Dune: House Atreides (Mini-Review)

Dune: House Atreides by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson is a prequel novel set in the Dune universe. Crown Prince Shaddam Corrino, along with his childhood friend Hasimir Fenring, seeks to kill his father. This leads to Ix and House Vernius being overthrown when Emperor Elrood is fooled into pursuing the possibility of synthetic spice melange. The young Leto Atreides is caught up in the ensuing chaos. Now he must navigate a galaxy that becomes complicated very fast. Will he be able to rise to the occasion?

This book has so many different plotlines going on that it was hard to make a cohesive summary. All of them do end up relating to one another by the end of the book. The outliers are the Bene Gesserit's breeding program to make the Kwisatz Haderach and Pardot Kynes seeking to turn Dune into a fertile planet. Those two plotlines will have more significance later I am sure.

I loved seeing the early years of Duncan Idaho. In the future he becomes one of the fiercest warriors and even as a kid he has a fighting spirit. His story in the book also hammers home how evil the Harkonnens are at this point in time. We first meet Duncan running away from a group that seeks to kill children just to do so. Duncan's story also shows how kind Paulus Atreides is. The Old Duke decides to take the strange boy into his household.

It was a little weird, at first, reading this book after the other prequels. But then everything became normal as I remembered how much time had passed between this book and the previous prequel. Of course events and people would be remembered differently over time. Agamemnon isn't remembered as Vorian's father but as a Greek figure in ancient Earth's history. This could have been a mistake or an intentional change. It's better to cement your standing in the Landsraad by being connected to Earth instead of to the thinking machines that terrorized the galaxy for so long.

Pardot Kynes part is purely accidental. He is chosen by Emperor Elrood to find out the secrets about the spice. After helping defend some Fremen, he is taken in by the desert nomads. He is completely oblivious to an assassin and so he is soon regarded as a spiritual leader. It's oddly funny. I am very excited to see how his story ends.

Past prequels have shown a complicated side to House Harkonnen. There have been some bad seeds, but now that's all they are. Well there is one kind Harkonnen but he is hardly focused on. So you don't really know him as anything more than a person that exists. The main ones the book focuses on are cruel. They harm, mutilate, and kill for nothing but fun. It really goes to show how Valya Harkonnen's hate has infected her once great bloodline.

I would recommend Dune: House Atreides by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson to fans of the Dune series. I would highly recommend Dune: House Atreides by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson to those looking for an engaging science fiction novel.