Has anyone else read the recently published Dune prequels? I just finished reading them...
I thoroughly enjoyed Frank Herbert's original Dune novels. He does an excellent job of making his universe feel real. The intrigues and machinations just felt so clever and subtle that it's believable. You really got a sense of devious politicians, heads of state, conspirators, etc... The writing felt extremely intelligent all around.
Unfortunately, he died before completing the final novel. Now his son, along with Kevin J. Anderson, have written several prequels (and a sequel).
In my opinion the prequels don't come close to matching the quality of the original books. Although the storytelling is somewhat enjoyable, it's just not the same stuff. The simplest way to describe it? It just feels less intelligent. Dumb, even.
The mediocrity of the prequels is perfectly demonstrated in the opening sequence of Dune: The Butlerian Jihad. In this scene the Cymeks, who are disembodied brains housed in huge robotic vehicles, are gathering for a secret planning meeting. Having lived for 1000 years already, the Cymeks are supposedly evil geniuses of the worst kind. They overthrew the entire human empire and enslaved humanity across hundreds of worlds. Now, trying to escape the omnipresent watcheyes of the computer evermind, they have scheduled a secret meeting to discuss their plans.
They fly light years away from every known colony in order to conduct their evil plans in complete secrecy. They go to tremendous effort to hide their meeting from the computers. Much is risked by even undertaking such a meeting; if Omnius ever suspected their disloyalty, the Cymeks would be in big trouble.
So what is the grand plan that these huge disembodied brains come up with? For what reason have they risked their very existence to have this meeting? What kind of subtle, evil tactic is produced by warlords over 1000 years old?
"Kill the humans!"
Yep, that's right - after expressing a desire to kill humans, they pack up and leave. All that effort for a worthless planning meeting in which they express perfectly obvious thoughts and then depart.
I get the feeling that Kevin J. Anderson just didn't have his heart in this particular project...
