Children of Dune: A Review.

Having read Dune and Dune Messiah, books that challenged my imagination, I thought that this novel, a sequel of the two books, will be easier to understand. To my surprise, it was harder. The reason is that in this third installment of the Great Dune Series, Herbert not only recreated the world of Dune, but he also turned Dune's already profound system to a bewildering world of religion, politics and desert ecology.

At the end of Dune Messiah, the book which precedes this novel, Muad'Dib - the blind emperor left his palace and ventured into the vast desert bled. By doing this, he was considered dead according to Fremen tradition. His children, the twins Leto II and Ghanima, were then left under the care of Alia, his power-hungry sister, an abomination who is flogged by different personas in her memory... Arrakis, the dry desert planet, is now already becoming lucious and green with plants... Farad'n, the sole successor of House Corrino, is eager to regain their place in the universe... the religion Muad'Dib had created and left.. the Fremen... Melange. All these are key ingredients to the ever-evolving story of Dune which was presented in this magnificient work of Herbert's imagination.

Compared to other books that I have read, I was not able to easily turn its pages, this novel took a lot of my time and attention. It was very hard to fathom that there were times where I just had to put it down and read another book simply because I cannot understand the story anymore. So if you plan to read this book, I suggest that you do not, unless you have read the first two books of the Dune series.

And once again, what Frank had built in the beginning of the story, he destroyed at the end. Probably to pave a path for a new story line. Nonetheless, whatever the intentions of the author were, more of Dune's mysteries await to be unfold in the next novel, "God Emperor of Dune."

As for this novel's rating, I will just give it four stars out of five. Truth is, this book is a real keeper. In fact, I plan to read it again someday. So why not five? Because, I had a really hard time finishing the novel because of its twists and plots (but I wonder if its just me and my bad comprehension).

*As for the books of Frank's son, they are not as deep as the novels in the Dune Series. Moreover, there are a lot of incongruence in these "new novels." Despite of this, I still believe that they are entertaining though not as good as the books in the original series.