Dune Messiah - Review

Dune Messiah is a drastic departure from the 1st book in the Dune series. It’s much less epic in scope, it’s darker in tone, the cast of characters has decreased significantly, and the story in general takes a completely different turn than expected. It’s a much more personal and intimate story that is a deconstruction of the “Prophesied Hero/The Chosen One” trope rather than the epic and drama-filled space-opera that the 1st book was. I didn’t feel the grandiose nature and momentous suspense and tension like I did with Dune, but I think it’s a very underrated book considering most of the fandom considers this to be the worst book in the series. It still has tons of political intrigue and has some spectacular moments near the end of the book. This will be a non-spoiler review and it will be covered in 5 sections: Plot, Characters, Setting/World-Building, Pacing, and Final Thoughts/Rating.

Image: Alia’s Temple.


[Plot]:

The story takes place during the 12th year of Emperor Paul Atreides’ reign. It has been 12 years of devastation and chaos brought on by the Jihad. Paul, through his religious war, has conquered several planets and now controls all of the spice, so the Guild Navigators cannot use it for space travel and the Bene Gesserit cannot use their Truthsense abilities without it. In an attempt to break this monopoly on the spice and to bring order to the world, the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, Princess Irulan, Scytale (A Bene Tleilaxu), and Edric (a Guild Navigator) plot to dethrone Paul.

The story does continue some elements from Dune such as the idea of Chani being Paul’s real love interest and Princess Irulan being just a political marriage, the conclusion of Paul’ vision in the 1st book of him not being able to stop the Jihad, and Alia’s story and character being fleshed out more, but other than these 3 things and some other characters re-appearing, the story takes a radically different turn than I (and most people) expected. However, there were many hints and foreshadowing throughout Dune that indicates Paul’s darker turn in the future and the inevitable chaos and violence caused by the Jihad. I enjoyed all the political intrigue and scheming throughout the book and the mystery element with the secret Fremen traitors, and the revelations of the Bene Tleilaxu’s actual motives was fantastic. The religious undertones of the book, especially with Alia and seeing how fanatical the Fremen have become, was very fascinating as well. The ending was very heart-wrenching for me. There were some really cool moments in there as well but there was just something about the final chapter that was so poetic and emotional, and that final scene was stuck in my head for a few days.

My gripe with this book is that there’s so little story throughout it in general and it’s slow. Books are meant to tell a story with undertones of a certain theme or message that the author wants to convey to the reader. But in this book, most of the time, the themes Frank Herbert wants to express overshadows the actual story. It sometimes feels like reading a textbook from a course in University rather than a Sci-Fi novel. I heard “Classic Sci-Fi” is sometimes hard to get into because it’s more about the ideas and philosophies rather than the story, but Dune did a perfect job of blending in the themes and philosophies underneath a fantastic story. In this book, however, Frank Herbert just uses several characters most of the times as his exposition device to lecture the reader and hit you over the head about his philosophies, ideologies and beliefs on religion, power, government and corruption, rather than telling a great story. It’s definitely very thought-provoking and the themes are great, but it gets irritating sometimes because the pace is slowed down by a lot, and it doesn’t feel like these characters would naturally say these things to other characters during a scene in a chapter. It feels like Frank Herbert is the character I’m reading and not Paul, Scytale, Hayt, Reverend Mother Gaius, etc…

Image: Paul’s Throne Room.


[Characters]:

Paul has grown very bitter and cynical during this 12 year time jump. He’s brooding a lot because of the fact that he has unwillingly caused so much destruction throughout the years. It was very jarring to see Paul go from a hero to a tyrant, but he has such a fascinating arc in this book. He still shows glimpses of his charismatic leadership qualities which is reminiscent of his father Duke Leto in the previous book, but it’s conflicting with his inner turmoil and cynicism. This quote from the book really highlights how powerful Paul has become: ”Everywhere we turn,” Irulan said, “his power confronts us. He’s the Kwisatz Haderach, the one who can be many places at once. He’s the Mahdi whose merest whim is absolute command to his Qizarate missionaries. He’s the Mentat whose computational mind surpasses the greatest ancient computers. He is Muad’Dib whose orders to the Fremen legions depopulate planets and he also possesses oracular visions which sees into the future”.

Another quote from this book provides context on the true scale of the destruction caused by the Jihad and why Paul has grown so bitter and cynical because of the very thing he predicted but was unable to prevent: ”Statistic: at a conservative estimate, I’ve killed 61 billion, sterilized 90 planets, completely demoralized 500 others. I’ve wiped out the followers of 40 religions which had existed since.” The chapter where that quote was pulled from also goes on to reference Hitler and Genghis Khan, and it shows that Paul and his followers have done even worse things than those 2 historical figures. He never wanted any of this tyranny and religious zealotry in his name but he knew he couldn’t stop or change time/the future. He’s a very tragic character in that way and it only adds to his incredibly layered character arc in this book.

Favorite Characters – Chani, Stilgar, Alia & Hayt.



Image: Paul meets Edric (a Guild Navigator).


[Setting/World-Building]:

The main setting of this story is on the planet Arrakis, but there’s also a brief glimpse of Wallach IX (the home world of the Bene Gesserit School) in the beginning of the book. There’s a lot of new ideas/concepts in this book such as the Bene Tleilaxu, the Qizarate Tifwad (a Fremen priesthood), Face Dancers (essentially shape-shifters) and the Ghola (a clone). The curtain is revealed a bit more in this book as we get to see the weird physical appearance of a Guild Navigator, with their vaguely humanoid and elongated figure with finned feet and hugely fanned membranous hands. He swims in a container of orange gas which emits the smell of the spice, melange. The Bene Tleilaxu are a fascinating new addition to this world as well and they seem more dangerous than the Bene Gesserit. I’m excited to learn more about them in the future books and I’m curious so see how big a role they play in future events.

[Pacing]:

This is a very slow-moving book. The majority of time is spent on a lot of characters having conversations, and most of it is exposition on the ideas/themes Frank Herbert wanted to explore like government, power, and religion rather than the dialogue advancing the actual plot forward. It helps that this book is really short though so it’s not a huge drawback, but the numerous ideas presented and several details to keep track of made it feel much longer than it actually was.

Image: Arrakeen.


[Final Thoughts & Rating]:

Dune Messiah is much better than the perceived reputation it gets from the fandom. I might like this book more than the majority because I was forewarned that this is a very different book in tone from Dune and that Paul takes a darker turn. I like to compare this to everyone’s (including me) expectations that Luke Skywalker was going to be such a badass and just wreak havoc on the First Order in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, but he was more brooding and depressing of a character and was just hiding out on his island instead of having a special and mysterious reason for being secluded on that island. This book, just like Luke Skywalker, was just not what anyone expected. But Frank Herbert outlined in the 1st book that Paul fears the future because of the “Jihad” and how he couldn’t stop it. There were also warnings in Dune of the Fremen’s religious nature in the way they worshipped Liet-Kynes. This book presents a lot of thought-provoking ideas within a thin but interesting plot, and sends a strong message about the consequences of following charismatic leaders and the dangerous combination of religion mixed with government.

Rating: 6.5/10

My Book Rankings: https://jaytargaryen.blogspot.com/p/b...


*My Rating System*

5 Stars (9-10): Amazing
4 Stars (7-9): Really Good to Great
3 Stars (5-7): Average to Good
2 Stars (3-5): Bad to Mediocre
1 Star (1-3): Terrible 

 

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