Dune Meh-ssiah

*As always, there are spoilers ahead, so read on at your own risk.*

There are a lot of problems with Frank Herbert’s original Dune.  The gender politics and white savior narrative alone could sink the novel.  But in spite of being put off by those aspects, I really enjoyed the novel overall.  The writing itself is decent, and a handful of the characters are fascinating, but most of all, the world of Arrakis and the universe of the novel are so beautifully and completely imagined that it’s easy to forgive the other flaws.

What I found when reading Dune Messiah, the second book in Herbert’s series, is that it is plagued with the same problems as the first book without providing the same fascinatingly depicted world.  The big contribution to the universe is the Tleilaxu and their technological abilities, such as facedancing and the creation of ghola.  The moments at which the book soared were when Herbert explored and developed everything associated with the Tleilaxu. 

When it wasn’t showing us the marvels of Tleilaxu technology, the novel progressed ponderously, bemoaning Paul’s undesirable fate as a godhead, feeling bad for Paul that millions in the universe were dying from the Jihad started in his name, and making me feel grossed out by Herbert’s fascination with Alia’s newly sexualized body (not by Alia’s sexuality, mind  you, but by Herbert’s overly-fond descriptions) as well as the unmotivated romance between Alia and Hayt/Duncan Idaho, a man her father’s age (and about the age of Frank Herbert himself when he was writing the novel).

The novel posed an interesting challenge to the author.  How do you write about Paul’s reign 12 years after he became Emperor and not write a novel about trying to run a city, state, world, and universe of worlds?  How do you write about him and not have the reader hate him for standing idly by as millions are slaughtered by his followers in his name.  This latter concern is addressed by reassuring us that the slaughtering will happen no matter what Paul does or doesn’t do, so we should take comfort in the fact that he is walking the best path possible.  How much comfort you take in that is up to you.  The former concern is addressed by creating a plot to kill and undo Paul.  That was a clever approach, I think, although many of the conspirators were given short shrift, and personally, I would have liked to have seen more of Edric and the Reverend Mother.  Actually, I would like to have seen more of Irulan as well.  Scytale was clearly the focus of the conspiracy plot, and as much as I liked the character, I would have liked to have spent more time with the others, who had, I believe, far more interesting motives and personal interest in the fate of Paul Muad’dib.

The revelation of the Tleilaxu plot to break new ground with ghola technology through Hayt and Paul’s relationship was good, and the attempt to manipulate Paul by offering to bring Chani back as a ghola was fine.  Unfortunately, I never believed Paul was truly tempted by the offer, so there was no real drama present.  Having the dwarf, Bijaz, provide the same narrative beat by making the same offer after Scytale is killed didn’t contribute anything noteworthy to the tale.  All in, it was . . . okay. 

We’re reading on into Children of Dune to see if Dune Messiah or Dune itself is the fluke.  I will report back with my findings.