This is part one of a two part conclusion to the main Dune series based on notes and an outline by Frank Herbert. I've heard and experienced much trepidation regarding this, but thankfully, as long as I'm mostly focused on the ideas rather than the writing, I got through it without any wounds. :)

This is the continuation of the epic struggle between the Honored Matres and the Face Dancers and the Bene Gesserit and an even greater foe that implacably hunts all of them down. And when I mean "They", I mean all of humanity.

I have to admit that the reveal of the great foe of us all is a rather cool surprise and brings the whole series full circle in chronology in a very nice way. For those of you in the know, I know I just gave it away, and for the rest of you, you'll probably never know what I mean, but tough. :) It's a really exciting time for Dune Fans and perhaps a little info will get you guys back in the groove and taste this melange-laden treat.

There's also another tidbit that takes up a huge portion of the text that is pretty much awesome, especially for some fanboy who has, at the time of this writing, read the original Dune 14 times.

Oh, crap. Did I just do it again? It's so hard to say what I love about this novel and what I'm already going to love about the one that completes it because the "big secret" is also an ENORMOUS part of everything in the books. Think Gholas. Think a lot of Gholas. Think about awakening a lot of Gholas from a secret cache of genetic materials stashed away by a Master. And think about using these peeps as the last ditch effort to save the faltering and fractured humanity.

Woah. Serious Woah.

Good conflict, great characters, delicious ideas that tie together the entire franchise in a really big way. That's where this book is.

Now, I do miss Frank's way of writing. It's much denser, much more clever, full of unique insights and wisdoms, and thousands of wonderful idea-laden easter eggs that sometimes never get explored but still make us pause and wonder.

On the other hand, Brian and Kevin do have the whole clarity and pacing thing down pretty good. I can appreciate what they do well even when I miss the old master who did NOT do the whole pacing thing well at all. :) He sacrificed pacing for ideas and I was pretty good with that. :) Alas.

However, this book isn't that much of a stinker if you're focused heavily on getting to the idea reveals and you like good characters and love to see old classic characters interact in fantastic new ways. :)

I do recommend this for all old fans. It's also closure. :)

I hope I live a very long time, but I know that someday, like all human beings, I must die. Nobody knows what happens next. I hope there's an afterlife. If there is, and if, in the afterlife, you get to meet all the people who have lived before, throughout human history, then I hope I get to meet Frank Herbert. When I do, I will fall on my knees and beg Frank for his forgiveness, for having wasted any amount of my life reading this ridiculous, insipid trash posing as a Dune book.

I think Frank will forgive me. I think he'll say, "Hey, I know. It sucks. But I'm a father, and what father doesn't want to provide for his family. Brian, bless his heart, if he could make a few bucks off of the family name and this crazy Dune thing I created, then so be it. The thousands of rubes who read this shit thinking it's in any way part of the real Dune series, and not just third-rate fanfic, well, they had no real appreciation for my work anyway. The real Dune fans know the score."

And I'll be like, "Frank...you are the man." And Frank will say, "No no...it is you who are the man." And we'll share a manly terrorist fist jab and walk off into the clouds.

Just an absolutely fundamental misunderstanding of everything that came before in his father’s previous works, Brian Herbert instead injects his own ideas from his previous tinkering in the Dune series and fails miserably to be even half as interesting as his father. He destroys any mystery or subtlety or wonder from the original Dune series. If you truly love Frank Herbert’s books, take a pass on this one you will not regret it.

Sarò sincero, per la prima volta dopo parecchi libri, mi sono goduto piacevolmente la lettura di un romanzo della Saga di Dune. Sia ben chiaro, "I Cacciatori di Dune" non è un capolavoro, anzi, è un libro di qualità mediocre, che tuttavia ho letto ben più volentieri di parecchi dei romanzi precedenti.
A livello di world building, finalmente i diversi mondi di Dune tornano ad avere una rilevanza nella storia, non a livello ecologico come lo era stato l'Arrakis dei primi libri, ma più a livello politico (aspetto che, per inciso, rispecchia di più i miei gusti).
La trama è invece l'ho trovata più debole. I buchi di trama e le incongruenze con cose già raccontate ci sono ancora (ormai èun must have per i seguiti di Dune). Inoltre, se solo alcune delle story line secondo me sono state rilevanti per il libro stesso, sono state tutte utili invece per gettare le basi per il seguito (cosa che tuttavia non giova al romanzo stesso). Sono stato molto sorpreso da un paio di colpi di scena che non mi aspettavo (anche se la maggior parte di essi, c'è da dirlo, erano abbastanza prevedibili). L'unica cosa che mi ha deluso veramente della trama è stato il riciclo di idee: senza fare spoiler sulla trama di questo libro in particolare, diciamo che arrivati al settimo libro la gimmick di riportare in vita vecchi personaggi ha un po' stufato.
Sul fronte dei personaggi invece c'è stato un netto peggioramento. I due autori hanno scelto di concentrarsi di più sulla politica che sullo sviluppo caratteriale dei protagonisti. Una decisione del genere ha sicuramente portato a un miglioramento della storia, ma ha reso questo romanzo decisamente più "scadente" negli aspetti che invece erano il fiore all'occhiello dei precedenti capitoli.
Sullo stile di scrittura invece ci sono stati i cambiamenti maggiori. Senza digressioni filosofiche, il romanzo in sé risulta sicuramente tanto meno profondo nelle tematiche trattate, quanto più scorrevole e piacevole alla lettura.
Per quanto riguarda il finale invece l'ho trovato abbastanza inaspettato, forse un po' banalotto per quello che racconta, ma comunque apprezzabile.
In conclusione, ho trovato "I Cacciatori di Dune" un romanzo buono, sicuramente non all'altezza dei grandi romanzi della serie ma comunque di qualità accettabile.




PS: non vedo l'ora di finire il seguito per poter tornare a leggere altro...

Samo za najzagrizenije fanove i one sto moraju da kompletiraju sve serijale koje zapocnu.... ostala mi je poslednja u serijalu, ali nemam snage sad za to....

It's been a loooooong time since I read the og 6 Dune books. And I've been avoiding these non-Frank Herbert sequels and prequels because I just kind of did not care, even though Dune 6 ended on a cliffhanger, then FH died. But I enjoyed the latest Dune films and am enjoying the series Dune: Prophecy, so I thought "could be fun to get back into that world."

"Fun" is not the right word, unfortunately. This book was fine bordering on lame. FH has a writing style that is descriptive and full of gravitas. Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson's writing style is comic book and 2-dimensional. Which is fine for the IP work that KJA usually does (which I have enjoyed in the past), but Dune requires more. The characters are flat, some of the plot points are nonsensical. (Why all the gholas? SO MANY GHOLAS.) The tiny chapters are like bang bang bang action action action with no substance.

I will say that it was easy to pick up this book because the writing is so basic and moves so fast. So I can't say that it was painful or a slog. But I was rolling my eyes many times. Oh! But weirdly! There is a random short story at the back of the book which I liked! It's called "Treasure in the Sand," and I have no idea where it belongs in the timeline or what the point of it was. But it was way better than the novel.

I will probably read Dune 8 just in case this one was "the lame one" and maybe the rest of the BH/KJA books are good. Shrug

This was a bit ... no, not a bit, it was huge disappointment. You're reading Dune, an excellent series, book by book.. no, again. Imagine you're flying in the sky like a free bird, being totally happy, and then airplane! Jet engine! Boom! Blood everywhere. That's exactly what happened here. Storytelling? Boring, repetitive, writing quality is unspeakably bad, bad, bad. Okay, we get answers to questions that were unaswered. But I'm not even sure if it is positive thing, I think they should have left it unfinished.. Probably biggest letdown in my life. I remember moment when I saw it is written by Frank's son and how I put it back into bookshelf saying it will be shit and after all those years I made mistake I took it and read it. Two stars just for Sheeana.

I read the book almost 20 years ago and at the time - being in my teens - I enjoyed it. The battleships, women fighting to death, interstellar ship with its crew lost in unknown parts of space... very appealing at the time.

After the time I reconsidered heavily. The reason to reread was to sweep a dust from old memories and it was disappointment. At first I couldn't put my finger at what particularly bothered me but later came to conclusion that it's dumbification of the original story. Frank's characters were deep, thoughtful and used violence as last resort. It felt like Frank allowed his readers to peek under the cover just a bit and let them figure the meanings and connections by themselves. The mystery of Dune, Sandworms and all the main participants added to the general feeling the story being as deep and entangled as universe itself.

Kevin's and Brian's attempts are far from this. Story feels shallow, superficial, missing the mystery and feels like puddle compared to previously mentioned universe. Where Frank just indicated letting reader to figure out Kevin&Brian felt the need to explain thoroughly and repeatedly. After a while it feels like the book is meant as part of inclusion programme. I mean: the ones who read this book had certainly read Original Saga so why treat these readers like kindergarten kids whe need to be repeatedly explained basics and to which dumbed down story must be served?

I knew the charm from before wouldn't be there anymore and went to read the book mainly for the story. I caught myself lot of times wondering what would the story look like if it was written by Frank. Maybe it wouldn't be very far from HoD as it was written by Brian and Kevin, maybe it would just feel more... adult.

Indeed, it is written in an entirely divergent pace, the style and semantics are different from Frank's, but if you appreciated 'Legends of Dune' series, you will enjoy this one too. They are, afterall, different writers with different styles and yes, although the book cannot be compared to the original six Dune books, it brings closure to questions remained unanswered from Chapterhouse: Dune.
All in all, it is an alert book, with unexpected turnarounds and a highly enjoyable lecture.

Are Brian Herbert & Kevin Anderson half as good at writing 'Dune' books as Papa Frank? No. Are there far too many Deus ex Machina moments in the plot, for the rest of the writing to survive unscathed? Yes. Finishing off the storyline, no matter how much original draft material they had discovered, was always going to be a thankless task. They tried. They really tried. I think they truly loved and respected the original books. But this is merely okay, nothing more. But too much ammo was fired at the target. Some of it was due to the regurgitated characters from the original book, who mainly performed one significant plot function before becoming background noise again. Of the rest, there were protagonists and situations inspired, possibly, by Gregory Benford's 'Galactic Centre' books and/or the Matrix films (the disappointing sequels, mainly). I'm actually glad someone had a crack at the job of finishing this long long saga, but the very existence of this particular Vol.7 & Vol.8 does make it unlikely that another (and quite possibly better) attempt will ever be written.

Had only read Frank’s books but decided I needed to finish the story. It took me a few chapters to get over the new writing style but I ended up enjoying the overall narrative. And it’s a much faster/easier read. Pros and cons for sure but I say go for it. Onto the last!!!

“So I'm back, to the velvet underground”

so sang Stevie Nicks. Me, I sing:

“So I’m back to Dune”

And I’m not a gypsy but a nerd, a Frank Herbert Dune geek back to a storyline I know and love. I reread Dune last year and came away loving it even more, appreciating and being in awe of Herbert’s savage genius all over again.

And so we come to Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson’s 2006 "Dune 7" Hunters of Dune. I have seen this on the shelf and walked away from it for years. Years. It was also years between God Emperor and Heretics. But looking back, I had read the first four in a binge, back to back to back and as heavy as Leto II was I was overwhelmed as well.

Heretics and Chapterhouse renewed my faith in the vision. But they were Herbert’s last. Chapterhouse was published in 1985 and Frank died in 1986. (just 2 years after David Lynch’s film).

Brian and Kevin had produced a series of prequels about the great houses and had been successful expanding the Dune universe. As the story goes, they found a dot matrix file labeled “Dune 7” and it was a general 2-3 page rough outline and off they went.

Pundits will say they sold out or are mercenary trollers after a few bucks, dredging up every last penny they can from Herbert’s great legacy.

AC/DC’s guitarist Angus Young was famously asked, “haven’t you produced 12 albums that sound alike?” To which Angus corrected, “No, we’ve produced 13 albums that sound exactly alike". Metallica front man James Hetfield was asked if they had sold out. His reply: “Yep, every night.”

There is some value (pun intended) in giving the people what they want. They idea of gholas, artificially created humans from the cells of dead people, came from Herbert’s receipt of scores of fan letters asking why he had killed off Duncan Idaho and entreaties to somehow bring him back. Idaho and a morgue full of later gholas have been a ubiquitous character in the entire series.

In Hunters Brian and Kevin have expanded the original six, but more than that, they have resurrected (pun again intended) the concept of Dune as an epic science fiction experience. We have all the old characters, Bene Gesserit, Bene Tleilax, sandworms, honored matres, mélange, guild navigators, Suk doctors, the great houses, and even a Kris knife.

Some will say this is Herbert Lite, but I thought the pace and style were good. Honestly, Frank Herbert’s writing can be thick. I love his work, but he can say in a sentence what it takes another writer a page to say. So heavy with fecund thought is his writing that it leads to a slow reading (Poul Anderson is the same way). Brian and Kevin have stated that they did not try to replicate Frank’s syntax or grammatical structures, they wrote his notes with their voices and style and I thought it worked. I was pleasantly flabbergasted: I liked this WAY more than I thought I would.

They tell a solid story and the ending is GREAT!

I’m going the distance, gonna read ‘em all.

*** 2022 reread

“I’m going to read all of these Dune books.”
-tLyn, My Dune Journey

“Only the original six are Dune! Frank Herbert only wrote six!”
-tSaying of the Purist Jihad

“After hundreds of lifetimes and having made love to tens of thousands of women, I think it’s fair to say that I am after all a Bene Gesserit stud”
-tDuncan Idaho, Swordsman and Sex God

“I was the woman who finally tamed the great Duncan Idaho”
-tMurbella, You Ain’t Woman Enough to take my Man

“I was the woman who finally broke the whorish spell over Duncan Idaho”
-tReverend Mother Sheanna, As Bad As I Want to Be

“Looking back, I think the Muppet Babies was my favorite cartoon”
-tBrian Herbert, Ghola! Ghola! Ghola!

“Write more books, these things will sell like hotcakes!”
-tFrank Herbert, The Lost Notes