This book is a monumental failure to tell a story right from the foundation on up, and the worst thing about it is that it could have been fixed with just a little editorial influence. Characters start doing wildly irrational things and I can't even tell if it's in their character to do so or not, because they're not developed well enough as people for me to know anything about their personalities. We saw that early on, when giant worms guarded a spice that could both render you immortal and enable you to travel through space. These revelations leads to a big climax (no pun intended) in which the Duncan ghola and a young Honored Matre named Murbella have what I can only describe as a sex duel. When they arrive, Teg intercepts Odrade and Sheeana and their giant worm, having seen Taraza's master plan with his new vision.

By now the monopolies on space travel by the Guild and on spice by Rakis have long been broken by technology itself, which has flowered to its full maturity in the secrecy of the Scattering, and in ways that the old Butlerian Jihad days could only have dreamed about. This is a concept as old as stories themselves, so why do so many authors these days have trouble identifying to the readers who their book is about and why we should care about them? It is just as wrong either way, SO WHY IN THE HELL IS AN UNDERAGE BOY BEING RAPED BY AN OLDER WOMAN SO ACCEPTED IN FICTION IN OUR SOCIETY! Even with his weaker Dune sequels, like this one, Herbert introduced new ideas and at least tried to do some things different. It had characters I liked, things actually happened in it, and the story was pretty enjoyable with a huge OMFG DID THAT REALLY HAPPEN moment at the end.I surrounded myself, wrapped up like a great cozy blanket, in the familiarity of the world building and closed the door to this reality.

If she proves to be a fake, then it will be equally simple for the Bene Gesserit to dismiss her and trundle along their seemingly diminishing version of the Golden Path.The story of Duncan Idaho is an interesting one, but it’s drowned in some of the worst space opera I can think of.

So of course it stands to reason that some could take those Bene Gesserit teachings and turn them towards more overtly sinister goals. In the final chapter, Odrade “thought of Waff and his Face Dancers dead with Miles Teg in the terrible destruction of Rakis. This makes me think that Herbert might well be the Henry James of SF, because ‘Heretics’ is such an inward-looking chamber piece of a novel, where the sporadic bursts of violent and bloody action are all precipitated by words, glances, gestures, and the hidden intentions behind unstated meanings.I enjoyed the first four Dune books so much, I had to move ahead with Option 4: I Love Frank Herbert. As Heretics of Dune begins, the reign of “the Tyrant” Leto II, the God-Emperor has been over for 1,500 years and has replaced the Butlerian Jihad as a back-story myth and Paul Muab dib and the Lady Jessica have taken the roles of a far distant savior and holy mother. Well if this book is good then that book must have been terrible because I found this book unreadable. The Atreides are still about, but have been absorbed into the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood, on which this book focuses.