Paul Of Dune

This "interquel" resides between the original Dune (1965) and its first sequel, Dune Messiah (1970). Frank Herbert left some gaps in the tale of Paul Muad'dib, the semi-divine, semi-monstruous fellow whose life was to reshape galactic history. Now son Brian Herbert and collaborator Kevin Anderson, who have already provided eight books bracketing the original series on either end, have decided to fill in those gaps. Following this book, we hear rumors of three more interstitials: Jessica of Dune, Irulan of Dune and Leto of Dune.

We open the current novel a year after the fall of Emperor Shaddam, with Paul installed as the new Emperor. But he's finding the conquest and pacification of his many subject worlds to be an arduous process. His friends Gurney Halleck and the Fremen chief Stilgar are leading millions of the hardy warriors of Arrakis across the galaxy. But there's political maneuvering going on, as well as military offensives. After a brief visit to his native planet Caladan, Paul tries to rule from the old imperial seat of Kaitain. But eventually he decides to build a new capital on Arrakis. With the help of a famous swordsman-turned-majordomo-and-architect, Whitmore Bludd, Paul begins construction on a huge fortress-cum-palace suitable for the Kwisatz Haderach, or Chosen One.

But the ex-Emperor Shaddam, in exile on Salusa Secundus, still schemes. Shaddam hopes to enlist his old ally Hasimir Fenring in his plans. But Hasimir and his wife Margot are focused on exceptional daughter Marie, whom they are training up in treachery. The family resides among the weird Bene Tleilax, master bioengineers, who are trying to breed their own Kwisatz Haderach.

Paul faces dispiriting setbacks as well as victories, with only the love of his life, Chani, and a few other friends to uphold him. He has to deal with his wife-in-name-only, Irulan, Shaddam's daughter. He enlists as a common soldier at one point. He rides a sandworm, seeking his old roots. But even with the prescience conferred by spice, his path is a bumpy one.

A little under half the narrative is a flashback to the earlier events in Paul's life when he was an adolescent, and when such familiar figures as his father, Duke Leto, mentor Duncan Idaho and evil Baron Harkonnen still walked the earth.

Constrained by pre-existing boundaries

Ah, continuity! What a stern taskmaster. In any extensive series beloved by millions of fans, the introduction of new bits must be made to conform to all that has gone before. Consistency of characterization and history means that any new events and people must be almost evanescent and insignificant, since they have never been referenced in the canon prior to this moment. Also, the ultimate fates of everyone are already a given. Thus, no matter how much danger Paul and his sister Alia face in Paul of Dune, we know they will certainly survive. This renders much of the action oddly weightless.

But let's set this dominant millstone aside for a moment. Books of this sort can still offer some pleasures, if they cast fresh light on hidden corners of a universe and its inhabitants. Certainly I thought that the eight other books by Herbert and Anderson did so, front and back of the seminal series. This one, not so much. We might see our favorite characters in some new trifling adventures here, but these adventures add essentially zero to our understanding of them or their world or their destinies. By the end of this book, Paul's well-understood ethical, personal and galactic dilemmas are illumined no differently than before. The gap between Frank Herbert's first two Dune volumes really required no patching.

This novel suffers also from a lack of gravitas and cognitive estrangement that the elder Herbert provided. The collaborators produce a kind of journalism, where events are recounted without real fictional resonance. Just contrast the opening lines of each.

Dune: "In the weeks before their departure to Arrakis, when all the final scurrying about had reached a nearly unbearable frenzy, an old crone came to visit the mother of the boy, Paul."

Paul of Dune: "A serene ocean of sand stretched as far as the eye could see, silent and still, carrying the potential for terrible storms. Arrakis—the sacred world Dune—was becoming the eye of a galactic hurricane, a bloody Jihad that would rage across the planets of the crumbling imperium."

The first has the force, personality and tantalizing air of intrigue of a fairy tale; the latter reads like a dispatch from a reporter embedded in Iraq.

The entirely comprehendable desire to revisit beloved literary milieus must always be counterbalanced by the possibility that our new footsteps might crush the same fairy castles we are searching for.

It's an odd literary synchronicity that sees this book appear back to back with Orson Scott Card's similarly purposed Ender in Exile.

- Paul