Mentats of Dune (Mini-Review)

Mentats of Dune is the second book in the Schools of Dune Trilogy by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. The galaxy continues to be ravaged by the Butlerians. Manford Torondo's ego is matched only by Josef Venport who opposes the cultist with a vengeance. Due to Dorotea's Butlerian loyalties the Sisterhood is now fractured with Mother Superior Raquella trying to figure out a way to repair the damage. Valya Harkonnen could be the next Mother Superior though her goals aren't fully with the Sisterhood. Gilbertus Albans, Headmaster of the Mentat school, has done his best to appease Manford but finds that alliance quickly falling apart. Now the question is will Gilbertus continue to appease Manford or take a stand for humanity?

I remember not being able to get to this book previously due to being triggered by Manford Torondo. The cultist leader reminds me a lot of my emotionally abusive father who I lived with a number of years. I could see the demented mindset of my father in him. It was more than disturbing. Now that I haven't been living with my father in a long time, I was able to get through the book without too much trouble.

Erasmus is one of my favorite robots in all of fiction. Even when we first met him, there was humanity but he didn't recognize those emotions. At least he wasn't able to tell what they really were. After raising and living with Gilbertus Albans for so long, he is beginning to realize what he felt all along. He knows he feels like a father to Gilbertus but is unaware of the romantic feelings he ends up developing for a woman. Who, in turn, feels the same way about him. Well...she is more aware of the romantic feelings she has for him. By the end of this book Erasmus fully experiences rage for the first time in his very long life.

Vorian "Vor" Atreidies makes it hard for me to know if I love or hate him. On one had he is getting what has been coming for him. His reasoning for not clearing the Harkonnen name made no sense and I want him to suffer for it. Why couldn't he clear the name of his friend? The actions of one man shouldn't have changed Vor's dedication to his friend. Yet I don't want bad things to happen to him at the same time. He tried patching things up with the Harkonnen family and looked to reconnect with his descendants. Valya Harkonnen, on the other hand, doesn't want to even entertain the idea of forgiveness. She ends up sending her sister to help with her vengeance.

Dorotea gets what was coming for her in this book. It was her actions that caused a bunch of her fellow sisters to be murdered and the Sisterhood to become divided. If she hadn't been so devoted to Manford Torondo's ramblings, the Sisterhood would still be together on Rossak. Yet right before she meets her fate, readers are made to believe that she is a changed woman. Anyone who knows anything about former cultists knows that recovery is a long process that doesn't happen all at once. To me it felt like a poor way to get readers to pity Dorotea.

Manford Torondo and Josef Venport are the same yet different. Manford runs the Butlerian cult and pretends to care about extinguishing all traces of technology while really only caring about his own ego. Josef cares about humanity progressing and not regressing while not seeming to understand humanity at all. Manford incites riots in an effort to make people blindly follow him. Josef makes a show of helping humanity while caring more about his business at the end of the day. Both men commit horrible crimes in the name of their goals. I do support Josef more because at least he doesn't fear technology. Though he also needs to be controlled as the answer to Manford's anti-technology cult isn't that all technology is okay.

I would recommend Mentats of Dune to fans of the Dune series. I would highly recommend Mentats of Dune to science fiction fans.