones.
It had more clarity in its thoughts and narrative movement then the other sequels of the first Dune book.
It ends very open-ended and has space for another saga.
I think that would be the intention of Frank.
This book focuses very heavily on the Bene Geserit and the dialogues are this time meaningful and engaging.
For me, if I could, I would compress book 2 to 5 into one with the best parts and make a trilogy out them.
So in general I would rank the ride through all the Dune books as "okay" because of some very underwhelming books in the series.
There are still two to go written from Brian Herbert. I read very mixed opinions about his sequels. At the moment I am not so super hyped to plunge directly into them. I might give them a go when curiosity arises again about Duncan, the Bene Geserit and the Worms.
So... should you read it?
If you value having a founded opinion about one of the greatest Science-Fiction sequels ever written. Yes! Do it! Also, the movies are much more enjoyable with a large chuck of background knowledge. And hey...! The recent movies (Part 1 & 2) are really cool!
Also read the series if you are up for some twisted ideas and concepts of consciousness. For me, it was the driving factor that lead me through the books since Book 1.

Having reached the end of this long and arduous series, my dominant thought is 'finally.'

Chapterhouse: Dune is similar enough to Heretics of Dune that it seems as if it could be one book split in two. Chapterhouse takes place only a few years after Heretics, and like Hereitcs, it involves average writing, a mildly interesting plot, and typically static characters. More of Herbert’s trademark dawdling narrative. Easy enough to swallow in the beginning of the series when the fantasy world was exciting, new, and fresh, but by the sixth book, requires pulling out your wading boots and slogging through.

Just about the only aspect of the series that continued to pique my interest in this final installment are the maxims that touch on governance, bureaucracy, and politics. While much of what Herbert has to say is contained within the storyline and the characters themselves, I've found that the maxims in combination with the action are his more clear and powerful modes of thematic expression. This is a strength that has not altered since the beginning of the series, in addition to, of course, the description of fantastic planets in his imaginary universe. From the orchards to the sea, Herbert made the planet of Chapterhouse sound more pleasant than most, peaceful and lush with vegetation.

Herbert also garners a renewed interest in the individuals of his story. Among the typical fixed characters, used as representations of the themes of religion, politics, and power, are two relatively shining beacons of character development: Odrade and Murbella. In Odrade we find the deepest look into a Bene Gesserit yet, including flashbacks of her childhood. It provides a refreshing contrast to the sterility commonly seen in other members of the order. Truly getting to know a character gives the reader someone to root for, something that was missing from Heretics. Odrade forms a much stronger lead presence, and for what felt like the first time, a main character has emotions. The reader can somewhat feel her worry of the Honored Matres, her sadness at changing Chapterhouse to a desert. If Herbert had been a stronger writer, this could have been exceptionally powerful.

In a similar way, Murbella serves as a breather between stiff and hard-to-follow dialogue among other characters. Her spirit brings something new to the Sisterhood, and ends up revolutionizing the entire order. Additionally, the fondness Murbella and Duncan have fostered for each other is a nice balance to the overdose of sexuality in the previous book. Murbella is, plain and simple, likeable.

Still, as Herbert's characters are embodiments of his themes, I have always wished they would be fleshed out a bit more. In combination with a slow plot, it renders it difficult to tell which is the main focus of the book, the story or the characters. As the series goes on, neither end up being particularly strong, and that is especially true of Chapterhouse, a book which could have easily chopped out 200 pages and remained coherent. While having fewer loose ends than Heretics, this may be because it simply has fewer plotlines to connect. Still, elements are introduced that never find a resolution, such as the Futars. While it's possible these mysteries would have been solved in the next planned installment, it remains rather unsatisfying.

Also, there's pedophilia, so that's uncomfortable and weird.

Though possible to squeeze some enjoyment out of this novel, especially in the beginning, it remains a book to read for only those completionists determined to finish the series. And no, I certainly do not plan on attempting the books created from Herbert's notes by his famously less-talented son.

Rilettura.

Nella sua complessità la degna conclusione della parte di serie scritta da F. Herbert.
Prima parte sicuramente interlocutoria, ma in pieno stile Herbertiano si fa apprezzare per lo spirito più che per la comprensibilità, che comunque genera senso in una serie di "spinte-controspinte" che portano alla ciccia, il vero libro, che comincia con la restaurazione di Teg che, come avevo già scritto nella recensione degli Eretici è il vero protagonista di questi due libri assieme a Odrade, anche se il genio di quest'ultima è molto meno immediato alla prima lettura.

Alla fine si riduce a poco, se vogliamo. Ma la complessità del testo, le idee ireniche che in qualche modo superano sé stesse (Bene Gesserit che PREGANO?) le solite battute ad altezza vertiginosa rendono questo testo superiore al 5, che secondo me rimane un po' il libro interlocutorio, forse perché non rappresenta una vera e propria conclusione.

Un paio di citazioni, giusto per mettere un po' di polpa:

Those first human venturers into space—how little they suspected of where the voyage would extend. How isolated they were in those ancient times! Little capsules of livable atmosphere linked to cumbersome data sources by primitive transmission systems. Solitude. Loneliness. Limited opportunity for anything but surviving. Keep the air washed. Be sure of potable water. Exercise to prevent the debilitation of weightlessness. Stay active. Healthy mind in a healthy body. What was a healthy mind, anyway?

Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty. —THE CODA

Morale della storia: vivere è tutto, e le Bene Gesserit sono maestre nel vivere, anche se vivere significa perdere sé stessi.

Plot? Nonexistent. Will I still give the other ones a try? Oh yes.

This 6th and final book in the Dune saga that Frank Herbert wrote before his death in 1986 stands as one of the best in the entire series. Many have complained that it doesn't "go anywhere" for the first 150 pages or so, but I think it does. There are all of these seemingly unrelated plot threads that slowly but surely converge such that by the time you're halfway through the book, it all makes sense. The last half of this book is a mixture of intrigue and action that left me breathless and unable to put the book down until I was finished. The story here continues from the end of Heretics of Dune, with the Bene Gesserit hidden on their base planet of Chapterhouse, hiding and regrouping from the rampaging Honored Matres who hunt and slaughter them across the galaxy. However, the Bene Gesserit soon deduce that the Honored Matres themselves are being hunted, driven back into the Known Galaxy from the outer depths of The Scattering...and who these mysterious hunters are is not known. A desperate plan is conceived and ultimately carried out, but nothing goes as it was 100% planned and the resulting outcome leaves the two orders in shambles, merged together by force, with factions resisting, including some of the major players, who make their escape into the unknown. Throughout all of this are glimpses of two mysterious and all-powerful watchers who try to gather the most powerful of the renegades in their net...what ends up happening? Read it to find out!

Chapterhouse: Dune is famous for it's ending, which has been alternately called "cliffhanger" and "open." There has been raging debate over the intervening 25 years whether or not Frank Herbert intended to complete the saga with a 7th book, or leave it open-ended and finished with Chapterhouse:Dune. This is bolstered by two arguments...the short tribute to his wife that follows the final chapter (she died a year before this was published) and the fact that the mysterious watchers take the form of an elderly couple patterned after Frank and his wife Beverly. Further muddying the waters are the two horrendous "sequels" Herbert's son and his hack-writing partner Kevin Anderson published, supposedly based on an outline for "Dune 7," the supposed sequel and wrap-up to the saga, written by Frank Herbert and found in a safe-deposit box after he died in 1986. I won't get into any spoilers here, but suffice to say that the fact that the VAST MAJORITY of the "sequels" tie in characters created and introduced in Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson's "prequels," written YEARS after Frank died, and it's clear that, even though the outline may very well exist, they did not follow it one bit. This becomes clearer after reading the "sequels," (and don't worry, I'll savage those books and reveal the lies from those two after I read them again and review them on here).

Thus, we are left with an open/cliffhanger ending that is at the same time satisfying and frustrating. This is a testament to Herbert's imagination and talent, however...the final chapter of Chapterhouse:Dune is chilling and amusing and leads your imagination into a million "what-ifs" about what happened next. If only Frank could have lived longer and finished the saga (if he ever indeed intended to), but we still have his 6 Dune books and all of the imagination-spurring it provides, and isn't that really what we want out of the best fiction in literature?

“Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.”

“All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.”

“Confine yourself to observing and you always miss the point of your life. The object can be stated this way: Live the best life you can. Life is a game whose rules you learn if you leap into it and play it to the hilt. Otherwise, you are caught off balance, continually surprised by the shifting play. Non-players often whine and complain that luck always passes them by. They refuse to see that they can create some of their own luck.

How do I review this final novel in the Dune Saga? This is a very conflicting novel because of the wide spectrum of emotions I felt reading the final chapter.  I was in the last 10–20 pages of this novel, thinking damn, there is no more Dune after these pages, this is it. You’re probably wondering what I felt upon the ending. Well,  I am certain the consensus online was that this was a very cliffhanger ending. I am not very adamant about that stance because the ending itself is very clear in what it seeks out to achieve. It's honestly such a beautiful end upon this 6-book saga, even if this was an unintentional ending to the Dune Saga. But to me, it's a fitting one. Reading the final chapter and then reading the eulogy of Frank Herbert Wife straight afterwards was just beautiful and honestly hit you with the strings. There is a lot of controversy in the final two novels of the Dune Saga. It's honestly not for baseless reasons, it's understandable because of Herbert's focus. He writes about these antagonists, who are somewhat the antithesis of Bene Gesserit, the ideas of the Honored Matres are honestly fantastic on paper. The execution is much to be desired. It’s very confusing why the antagonists come across as caricatures because Dune has some of the best antagonists in fiction. You can easily list them in your hands some of them are so iconic. They have a character called Spider Queen, she is not scary at all or intimidating, but she does feature in some of the best back forth minds games in the series.    Lucilla last conversation with the spiderman queen was just fantastic. It's pure Dune at its finest, it's one of the best balances of holding back and striking whenever you can, honestly, Lucilla was winning that game. She pulled the strings a bit too tight near the end and unfortunately, she died, and honestly, I was liking her a lot.  

The biggest strength of Dune 5–6 is, weirdly, the epigrams. These were just esqusites—the amount of lore, knowledge, characterisation thinking upon this Saga as a whole. I mean, this is world-building at its finest. It's such a minor thing in the novel, but the amount of depth it provides, unveiling Bene Gesserit sisterhood and so much more—I mean, that is beautiful. Speaking of the sisterhood, god, I love exploring Bene Gesserit, from the big activities to the small activities in the Chapterhouse. The area is just somewhat disturbing it feels artificial, it doesn’t feel right, and Herbert conveys it so well, like a perfect area but sometimes too polished, it’s not authentic enough. I won’t talk about that aspect, but I have to admit that I really like Orade. If you do not like Orade, then this novel won’t click. She is the main character for most of the novel. Her nuances are fascinating to explore, as are her vulnerabilities. Bene Gesserit at the height of their power, seeing the cracks in her armour and her flaws, is something I enjoy reading. I will honestly defend Herbert's characterisation a lot of times, he uses indirect characterisation I think with Orade, it does show in her relationship with   ghoula teg   . It's such an interesting concept, and I wish Herbert showed it more. He always does this, like when an idea is literally tangling right in front of him, it wouldn’t take too much effort as the pieces of are right there, but he won’t do it.  So the positives so far are Bene Gesserit lore/worldbuilding, Orade, great mind games,    Duncan  , the ending and atmosphere.

I’ve already discussed my dislike of the Honored Matres and them feeling like papercut antagonists. The other criticism I do agree with is that Herbert's writing is at its weakest in the Dune Saga. The dude who was dying was writing this novel, and medically, he wasn’t very fit. He passed away a year later, after this was published. Unfortunately, it does show in the actual writing. I generally like Herbert's prose a lot, and here it’s still the same (me enjoying it), but it's a step down in quality. A friend of mine binge-read all 6 novels and for him, it felt like a different author. I read pretty spread apart. I cannot deny or agree with the claim, but it's worth pointing out. It’s very unpolished in that aspect, though I argue the epigrams, eulogy and other writings are some of Herbert's best. Now the pacing isn’t great. This might be the most poorly paced Dune book in the series. I do not know how to articulate the pacing, but it’s a weakness of this novel. Even as a person who didn’t have as much of an issue with pacing, I can visibly see it being the worst. What makes this more evident to me is that the novel lacks those massive moments. What I mean is every Dune novel you can point out, this is a HUGE moment. When thinking about the past books, there are a lot of big highlights, even Heretics have those big moments. Chapterhouse doesn’t have that, or, should I state, very few standout moments. When they appear, it's great, but it's not that much. Murbella is an okay character, I understood the intention, but I ain’t sure if Herbert executed her that well    though the depiction of the agony was awesome . But I did enjoy a lot of her chapters weirdly, though I was rarely invested in her (or as much as I hoped). Sheeana, I like her, especially her last chapter by herself, which was brilliant. The oddity of the novel is the weirdly handled sexual aspects. I am not against this in fiction, I feel like people are honestly too sensitive to the sexual aspects of fiction. But Herbert does not write it well enough to say it kindly.

In Conclusion, I really liked this novel a lot, way more than I suspected, and I would say this Dune Saga has been such an experience for me. I'm not sure how to rate this or if there's a point rating it. All I can say is thank you, Frank Herbert, for these 6 novels, some of my favourite novels of all time and which have impacted me so deeply that it’s kind of insane. This isn’t a normal series I can read, have fun with, and go on to the next. It’s something that just ponders in my mind consistently. There are a lot of life lessons, cautionary tales, and so forth. Now that it's time to say goodbye, I don’t regret this journey. Though one last thing, I will say I never met Herbert, but I feel like I would love to have a drink with the man hearing about his philosophy in life and perspectives on given situations. Though this is the end of the journey, I will reread these 6 novels one day.


7/10

Η δεύτερη τριλογία του Frank Herbert στον κόσμο του Dune είναι ένα ιδιαίτερο έργο (ο Θεϊκός Αυτοκράτορας του Ντιουν, οι Αιρετικοί του Ντιουν και η Αδελφότητα του Ντιουν είναι ουσιαστικά μια ξεχωριστή ιστορία, επομένως αναφέρομαι γενικά σ' αυτή καθώς και τα τρια βιβλία μοιράζονται το ίδιο στυλ γραφής).

Αποκλίνει αισθητά απ' αυτό που εννοούμε όταν λέμε μυθιστόρημα Επιστημονικής Φαντασίας. Είναι ένα αμάλγαμα ανεπτυγμένης φιλοσοφικής και πολιτικής σκέψης, μια ενατένιση ίσως (ή ένα ''δοκίμιο'') του τρόπου εξέλιξης του ανθρώπινου είδους, με έναν τρόπο που φαντάζει τόσο ξένος και παράξενος σήμερα.

Η συντριπτική πλειοψηφία των σημείων ανάπτυξης της -αλλόκοτης σε πολλές περιπτώσεις- πλοκής εξελίσσεται μέσα από στιχομυθίες που στόχο έχουν να θίξουν, να προβληματίσουν, να αναλύσουν, να φιλοσοφήσουν. Δεν θα συναντήσετε εδώ δράση, σασπένς, εξέλιξη, με την παραδοσιακή έννοια της μυθιστορηματικής διήγησης. Θα συναντήσετε, ωστόσο, πολιτικές και κοινωνικές αναλύσεις υψηλότατου επιπέδου, σοφίσματα, ραδιουργίες, λεκτικούς διαξιφισμούς και εκτενείς ενδοσκοπήσεις.

Αν και η εξέλιξη της ιστορίας δεν ήταν αυτή που επιθυμούσα (η πρώτη τριλογία Dune ήταν σαφώς ένα πιο ισορροπημένο και ενδιαφέρον έργο), ωστόσο δεν μπορώ να πω πως δεν θαύμασα για ακόμα μια φορά το λαμπρό μυαλό του Frank Herbert. Ευφυέστατη προσωπικότητα, ένας νους ξεχωριστός που θα μπορούσε να αναμορφώσει την κοινωνία αν του δινόταν η ευκαιρία (αν το επιθυμούσε, τέλος πάντων) να αναλάβει θέση ευθύνης και υψηλής πολιτικής εξουσίας.

Υγ: Είναι ίσως η πρώτη φορά που συναντώ βιβλίο όπου άνετα καταλαβαίνω αυτόν που θα δώσει 1*, αλλά κι αυτόν που θα δώσει 5*. Όσοι επιθυμείτε να διαβάσετε κάτι βαθιά φιλοσοφικό, μην ψάχνετε άλλο, η 2η τριλογία του Dune είναι για εσάς.

Don’t let this review stop you from starting this series. The first four Dune books (out of six) are absolutely fantastic and can be enjoyed on their own as each book lends itself as a good stopping point if you want it to be especially since there’s some large time skips between each book as the series progresses. This sixth and final book by Frank Herbert shares much of the same issues as the fifth book. Everything is convoluted. The characterization, the plot, the descriptions even of simple room layouts, nothing is easy here. Conversations jumping around between different characters sometimes on the same page with little indication you’re not even in the same room or on the same day anymore.

I enjoy a reading challenge, one of my favorite books is Blood Meridian, but when you dig under the surface to find substance here, there’s very little to be had. The events could’ve been told in 150 pages instead of 600. You’d think that extra padding could be used for getting to know characters but I actually finished this book knowing little more about the characters than when I started. I will always love the first four books, and even the fifth book had some clever moments of spectacle and wit, but this one? Holy fuck is it one of the most boring and needlessly complicated books I’ve ever read. I thought this shit would never end

[Nota Bene: As Frank Herbert's last two published novels in the Dune series, Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune, along with the unwritten Dune 7, in fact comprise a single story that happened to be divided into three parts, I'll post the same review for both of the two published volumes. This review contains no spoilers.]

During the first half of his literary career, Frank Herbert focused most on coming to terms with what it meant to be conscious. The evolution of his thinking on the subject can be traced from real-world events which happened to him in his youth, through his earliest published science fiction stories, crude as they were, and on into novels like The Dragon in the Sea and the stories that would coalesce into The Godmakers, and certainly The Santaroga Barrier and Destination: Void. This line of thinking reached its fruition in the novels Dune and Dune Messiah.

Having expanded his understanding of the full spectrum of consciousness about as far as it could go (although admittedly he never stopped tinkering with the subject), in the second half of his career Herbert refocused his attention on how the limitations imposed upon individual consciousness – or perhaps it might be better to say the limited perspective encompassing a single human lifetime – leaves humanity ill-equipped to confront an infinite and ever-changing universe. In effect we end up in a continuous crisis mode, always vainly insisting that the world of tomorrow conform to the expectations of yesterday. We're persistently and comically always shocked to discover our assumptions are wrong. Elsewhere I have described this aspect of Herbert's thinking, the human failure to deal with, or even to recognize, the implications of an unbounded universe, as an absolute-infinity breach. This theme begins to emerge in Children of Dune and is especially prominent in God Emperor of Dune, for a final surmounting of the absolute-infinity breach is the primary target of Leto II's Golden Path. But we also encounter the concern in Herbert's final trilogy: Heretics of Dune, Chapterhouse: Dune, and (by implication) in the unwritten Dune 7.

It is a hallmark of Herbert's imagination that he pursues an ever-elaborating expanse of concerns, always tracing a spectral pathway across a continuum of broadening bandwidth, chasing after considerations of widening implications across grander and grander scales of magnitude. An original interest in a fleeting moment of hyperconsciousness ultimately led Herbert into defining consciousness, hyperconsciousness and subconsciousness in all their aspects and dramatizing what he had learned and concluded in his stories; likewise his contemplations of the diverse implications of the absolute-infinity breach. And it might be added that he pushed his spectral analytical approach through time as well, so the Dune saga becomes probably the most temporally discontinuous series ever written. The first three novels take place roughly around the year 21,200 AD. The drama of God Emperor of Dune unfolds 3,500 years later, and that of the last three books (Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune are difficult novels, and attempting to distinguish them as separate novels, or independent from the unwritten Dune 7, is an artificial and arbitrary exercise) takes place an additional 1,500 years after that, placing us circa 26,200 AD.

As the primary goal of Children of Dune and God Emperor of Dune was to shatter the innate mythmaking in humanity that compels us to conservative convergence, these last three books are intended to unveil the consequences of living in a multiverse that has become irreparably divergent. This divergence followed in the wake of the downfall of the God Emperor and the subsequent Scattering of humanity not throughout multiple star systems or galaxies, but across multiple universes which are discontinuous with one another. Any threat can now come upon our heroes and heroines from any direction, but with all the eggs no longer in one basket, no matter what catastrophe might befall locally, the whole story can never come to a final end.

In Heretics of Dune (1984) and Chapterhouse: Dune (1985), the Bene Gesserit has recovered substantially from the tribulation of the era of the God Emperor, and now we're allowed a far more intensive view of the inner workings of the Sisterhood than ever before. But the Bene Gesserit and the remnants of the old Imperium, as ever, are confronted by a host of power-hungry enemies, new and old, in the usual style of Herbert's Machiavellian plotting. It is these plots-within-plots that seemingly all other reviewers have focused on, and I'll forego doing the same here.

Herbert said it wasn't until he was writing Children of Dune that he came to understand that an important role of an author was to entertain his readership. That will come as surprising news to some of you who like Herbert, and not to some of you who don't. But it's important to note that the word "entertainment" carries different connotations for readers than it does for hacks or more seriously-aspiring authors. Entertainment is something that is doled out to the action-adventure-thriller crowd, to those who love reading or going to the movies in no small part for the sheer escapism of the thing. Now I'm not overly bigoted about this. There's nothing more boring than a book that's, well, boring. But I think what Herbert was getting at was that as he matured as a writer he came to see, as many writers do, that plot per se is less interesting than character, no matter how many car chases or lasgun exchanges are involved.

I for one can't separate a reading of the last books of the Dune series from knowledge of what was going on in Herbert's life as he wrote them, which he did, by that way, at an absolutely furious pace. This happened to be during the most stressful part of his entire life. His wife, Beverly, had been dying for ten years, and the last two years of her life were especially painful for her and for her husband, both physically and emotionally. I believe that, had he lived, Frank Herbert would have easily written the Dune 7 novel to complete the series. I am less sanguine that he could ever have written another coherent novel after that one.

By the time God Emperor of Dune was published in 1981, and with the signed contracts for the later Dune novels in hand, Herbert was financially secure but, as I've suggested, he was suffering from increasing emotional instability. Furthermore, I can't help believing he was struck by a supreme irony, which is that, like Paul Maud'Dib, he now found himself hemmed in by the conservative mythology of his own image which he himself had created. To this day you can still see this in reviews of his later books, wherein readers who were born after Herbert's death still bemoan the fact that his later books are not like Dune in style. Everyone wanted, and continues to want, Frank Herbert to write books that seem like quote-unquote Frank Herbert books: everyone wanted, and wants, Herbert to remain frozen unchanging in 1965. But in his later years Herbert, with his financial security, felt free to try to break out of that myth regardless of the demands and expectations of his fans, and for this I applaud him. I'm sure he did have basic plot elements in mind for the last three books of the series – call this the "entertainment" necessary to bring the masses along – but it's quite obvious that he had already grown more interested in character development than in weaving such masterful webs of palace intrigue anymore.

Herbert wanted to change course, but he had not yet found a new direction. I see hints of this in Children of Dune, in which Duncan Idaho tells Alia about the practice of setting out blocks of marble in the desert to be etched by the blowing sand of a Coriolis storm. Idaho argues that the sculpted pieces produced are beautiful but they are not art, as they are not carved according to human volition. But in the latter books it is Sheeana who creates an abstract sculpture she calls "The Void," which is art. How might these two kinds of sculpture compare? What is the symbolic significance of Sheeana's abstract work? The question is particularly relevant, it seems to me, when Sheeana's piece is recognized as a symbol set in tension with a Van Gogh which, at the end of Chapterhouse: Dune is carted off into a new, uncharted universe. Clearly, I think, the matter can be read as a form of self-psychoanalysis undertaken by the author. "The Void" is the primitive and unformed new expression welling up inside him; the old and familiar, even conventional Van Gogh has been let slip away with a fond farewell.

A kind of quantum uncertainty pervades Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune which are, after all, a single story occupying multiple volumes. We do not have enough pieces to interpret this story or to fairly critique its parts, which must therefore remain finally unadjudicated and unjudgeable. This is because the unwritten Dune 7 was also to have comprised a full third of the complete tale. We can see that Herbert was bending writing to a new direction, and we can hazard some educated guesses about (entertaining) plot elements that would have informed the third book, but we can never know. The best we can do is ponder any written records or notes that Herbert may have left behind as poles in the sand to mark the path he intended to follow. Anyone who possesses any such notes, it seems to me, can be a good steward to the memory of Frank Herbert only by publishing them in unexpurgated form: lacking that, Herbert's career accomplishments can never be properly assessed. And that is an injustice to an important 20th century American writer.