Oh boy, it’s finally here! After years of waiting and having to endure those horrible prequels, the long-awaited conclusion is finally here! Yes, that’s what I thought when I first heard the news. After years of making us wait and spend our hard earned money on a sleuth of teaser prequels and filler, Brian Herbert and KJA (or as I like to call him, NOT FRANK HERBERT!) finally delivered on their promise and released the damn Dune 7 novel!
Like most fans, I had been waiting years for that day. Ever since KJA and Brian got together and announced that they would be releasing Dune 7, a book which Frank had apparently been working on shortly before he died, I was understandably excited. It was just a few years before this announcement that I had finally worked my way to the end of the Dune series (Chapterhouse: Dune) only to find that it ended on a cliffhanger note with numerous loose ends.
For example, what was this mysterious enemy that the Honored Matres were fleeing? Who were the old man and woman from Duncan’s visions? What was Duncan’s role in all this; i.e. was he the new Kwisatz Haderach or something even greater? And above all, was this all the result of Leto’s vision, or were the main characters finally free of the Tyrant’s “Golden Path”? These and other questions I wanted answered, and after many years of waiting, I kinda felt entitled!
Needless to say, the anticipation I felt was rivaled only by the disappointment, but that didn’t occur until the very end when the answers were revealed. There was plenty of material to disappoint in between, but I was able to endure all that so long as I got see how it all ended. I’ve said all this before, so I shan’t waste any more time with it here. Let me get to the specifics of the story and why it was such a horrible, crass, and cynical novel that left Dune fans everywhere disappointed and angry.
As fans of Dune are no doubt aware, this book was part I in a two part collection that was meant to tie up the series. While this novel didn’t end, it did tie up most of the threads Frank had laid down in Chapterhouse and predicted what the ultimate ending would be. It is for this reason that this book is arguably more important than its follow-up Sandwords of Dune. This book established what the conclusion would be, the other one was mere filler, seeing the threads through to their conclusion and giving every character a final farewell.
The story picks up three years after the events in Chapterhouse: Dune, with Duncan and the crew of the Ithaca trying to find their way in an alternate universe, hoping to stay ahead of the old man and woman. However, there efforts are upset when Duncan is spoken to telepathically by a mysterious character known as the “Oracle of Time”, a Guild agent who then plucks him from his current location and brings him back to the known universe. The old man and women realize he’s returned, and immediately begin trying to catch him in their tachyon net again.
Meanwhile, back on Chapterhouse, Murbella is continuing with her efforts to bring the Bene Gesserit and Honored Matres together in preparation for the coming war. In addition, she is approached by the Guild who are desperate for spice now that Chapterhouse is the last known source of melange. Given their past support for the Honored Matres, Murbella is loath to help them, but manages to leverage their future loyalty in exchange for not cutting them off completely. In the meantime, the Guild is in contact with the Ixians, who are busy developing a machine that will take the place of a Guild Navigator. Unbeknownst to them, Face Dancers have already infiltrated Ix and are now dealing directly with the Guild.
The Face Dancers are essentially doing this all over the Old Empire, infiltrating worlds and replacing key people with their own copies. Having replaced the last of the Tleilaxu masters with their own copies, their leader Khrone now focuses on infiltrating the HM’s. They do this by putting Uxtal in the custody of Hellica, the new leader of the HM’s. In exchange for sparing his life, Hellica demands that he teach them the secret of axlotl tanks. In addition, Uxtal’s tasks include creating a ghola of the Baron Harkonnen and Paul for Daniel and Marty’s purposes. The reason for this is because the old man and woman feel they will be “useful”, especially Paul who’s prescience will be intrinsic to their “calculations”.
A third reason for his research into axlotl tanks is to create a Waff ghola so he can obtain the secret of making artificial melange (a secret thought to be lost with the destruction of the Tleilaxu Masters). This will come in handy for the Guild Navigators, who are looking for an alternative to the Sisterhood’s source. However, they are unaware that Scytale – the last surviving Tleilaxu master – has already given said secret to the crew of the Ithaca. They in turn are generating it using their own tanks for their own use, seeing as how the sandworms they have aboard are not yet mature.
In addition, Scytale has revealed the existence of the nullentropy tube with the ghola cells he’s kept hidden to Duncan and the Ithaca crew. He does this in exchange for the creation of a Scytale ghola, one which replace him when he dies, which is getting closer. Duncan, Sheeana and Miles all decide that it would also be in their best interests to start cloning all the other people in this tube – Paul, Leto II, Chani, Stilgar, etc. – because apparently, “they will prove useful”. Over the course of the next few years, they begin to give birth to and rear these gholas, one by one.
In the meantime, Murbella’s forces continue to consolidate their hold over more and more of the Old Empire, flushing out HM’s and adding their weapons and resources to their own. This includes the so-called “Devastators”, some kind of super weapon that can sterilize an entire planet. Murbella also begins searching her “Other Memory” in order to find the answers she needs; namely, where the Honored Matres came from and who their enemy is. She learns in the course of this that the HM’s are the descendents of Tleilaxu women who were freed with the help of Fish Speakers and Bene Gesserit’s from the Scattering. Hence why the HM’s seem hellbent on wiping out the Tleilaxu. There’s also the brief and needless scene where she converses with Serena Butler, figurehead of the Butlerian Jihad.
Shortly thereafter, the Sisterhood attack Ix, and Hellica, and Uxtal all die in the process. Waff however, escapes and finds refuge with the Guild, promising them the secret to breeding their own sandworms instead of artificial melange. Meanwhile, the Ithaca stumbled onto a planet that is concealed by a no-field. They find that the place was sterilized by a deadly plague, and after a very brief exploratory mission, they realize that it was this same plague that the Honored Matres were fleeing. Shortly thereafter, they come upon the planet of the Handlers, which they learn are in fact Face Dancers. In the course of trying to return the Futars to the surface, a boarding party attacks them and they are forced to flee, but some make it aboard.
More to follow in part two, coming up soon!