There are two opinions one could have about this series and they both are true because it´s so highly individual and polarizing:

If it could have been a bit less complicated and confusing it would have had the potential to be as good as the first two parts, but the characters are talking so much over the top complicated philosophical, religious, Dune specific stuff that it´s truly hard to follow. It just doesn´t work as well as in the first two parts. There was much potential, but it didn´t feel right.

Another one could say that what is said is deep, full of innuendos, pretty many plot twists are interwoven and Herbert is trying to make it bombastic, which works great. But I am more on the critics' side.

There´s a bit of a problem with characters´ motivation, credibility, and authenticity too, as they don´t seem to follow completely logical reasoning and don´t really know what they want. Possibly I am overlooking some of the subtility and it´s part of a perfectly orchestrated subtility, but subjectively it felt as if their premises switched drastically between one and three times without understandable reasons.

I´ve heard some people say that one should just read the trilogy and don´t read further because the other parts are average and worse and I don´t know what to do now. I see what Herberts´ problem is, writing so complicated and arcane that it can be a pain to follow the plot, but on the other hand it´s great, complex storytelling and the audience is very divided about it. I fear that it could get in the direction of pseudo-philosophical and unsatisfying, but some say that the elements that made the series great are even deepening and becoming more grandiose with each part because there are more and more innuendos and connotations to the other parts before.


That the mind control, possession, split personality, body horror, element didn´t take off is a pity. It started so great, some of the best chapters were about it and then it didn´t really play a big role in the rest of the story anymore. I was waiting for it to become a driving force, expand, possess others too, possibly physically manifest with any kind of spice magic, but no, nothing, a perfectly established storyline was wasted and instead 100 more pages were filled with monologues and vague prophecies.


Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...

Το τρίτο μέρος ενός μνημειώδους έργου της ΕΦ, αλλά και ολόκληρης της λογοτεχνίας του φανταστικού. Αν αποζητάτε ένα βιβλίο (ή μια σειρά βιβλίων, στην προκείμενη περίπτωση) που να αποτελεί νοητική πρόκληση, να είναι γραμμένο με μεράκι, με όραμα, με φαντασία, αλλά και να είναι εγνωσμένης λογοτεχνικής αξίας, είστε στο σωστό σημείο!
Κατά τη γνώμη μου, εξαιρετικό.

این جلد نویسنده انگار گرفتار یه تله‌ی زیاده گویی و بیش از حد فلسفه بافی شده بود! رو مرز شعاری بودن راه می‌رفت قشنگ. سه تا کتابه داریم این داستان رو دنبال میکنیم پس متوجه نکته و پیام داستان و هشدارهاش شدیم دیگه وقتشه به اصل داستان پرداخته بشه!! کلی از فصل هاش فقط دیالوگ های طولانی و بدون انتها بودن که اصلا پلات رو جلو نمیبردن و شخصیت پردازی هم که تقریباً وجود نداره. دو قلوهای پاول صرفاً حضور دارن و هیچ حس خاصی نسبت بهشون نداشتم. جسیکا رو مخه استیلگار رو مخه ونسیسیا و دوستان تبعیدی هم یه حضور ریزی دارن اما آدم توقع تاثیر بیشتری ازشون داره! بهرحال کتاب تقریباً پونصد صفحس! اما مسیحا با وجود اینکه حجمش نصف این کتاب بود کلی اتفاقات مهمتر توش افتاد و آدم با شخصیت هاش کامل همذات‌پنداری می‌کرد! از پاول گرفته تا سربازی که کور شده! این وسط فقط آلیا خیلی خوب بود که اونم هرکسی از راه می‌رسید ژست خر دانا رو برای این بیچاره می‌گرفت!!!
امیدوارم این کتاب شروع سراشیبی سقوط مجموعه نباشه!

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."

- Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear


"I do not have to be what my father was. I do not have to obey my father's rules or even believe everything he believed. It is my strength as a human that I can make my own choices of what to believe and what not to believe, of what to be and what not to be."

- Leto Atreides II
The Harq al-Ada Biography

In Children of Dune, the third entry in Frank Herbert's infamous Dune Chronicles, Emperor Paul Atreides (a.k.a. Muad'Dib) has walked off into the desert after achieving prescience; he is presumed dead. His sister Alia now rules the Imperium. Waiting in the wings to become the next Emperor is the young Leto II, Paul's son. Young Leto II and his sister Ghanima are "pre-born", meaning their personalities were fully formed in the womb. They carry the memories, and, it seems, the personalities, of their entire ancestral line in their minds. This gives them the wisdom and knowledge of many lives and countless centuries, so they are effectively mature adults in the bodies of children.

In this new post-Paul Imperium, Alia's grasp on power is tenuous at best. The mysterious Bene Gesserit continue to plot in the shadows, attempting to maintain their long-developed breeding program, which had seemingly already met its goal of producing a Kwisatz Haderach with Paul Atreides. Can Alia hold on to power? Will Leto II rise to become Emperor? What really happened to Paul Atreides? And who is The Preacher, the mysterious man who has been speaking heresy against Alia's empire and spreading dissent across the galaxy?

There is a lot to like in Children of Dune. It's beautifully, at times lyrically written. It's like reading a work of art in prose. Some of the best Dune characters return in Duncan Idaho, Gurney Halleck, and Stilgar, but there is also an interesting cast of new characters, like Prince Farad'n Corrino, Leto II, and Ghanima. I also really liked the exploration of the ecological transformation of the planet Arrakis (Dune), which in this book is rapidly transforming from an arid desert world into one with rain and vegetation, a transformation that comes with powerful economic and sociological consequences. The ending was also enjoyable, though it left much unanswered.

That being said, I think the Dune Chronicles are starting to wear on me a bit. The books are all basically the same, and it's becoming a bit tiring. Each book is built using a predictable formula of palace intrigue, a confusing plot that raises more questions than it ever answers (even by its conclusion) and that frustratingly keeps the reader always in the dark, the bizarre and futile plotting of the Bene Gesserit witches, which begins to appear more pathetic every book that goes by, power struggles, doubletalk thoughts and ruminations that add no value to the story and are just plain boring, etc.

This particular entry was absolutely filled with doubletalk, or what I call "word soup". Probably about half of this book was made up of these boring, confusing, and seemingly meaningless thoughts and reflections about time, life, consciousness, and other such topics. I normally love a good dialogue about such thought-provoking subjects, but it just didn't work here. Even the characters were confused in this book! There were numerous scenes in the book where a character openly admitted they had no idea what was going on.

As a character in a Dune book, anyone could be your enemy, even your own family members. Everything must be questioned, every assertion doubted. Secret plots abound everywhere, most of which are never explained to the reader, or even understood by the other characters. Sound like fun? Maybe for a few books, but there are six books in the Dune Chronicles, and after a while it becomes a bit tedious. This feels like a classic case of an author stretching something that would have worked really well as one or two books into something that doesn't really work very well as six longer books.

I can't say I'm excited to read the next book in the series at this point, which makes me really sad, because I loved Dune and Dune Messiah. I'll probably put the Dune Chronicles down for a little while, or, perhaps more likely, for a longer while...

3.5 stars

Nihayet bitti...tüketti beni resmen... son 100-150 sayfa iyiydi ama keşke tek kitap olarak kalsaymış.

Dune'un karakterler üzerinden değil de olaylar ve toplumlar üzerinden ilerleyen bir seri olduğunu göz önüne alınca karakterlerle ilgili nefret yorumları falan beni hayrete düşürüyor. Gerçekten empati kuramadığınız, yaptığı hareketin nedenini anlayamadığınız, klişe tabirle "büyük resimde var olduğu parçayı" göremediğiniz bir karakter nasıl olabilir ya? Bir olayı benzer şekilde yaşayan karakterlerin bambaşka başa çıkma şekillerini görüp "E bu neden beceremedi?" demek çok garip geliyor.

Kitapta kullanılan teknoloji beni her seferinde hayrete düşürüyor. Distrans olayı bence inanılmaz zekice düşünülmüş fikirler arasından aklıma gelen ilk şey.

Bu kitabı neredeyse ilk kitap kadar çok sevdim. Herbert'in toplumlara yaklaşımı, zekası ve öngörüsü muazzam. Ama uyarmamda fayda var; Dost Körpe'nin çevirisinden hoşlanmayanlar en çok bu kitapta zorlanacaktır, sağ olsun yine okurken cinnet geçirtti.

4.5/5

تمام طول کتاب با چهره‌ای پر از تعجب ادامه می‌دادم، بین کتاب اول و سوم فرسنگ‌ها فاصله‌ست، انگار دو مجموعه متفاوت می‌خونی، تنها مسئله‌ای که میخوام روشن باشه همین هست که تفاوت در کیفیت نیست، کتاب سوم ملغمه‌ای از بهترین‌های کتاب اول و دوم تلماسه‌ست.

تقریباً نه سال بعد از ماجراهای مسیحای تلماسه و به دنیا آمدن دوقلوهای پل آتریدیز، مهدی جهان تلماسه، به نام‌های لتو و غنیمه می‌گذره، و آلیای در حال حکومت بر کهکشان و آراکیس هست، سیاره‌ای که دیگه به مانند گذشته نیست، شروع تغییرات بوم‌شناختی در سیاره تلماسه و ابرهای سیاه بارونی در حال تغییر زیست‌بوم سیاره تولید کننده ماده باارزش ملانج یا همون ادویه هستند که همزمان با همین اتفاقات ماجراهای سیاسی و از پشت خنجر زدن‌های شخصیت‌های کتاب شروع می‌شه، در همین بین مادر پل آتریدیز بعد از بیست سال به سیاره آراکیس برمیگرده، و به دیدن نوه‌ها و دختر خودش میاد، دختری که دختر سابق نیست، آلیایی که توسط خاطرات بارون هارکونن تسخیر شده و به اعماق تاریکی سقوط کرده.

اتفاقات و ماجراهای سیاسی ادامه پیدا می‌کنند و ما در فرزندان تلماسه بیشتر از اونکه شاهد کتابی علمی‌تخیلی باشیم، شاهد یکدونه تریلر سیاسی، روانشناختی عمیقیم که با نهایت نبوغ آینده دور انسان‌ها و حداقل یکی از سرنوشت‌های احتمالی نژاد انسان رو بررسی می‌کنه.


قبلاً هم گفتم، بازم اضافه می‌کنم، برای من تلماسه همیشه ارزشمندترین متنی هست که حداقل در ادبیات گمانه‌زن با اون مواجه شدم و بالاتر از همه چیز برام قرار میگیره، امیدوارم افرادی بیشتری تلماسه بخونند و از این داستان لذت ببرند.

4.5 pokręcone, ale wyśmienite zarazem. chcę już przeczytać następną część!!!

“İyi bak, kuzenim Hâriku’l-Âde. Biz hep böyle olacağız. Evliyken de böyle duracağız. Her zamanki gibi sırt sırta duracak ve zıt yönlere bakarak varlığımızı koruyacağız.”

Very rarely do I finish a book and go questing after the TV miniseries adaptation of it, hoping it will be better, but that is what happened here. I haven’t yet sat down and watched the miniseries, but only because it’s super hard to find. I think my local video store might have a copy. I’m certainly not buying the DVD from Amazon for $46. But anyway, my point is that though I remain fascinated by the overall story, and it engages me intellectually, and I especially find it fascinating to think and read about after the fact, the actual experience of reading both this book and the second one (and the fourth, which I just finished) was akin to having my teeth slowly pulled without anesthesia. It’s just Herbert’s style, that for some reason after the first book (which I flew through!) doesn’t engage me.

In this one, we’ve got Paul and Chani’s twins, Leto II and Ghanima, who are like their aunt Alia, in possession of memories from all previous generations, and so have been adults since they were in the womb, no matter the age of their bodies. It’s freaky as shit. People in the book are freaked by it, too, particularly since sometime in between the end of books two and three, Alia has succumbed to “the abomination,” which basically means she has allowed one of her ancestors whose memories she possesses to take over her body. The Baron Harkonnen is essentially possessing her like a ghost. Also running around the deserts of Arrakis is a Prophet, who may or may not be the not-dead Paul, and the heirs of the former Emperor are plotting to depose the Atreides line. There’s a lot going on.

I’ve just made it sound way more engaging than it actually was. The dialogue is stultifying. And most of the important stuff is under the surface of the writing. It’s exhausting.

The first three Dune books make up their own sub-trilogy in the larger series, so I really should have stopped after this one, but I continued on. SHRUG. I think I am going to take a break after four. I’ve made it this far and I’ve only got two more.

Children of Dune (Dune #3), Frank Herbert
Children of Dune is a 1976 science fiction novel by Frank Herbert, the third in his Dune series of six novels. At the end of Dune Messiah, Paul Atreides walks into the desert, a blind man, leaving his twin children Leto and Ghanima in the care of the Fremen, while his sister Alia rules the universe as regent. Awakened in the womb by the spice, the children are the heirs to Paul's prescient vision of the fate of the universe, a role that Alia desperately craves. House Corrino schemes to return to the throne, while the Bene Gesserit make common cause with the Tleilaxu and Spacing Guild to gain control of the spice and the children of Paul Atreides. ...

تاریخ نخستین خوانش نسخه اصلی:
داستان تل‌ماسه در آینده‌ ای دور می‌گذرد و در جامعه‌ ای ملوک الطوایفی که با الهام از جوامع اعراب بدوی ساخته شده‌ است. سه عامل اثرگذار در این جامعهٔ فراسیاره‌ ای عبارتند از: پادشاه امپراتور (صدام چهارم)، و خاندان‌های حکومتی، اتحادیهٔ فضایی (صاحب انحصار حمل و نقل فضایی) و گروه بنی جزریت. پس از جهاد بزرگ باتلری، ساخت و ایجاد دستگاه‌های خودکار و رایانه‌ ها تابو شده، بنابراین جوامع انسانی مجبور به افزایش توانایی‌های جسمی و ذهنی انسان‌ها با استفاده از پرورش نژاد و نیروهای مرموز ماده‌ ای به نام اسپایس ملانژ یا ادویه شده‌ اند. ملانژ ماده‌ ای است که قادر است نیروهای ذهنی آدمی را تا حد بسیار زیادی افزایش دهد، حتی در مواردی می‌تواند باعث ایجاد پیش آگاهی از وقایع آینده و طی الارض شود. ملانژ تنها در سیارهٔ بیابانی و بسیار خشک آراکیس (اقتباس از نام عراق) یافت می‌شود. خشکی آراکیس به حدی است که مردم آن (فرمنها) برای از دست نرفتن رطوبت بدن مجبورند از جامه‌ های مخصوصی استفاده کنند و آب در آنجا ارزشمندترین چیز است. ملانژ را ماسه کرمهای آراکیس می‌سازند و استخراج کنندگان ادویه علاوه بر جنگ دایمی با آب و هوای وحشتناک این سیاره، مجبورند گاه‌ و بیگاه با آن‌ها هم سر و کله بزنند. ماسه کرمهایی که قطر آن‌ها گاهی به بیست متر هم می‌رسد. «آب حیات» نیز از همین موجودات استخراج می‌شود. ماجرای اصلی رمان، نبرد بین سه خاندان بزرگ آتریید، هارکونن و کورینو (خاندان صاحب مقام امپراتوری) بر سر تصاحب این سیاره و زندگی‌نامهٔ قهرمان افسانه‌ ای فرمن‌ها پل مودیب است. خاندان امپراتوری، تسلط خود را با کمک نیروی نظامی هولناکی به نام ساردوکار بر عالم مسکون حفظ می‌کند. ساردوکارها از کودکی آموزش می‌بینند که بی‌رحم باشند و در نبرد از هیچ عملی فروگذار نکنند. گروه بنی جزریت هم از سوی دیگر، برنامه‌ ای دیگر برای خود تدارک دارند. آن‌ها نسل‌هاست که اذهان مردم را با اعتقاداتی مذهبی اسیر کرده‌ اند و برنامه‌ ای دقیق و حساب شده برای کنترل نژادی نسل انسان‌ها دارند. هدف آن‌ها تولد کویساتزهادراچ است که بر عالم حکومت کند. آترییدها جزو محبوبترین خاندان‌های حکومتی هستند. پادشاه امپراتور صدام چهارم که از قدرت آترییدها هراسان شده و به خاطر ترس از اعضای درباری لندزراد نمی‌تواند خود مستقیماً علیه آن‌ها وارد عمل شود، کنترل منابع ملانژ در آراکیس را از بارون ولادیمیر هارکونن (بزرگ خاندان هارکونن و دشمن قدیمی دوک آتریید) می‌گیرد و به آترییدها می‌سپارد. دوک لتو آتریید، سرور خاندان آتریید، آراکیس را با وجود آب و هوای خشک و سختش سرزمین خوبی می‌بیند، زیرا امید دارد ارتشی از فرمن‌ها که زندگی در آراکیس آن‌ها را سخت و خشن و شکست‌ناپذیر کرده، بسازد تا با گارد ترسناک پادشاه امپراتور، سارژوکار، برابری کنند. از سوی دیگر پسر دوک آتریید، پاول و وارث بارون هارکونن، فیض-روتا، هر دو از پروردگان برنامهٔ بنی جزریت هستند. تنها با این اشکال که طبق برنامهٔ بن‌جزریت، پاول باید دختر به دنیا می‌آمد تا از فید-روتا هارکونن، کوییساتزهادراچ را به دنیا بیاورد. اما سرپیچی مادر پاول، لیدی جسیکا، این برنامه را برهم زده‌ است....؛ ا. شربیانی

Thought provoking and subversive in how the hero myth of Paul is near fully dissembled and power continues its corrupting work on the conquerors. There are disturbing philosophical undertones on how peace is bad and only conflict and near divine, visionary rulers can bring about true progress.
Peace demands solutions, but we never reach living solutions; we only work toward them. A fixed solution is, by definition, a dead solution. The trouble with peace is that it tends to punish mistakes instead of rewarding brilliance.

I definitely enjoyed this third part of the Dune series more than the second part. We have high stake political intrigue, with Alia, as main conduit of power, succumbing to internal pressures in multiple ways. Leto and Ghanima meanwhile appear as 9 year olds but have access to the genetic memories of all their predecessors, all the way back to Earth, London and Canterbury. And then house Corrino is trying to clawback power, Jessica is rumoured to return to Dune and the Bene Gesserit are very keen on resuming their generational breeding programme.

Frank Herbert brings a lot of philosophical musings in this web of politics, including how power tends to develop in aristocracy and ever expanding and less worthy elites, in this case the Freemen who grow overly content and used to their changing planet. In a sense this leads to an interesting conversation with Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty, non-fiction from the Nobel prize winner of Economics 2024, which broadly arrives at a similar conclusion. The response taken here is however distinctly different and quite disturbing, compared to the route of bringing about better institutions.

More thoughts to follow, but quite an adventure and does makes me curious for the other parts, even though those are known as less engaging and accessible.