By Frank Herbert

So we are getting to what Frank Herbert had planned to be the second trilogy.

“From Dune to Rakis to Dune, the wheel turns full circle. From burning desert to green and fertile land and on to burning desert, the cycle is complete.

The people of the Scattering are returning. Amongst them, mysterious and threatening, are the women who call themselves the Honoured Matres, adepts of an ecstatic cult. And on Rakis, become Dune, an ancient prophecy is fulfilled with the coming of the she-seer, Sheeana.”

So this is where things shift drastically. My best advice is to just let everything wash over you. Be aware that there are a lot of references to sex in the book. Nothing graphic, but reader beware.

For this story, I have three thoughts.

Firstly, the problem is the time shift. One of the first things I thought when I was reading this book was that I had no idea who to follow, since we are far down the family line. By this, I mean that before this book, we follow Paul Atreides in Dune and Dune Messiah; then we follow Leto II and Ghanima Atreides in Children of Dune; and we continue following Leto II in God Emperor of Dune. This means we had a direct family line, but this book jumps around 1500 years and this time we have no immortal character to bridge the gap. My main confusion is we have two people who are descendants of the Atreides line, but it’s not completely clear who we should follow.

Secondly, the Honoured Matras. These are women who came back from the Scattering, and they are the villains of the book. But the thing that sets them apart is the fact that, and I am completely serious here, they are so incredibly good at sex that they can get men so addicted to this to a degree that they will act as their slaves. Now I am sure that there is a Frank Herbert reasoning for this to work on the level of Mentats having computer-level thinking but as someone who is completely Asexual, it definitely feels strange. But on that note, it is interesting that we see them when looking closely at the Bene Gesserit who control many of the families through manipulation of emotions. It’s quite a comparison.

Thirdly, the worshipers of the worms. On the planet that was once known as Dune, there are the priests who worship what they call the divined god. By this, they are referring to the fact that when Leto II died, his body became thousands of sandworms, each one holding a fraction of his consciousness. The reason that I want to talk about them is the fact that throughout all of God Emperor of Dune we are reading from Leto II’s stolen journals. But we hear in this book that the priests have hidden this information. They are so backward that they seem to have the same mentality of those who murdered Paul Ateides.

Thank you for joining me and until next week when we talk about the final book.

Happy reading to all and to all a good night.