"Dune" et al
 

so, i'm reading Dune right now. it's a fascinating book.
however, it took me a LONG time to get into it... the first one hundred pages were laborious. i understand that they served to introduce the characters and the setting, but it was just hard for me to read.

anyway, my question is (this is similar to the Bourne thread going on right now):

what are your opinions of the sequels? (firstly, i'd like to know the order of the sequels, however! :))

danke.
-di doctor-

*Dune
*Dune Messiah
*Children of Dune
+God Emperor of Dune
#Heretics of Dune
#Chapterhouse Dune
(symbols designate books connected in the same time frame)

Dune's the best.
Dune Messiah is pretty good.
Children of Dune is pretty good.
God Emperor of Dune -- didn't like it as much the first time, but 2nd time through it wasn't so bad.
Heretics of Dune -- pretty good
Chapterhouse Dune -- pretty good.

Now Herbert's son and Kevin J. Anderson have been putting out some prequels. Not so heavy in the deep thinking, scientific stuff -- ecology, religion, philosophy, psychology, etc -- they're still good, fun, well-written science fiction.

First trilogy -- setting up history directly prior to Dune (1-2 generations)
Dune: House Atreides
Dune: House Harkonnen
Dune: House Corrino

Second trilogy (in progress) -- much older period
Dune: Butlerian Jihad

Did Frank Herbert have all the pre-history of the Dune universe mapped out (like Tolkien did with the Silmarillion), or are they just making stuff up as they go along?

And there's always <A HREF="http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=3220559#post3220559" target="_blank">....</a>

Jason- some of the pre-history is being made up, but they're making it fit really well.

Butlerian Jihad takes place 10,000yrs before Dune, so it's pretty much wide open. I thought it was pretty good.

I hear there will be a sequel to Chapterhouse after they finish the Butlerian series- and that Frank Herbert had some fairly detailed plans for that one.

Reportedly, Frank Herbert's son has already firmly closed the door to any sequels that continue his father's saga. I guess Brian Herbert knows that he isn't as good an author as his father (he's not if he's pairing with Kevin J. Anderson of all people) and he's not willing to do anything that would tarnish his father's legacy, which IMHO is quite possibly the wisest thing he could do.

I have read a few of Brian's other scifi books -- "Prisoners of Arionn" for instance is really good -- somewhat in the vein of his father's books -- style/theme is kinda like "The Santaroga Barrier" or "The Heaven Makers". I'd definitely say he's a good scifi author, but the Dune saga is really in a league of it's own.

I think Brian is great. Frankly the Dune series got bogged down in corniness and sexual freakshows towards the end.

I wasn't saying that Brian Herbert was a bad author (although I'm not sure why he chose Kevin J. Anderson as his partner). All I was saying was that he isn't as good an author as his father, who was arguably one of the greatest sci-fi authors of all time. However, I won't mind that he finishes the Dune saga, just so long as he ditches KJA before writing the Chapterhouse: Dune sequel.

He won't- the prequels have been lucrative, and they're not going to change that formula.