Sisterhood of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson

 

(pb; 2011: first book in the Great Schools of Dune trilogy – sequel to Dune: Battle of Corrin. Prequel to Mentats of Dune.)

From the back cover

“It is eighty-three years after the last of the thinking machines were destroyed in the Battle of Corrin, and great changes are brewing that will shape and twist all humankind.

“Raquella Berto-Anirul has formed the Bene Gesserit School on the jungle planet Rossak as the first Reverend Mother. The descendants of Aurelius Venport and Norma Cenva have built Venport Holdings, using mutated, spice-saturated Navigators who fly precursors of Heighliners. Gilbert Albans, the ward of the hated Erasmus, is teaching humans to become Mentats. . . and hiding an unbelievable secret.

“The Butlerian movement, led by Manford Torondo, and rabidly opposed to all forms of ‘dangerous technology,’ begins to sweep across the known universe in mobs, millions strong, destroying everything in its path.

“Every one of these characters, and all these groups, will become enmeshed in the contest between Reason and Faith. All of them will be forced to choose sides in the inevitable crusade that could destroy humankind forever.”

 

Review

Sisterhood is a good, intense, entertaining, character- and plot-twisty and emotionally brutal read. Characters with series-familiar surnames and passions helped this reader be drawn into Sisterhood: Atreides, Harkonnen, Corrino, Idaho, Butler, etc., further linking the historical events of the Dune prequels with its source 1965 novel and the thousands of years that followed.

Sisterhood is set eighty-three years after the events of Dune: The Battle of Corrin, when the Imperium is still processing the horrors and emotional fallout of Corrin, by becoming philosophers, terrorist fundamentalists, craven politicians, and other roles that flesh out the by-now-familiar dynamics and passionate, violent escalations of the expanded Dune story-cycles. Manford Torondo is an especially vicious, vainglorious, and whinging piece of work, though none of the other characters are entirely virtuous─in short, most of the characters are worth rooting for or hissing at.

If you’re a Dune fan who’s enjoyed most of the other Herbert/Anderson expansion books, there’s a good chance you might enjoy this one, even if it does run a few short chapters too long.

Followed by Mentats of Dune.