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Having re-read Dune (and reviewed it here on GR) recently, I figured I should continue and read at least the initial trilogy with Dune Messiah and Children of Dune to get a better idea of the world that Frank Herbert created. I am glad that I read Dune Messiah. It is an excellent novel about destiny and fate and how much of it we can control. We get more insight into the Navigators - here I noticed that, unlike in Dune, we actually meet a Navigator (one of the three primary conspirators against Paul Maud'dib) which means that David Lynch most have read this book as well before making his cult classic movie of the first book. We also learn more about the Bene Geserits and the Mentats. I found it particularly fascinating that the Butlerian Jihad, which takes place a few hundred years before the action in Dune and Dune Messiah, was actually, if I understood correctly, a war of humans against machines which the humans won. Following this victory, computers were banished from the known universe and instead Mentats and Navigators (inspired by melange made from spice) were bred to be human computers for political and financial strategy in the former case, and for navigation in space-time for the latter. This fascinated me because I have read and watched so much science fiction where the machines win (or are winning) such as in Ghost in the Shell or Neuromancer, or Blade Runner, or Hyperion and Dune is one of the rare universes where humans won and yet, at what cost? Banning machines seems to have brought humans back to a medieval society with its aristocracies (House Corrino, House Harkkonen, House Atreides) and oppression and genetic manipulation (Bene Gesserit). And once the Fremen rally around Paul to destroy two of the three houses and install Paul as the new Emperor and as the Dune Messiah, is this new regime really a new start for humanity or just another autocratic regime. It sure looks like that latter and we get inklings of this as the Fremen go spread the Gospel of their Maud'dib and subsequently spilling not just a little blood. All of these things continue to torture Paul as they did in Dune and yet he is inevitably driven forward by this messianic destiny. Enter the conspiracy of a Bene Gesserit priestess, a rogue Navigator and a strange Face Dancer who want to topple Paul's regime, well more specifically kill his Fremen wife and force him to sleep with his sister Alia (ewww!!) so as to continue the genetic engineering project and re-install the old regime over which each had more control than under Paul. Another piece of the puzzle here is the reappearance of Duncan Idaho, mentor and friend to Paul as a Zensunni master which has unintended consequences. Zensunnism in itself is a fascinating blend of Sunni Islam and Zen Buddhism that also is followed by the Freman. In essence, Herbert created a universe where classic monarchal hegemonies come into conflict with religious fanatics - in a sense we can see the Fremen hordes as marauding Zen Buddhist priests in ancient Japan fighting the Emperor, well that is one image that came into my mind anyway, so as not to wear out the old Western capitalism vs Islamic obscurantism trope.

While perhaps less expansive and mind-blowing than the first Dune, Dune Messiah still delivers punches as a great plot with convincing characters and lots of philosophical questions. On to Children of Dune!

I have since finished the whole canonical series and enjoyed all of it.

[UPDATE] I am looking forward to Denis Villeneuve's Dune in October 2021. The previews I have seen so far seem to be quite coherent with respect to the book. I was a fan of Lynch's Dune and am curious to see what Villeneuve does with this one. Feel free to comment below.

Fino's Dune Reviews
Dune
Dune Messiah
Children of Dune
God Emperor of Dune
Heretics of Dune
Chapterhouse: Dune